Christian Bale-fest (SPOILERS)

[jeffxandra]

I saw The Dark Knight on Saturday and then, while donating platelets, I saw 3:10 to Yuma today

The Dark Knight lives up to its billing. It's not spooky dark, in the way a comic artist would draw excessive shadows in which Batman would lurk. Indeed, Chicago Gotham City is surprisingly well lit throughout most of the movie. Instead it's more a omnipresent sense of despair that pervades every inch of the celluloid upon which this movie is shot.

There's little to no hope, no inspiration, found in this movie, even in any single person. The sole exception, if any, is the doomed pair of district attourneys fighting a losing battle agains the forces of organized crime. And with their inevtiable demise, Batman and Gordon make a choice that says what the little hope you have is more important than truth.

Unlike (attributed to) Franklin's argument that those who trade liberty for security deserve neither, it is deliciously seductive to make this trade in a world without hope. This is not a case where there is an illusion where people believe things are good, only to find them bad. Everyone knows that things are bad in Chicago Gotham City. Everyone wants to believe that things can get better. Is the sacrifice of the truth about Harvey Dent worth the inspiration it might give to the citizenry? It would seem the answer is yes

But what else will they lie to themselves about if the truth seems too difficult? What other things are they willing to give up to believe that things are better, or even merely going to do so? I find that concept disturbing to contemplate.

In some respects, I find it even more disturbing than the many disturbing scenes provided by Heath Ledger's Joker. Oh yes, Ledger's Joker is the wonder to behold that everyone tells you he is. He's not a comedian in the way every version, even Nicholson's, makes him out to be. Here is a man who is simply, and purely, incredibly sociopathic. Every moment the Joker is on the screen, and many he is off, you see what happens when a brilliant, capable, person is unwilling to adhere to the rules society dictates. And that's where his version is different. In the past, the Joker may have been a malcontent but he needed society for him to exist, because he wants to go on existing. Ledger's does not care if he goes on existing, as long as his point his made.

That's not to say it's not a good movie, but the more I think about it the more unsettling it becomes. There is an statement towards the end that Batman is the hero Gotham City deserves. That's probably true. But the scary thing is if hope is so dear that one will deny reality, at what point will Gotham truly acknowledge just how far it as fallen, which it needs to do, to fully recover.

Meanwhile I have my wife and josabry swooning over the concept of (complete fantasy) casting David Tennant as The Riddler.

Comments

[yerbrainondrugs.livejournal.com]

I think this Joker was more true to the comics however. It was television and the movies that made him a comedian first and psychopath second.

I thought ledger was a comedian, but his jokes were of the darkest humor. He still left playing cards and put makeup on the people he kidnapped and played jokes; they were just deadly jokes and his actions were often horrific enough that you likely overlooked the "joke" part. But that's true to the darkest elements of the batman comic.

The Joker is the guy who beat Robin to a bloody pulp (in the comics). He shot Gordon's daughter in the back and condemned her to a wheelchair. He is the definition of random psychotic violence in the comics. You may not like this version as much, but it's a more true vision to the source than the other movies.

[jeffxandra.livejournal.com]

First off, I'd like to note that I liked Ledger's Joker a great deal. It was impressively done and a great, perhaps future defining, portrayal of the character.

That said, while I allow there have been moments when he's been like that, he's never been so consistently nihilistic. In the comics, he's been everything from the nattering rhyming incompetent you'd see in Scooby-Doo to the darker interpretations you'd see in the Frank Miller era. Even when he killed Jason Todd, he wasn't so (paradoxically) recklessly calculating as to dispose of his own henchmen before he got away as he did in the opening robbery.

[yerbrainondrugs.livejournal.com]

He's a criminal mastermind and a psychotic genius that's in many ways batman's greatest nemesis. That he didn't perform the exact task as the bank robbery in the comics doesn't make it out of character for him to behave that way.

I hate myself for saying this ...

[elengul.livejournal.com]

But it's all a matter of degrees.

I'm a big believer in the truth, but, from personal experience, one needs to be at a certain point in order to be able to accept the truth of a bad situation they're in. If one's not ready for the searing light of the truth from being in the dark for so long, then the warm, comforting light of hope is a good first step.

The people of Gotham need to sustain themselves with hope until they're strong enough to be able to handle the truth without crumbling to dust.

That's exactly the point

[jeffxandra.livejournal.com]

Like I try to say in the post, this choice seems to be the right one.

But what does, arguably the two most honest men in Gotham, making that choice say about future ones?

Re: That's exactly the point

[yerbrainondrugs.livejournal.com]

I'm with Elengul. There's a timing issue. You don't tell someone who's severely injured in a car accident and fighting for their life that their little girl that was sitting in the car seat next to them is dead. They need to hear that she's being taken care of, because they need to focus all their strength on getting better and staying alive.

Then, once the crisis is past, you can give the bad news. I don't think Batman or Gordon intend for Batman to be considered a murderer forever. They just felt that the city needed to have a hero to look up to, and Dent was a good man until something very bad happened to him. Later, when things are better, they can clear his name.

It's not a perfect analogy, but it's certainly an example of a time when you need to lie in order to save someone.

Re: That's exactly the point

[jeffxandra.livejournal.com]

Later, when things are better, they can clear his name.

And who will they say killed those men? Dent? Suddenly all the prosecutions made in Dent's name will get called into question once more. It's merely forestalling the inevitable. Or, do they lie again and find some scapegoat? Oh yea, Zsasz killed those guys, and these guys too?

It's not a perfect analogy

You are a master of understatement.

Re: That's exactly the point

[yerbrainondrugs.livejournal.com]

Yes, Dent. It's not forestalling the inevitable at all. I don't think it'll be too tough to defend the prosecutions given the nature of his psychotic break; it's not like he prosecuted anyone after his accident. They just need some preparation and some psychiatric experts to come in and testify about what happened to him and what the Joker did to him.

The problem isn't letting those guys out of jail. You're missing the point. It's a morale issue. People need hope. They need someone to believe in. They need a guy they can look up to and say "He was a great man. We need more people like him." Later, when the city is better and crime is lower, they can reveal Dent's psychotic break. Really, it doesn't diminish the man he once was; it just needs to be broken to the public gently and in a time when it's ready to hear it. Right now it would be disasterous.

A psycho was running around killing people at random and the local hero who was looking to turn things around just died after getting mangled, his girlfriend was blown up, a judge was blown up, the police commishioner was poisoned, the police station was bombed, and numerous cops were killed and injured. That's going to cause a pretty damn serious morale problem. My analogy isn't perfect but I don't think it's as bad as you seem to think. Gotham is fighting for its life right now. You tell the people right now that it's local hero went psycho and killed cops, that could be a backbreaker.

[black-op.livejournal.com]

No offense jeffxandra, but I'm agreeing with yerbrainondrugs and elengul
here.
The comic book medium just spotted (completely without self-awareness) the natural progression of the world that started with the printing press.
The 'information age' was always a little illusionary, and we are well into
the age of myth 2.?
In this age billions are spent and thousands lose their lives because people are convinced that all they have to do is convince people of truths and that will make them so.

I think Ledger's Joker was both very well acted and perfectly in keeping with the comic book character...
with this understanding, it is difficult to express some things in comic books, and most of the ones the Joker has appeared in were censored or self censored.
What keeps Batman going is his steadfast belief in the difference between the good and the bad. That makes his desire to punish the bad for their treatment of the good okay. Joker by contrast is driven to prove that there is no difference which makes it okay that he is bad. Those who fail to break are evolutionary deadwood he wishes to pile up and burn for the anarchy he wishes to help 'construct'.
My favorite 'joke' was the 'fire'truck. Did you spot it?

[jeffxandra.livejournal.com]

That people do use the information age to spread truthiness does not make it right. Acknowledging it happens is one thing. Calling it the right thing to do, by having Gordon and Batman make that choice, is entirely another.

I think Ledger's Joker was both very well acted and perfectly in keeping with the comic book character...

Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but you're the second person to imply that I didn't like Ledger's performance. I loved Ledger's performance. That I find it disturbing is not a sign of dislike, but rather my high regard for it.

it is difficult to express some things in comic books, and most of the ones the Joker has appeared in were censored or self censored.

Regardless of whether they are censored or no, you cannot say "it means a, but if the writer wasn't censored it would have meant b". That's putting your own interpretation of what should be there. You can argue that "the Joker has previously been nihilistic in the comics as evidenced in (say)The Killing Joke," but that's not what you're doing.

Joker by contrast is driven to prove that there is no difference which makes it okay that he is bad.

I disagree, slightly. In that I think his argument is that people construct society, a philosophical concept of "good," to keep themselves from being "bad,". I don't think he believes that there is no such thing as good, but rather that "being good" is denying the reality of who we are.

My favorite 'joke' was the 'fire'truck. Did you spot it?

I'm assuming you're talking about during Dent's Wagon ride wherin the fire truck is.. well.. just that. Unless there's a deeper joke (aside from the irony, representing the helplessness of Gotham), yeah, I got it.

[yerbrainondrugs.livejournal.com]

The Joker has previously been nihilistic in the comics as evidenced in The Killing Joke.

[black-op.livejournal.com]

1. I didn't say that the age of Myth 2.? is right, I just said its a reality.
The characters of Batman and Gordon 'live' in a similar reality and within it try to save lives particularly but not exclusively 'good' lives.
That means facing up to that reality, and if that means making Batman wanted for murder, its worth it to save lives(I don't believe Gordon would let Bruce Wayne get punished for murders he didn't commit anymore than I believed Bruce Wayne would let Harvey Dent be killed for being the Batman).
When Gordon let everyone think he was dead to keep his family safe that was a lie as well. I don't think you had a problem with that, did you?
Having Gordon and Batman do it doesn't make it the right thing to do, it makes it the course of action they think will best protect Gotham.

2.I didn't mean to suggest you didn't like Ledger's performance. I regard you not only as a friend but of a man of taste. Of course you liked it, he kicked so much ass, no one will compete in that role on the screen in our lifetime.

3.You're right. Because a few comics and a few graphic novels took a particular take on the Joker I can't extrapolate that most of the writers and the creators would have approved. I stand corrected.

4.If the Joker believes ""being good" is denying the reality of who" people are, whats left? Oh, right, that everyone is the same. 'Dogs chasing after cars who wouldn't know what to do with them if they caught them.' His philosophy protects his wishes. Whenever someone says its nothing personal, it is, it just probably isn't personal in the way you thought. Do you recall
the conversation between Harvey and the Joker in the hospital? Brilliant the way they wrote that bit.

Side note-Disagreeing with me about aberrant psychology? You've got stones :^)

5.Yeah, that is what I meant, the firetruck. There were a lot of Joker type jokes in the movie (which is to say, destructive).

6.Hope you and yours are well. I look forward to gaming with you Saturday.
Thank you for donating platelets. I can't donate again for another 6 and 1/2 months. :^(