Batman carries on beginning in ... The Dark Knight

Like Bush, Batman has his own warrantless wiretapping program

morbz is obsessed with obama saying as president he'd scrap the fisa stuff he voted for

those aren't morbz' words. He's quoting Dave Kehr.

I have no idea who Dave Kehr is or if he's obsessed with Obama and FISA.

It's difficult to think of any action movie in the last 15-20 years where the hero isn't beaten and bloodied by the end of it. We seem to need our heroes punished, with marks all over their bodies.

like a passion play?

I liked how the Joker was a Satanic kind of figure...his only goal seemed to be bringing out the chaos and rage inside normally virtuous people. It's made quite clear in the movie that he "wins" so long as you stoop to his level--and while this isn't profound or anything I hardly see how it could be seen as a endorsement of Bush-style anti-terrorism policies.

http://www.darrenlester.co.uk/images/jpg/emperor3.jpg

which is precisely why batman is "hunted" and dent is lionized--Batman doesn't believe in his own methods!

x-post- haha!

have the ostensible good guys (and the audience by proxy) ever been so sadistically thrashed during a comic book movie?

It's difficult to think of any action movie in the last 15-20 years where the hero isn't beaten and bloodied by the end of it. We seem to need our heroes punished, with marks all over their bodies.

but it's more than just rambo getting a christ-like set of cinematic bruises. besides the physical abuse there are rafts of emotional and mental torments in tdk, the pervasive hopelessness, the poisoning of the innocents.

more anecdote: the woman sitting next to me had her head buried in her hands when twoface was tormenting gordon's family - never saw that at screenings of xmen or hellboy.

i thought the point was that Batman chose Dent

-- goole, Tuesday, July 22, 2008 9:41 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

me too

well he yells "rachel!" when joker tells him the locations, etc, so you can take it either way. I felt like he was going for rachel.

I thought gordon asks batman who is he going to save as he's running out the door and batman says rachel. gordon then heads out to save dent. but the joker swapped the addresses on them.

I think that is correct - it must be.

I understand how people want to read allegorical comments on geopolitics into films like this, but somehow I find that a dubious exercise.

ah so.

missed that.

> I understand how people want to read allegorical comments on geopolitics into films like this, but somehow I find that a dubious exercise.

If we don't, it's just the latest version of "Driving Fast With Guns" and our egos won't permit us to believe we'd really go for that shit.

made in china lulz no thanks

i thought the same thing at first but the whole scene is dent being a totally and completely over the top grandstanding politician, in which case.. makes sense to say that, obnoxious as it is

I agree with a great deal of what Edward III says upthread, not least about '37th kindapping' - excess: precisely.

I don't understand his comment 'made in china lulz'.

I also don't think I can agree that the spectacle of the hospital blowing up was delightful. I think it is disturbing and sad. Just writing the words 'hospital blowing up', and picturing it again, troubles me so. It feels so terrible, wanton and wrong. Yes, the film was showing wanton wrong. But I don't think that can be delightful.

i really need to see this again, especially the bit about saving harvey or rachel! i thought it was a head-fake of the movie to let us believe batman was after rachel, and really picking dent, not a trick of the joker's. hmmmm

im agree it's dubious to read geopolitical allegories into the movie...it's definitely to ascribe real-world political opinions to it as well.

that kidnapping scene is interesting....esp if goole is correct, which I think he might be (regardless, batman did choose). Makes one think that if Batman was on one of the boats he wouldn't have had any trouble pushing the button.

definitely dubious, that is.

So how does Christian Bale getting arrested for assaulting his mom and sis play into your analysis?

I understand how people want to read allegorical comments on geopolitics into films like this, but somehow I find that a dubious exercise.

films reflect the national consciousness - why is this not fair game for discussion? it's not different than talking about how easy rider, bonnie & clyde, taxi driver, etc were "of their time".

whatever you think of the quality of the movies, there's been a rash of imperfect superheroes confroting their dark sides - tdk, hancock, iron man, hulk, hellboy. I'd say america has an interesting psychological relationship to heroism at this point in time.

I'll agree we shouldn't "read into" the film tho. more like reading out of it.

the china thing was dent in the courtroom after the witness tries to shoot him, grabbing the gun and making some comment about how that particular one was made in china, and he'd have done better with made in the usa. really cheesy grandstanding

yes, i just think it's maddeningly reductive to need to interpret all narrative art (even didactic narrative art) as having pat political conclusions...like the need to rescue Dirty Harry as politically transgressive in order to make it worth seeing and thinking about.

(sorry Kehr's comment that the camera in DH "recoils in horror" just struck me as wishful thinking!)

i wish they would've shown how the witness got that gun through security.

They said it was plastic or ceramic or something, I think.

oh, i missed that.

i thought eckhart was great in that scene actually, all adrenaline and fear turning into the first stupid soundbite he could think of

I tend to view movies from two angles, the aesthetic and the sociological, and these two can (should?) be evaluated independently of each other. that is, the politics of dirty harry has no bearing on its aesthetic effectiveness, but they are both interesting to talk about.

on a related note, regarding the delightful hospital exploding - I'm a more decadent viewer than you pinefox. looking at that scene from a purely aesthetic standpoint, it gave me an imagistic headrush. of course blowing up hospitals is not a very nice thing to do, but casting such concerns at nihilist carnival rides like tdk seems ???

OK, then I liked that scene with the gun. And agree with Max's analysis of it!

This question of 'reading films politically' or whatever is a delicate one. One can start, though, by saying that there is a difference between saying Easy Rider is of its time, and saying that Batman is commentary on the ethics of counter-terrorism. It is roughly, I suppose, the difference between 'reflection' (of history) and 'intention' (of political message).

I suppose some of these pictures are indeed written with 'messages'. So why do I still have a problem with this? Maybe I don't think I quite trust them at that level. I don't think it would be safe to take our political bearings from a narrative like this. OK, nobody here wants to do that. But talking about the film's political implications feels like it might imply that.

I'm just not sure about all this. Star Wars is another interesting case - I always hated attempts to read SW politically, but then Clones / Sith felt pretty thoroughly political, whether of USA 2000s or of Vietnam when they were conceived. And I must admit, I did feel that this added to their force somehow, though it had to remain entirely unspoken to retain that force.

[casting such concerns at nihilist carnival rides like tdk seems ???]

-- I don't think I can accept this. Because the film, and talk about it, is full of talk about good and evil, values, choices, dilemmas. We seem to be interested in it on that level (and / or it seems to see itself that way). So can we then say it's a carnival ride, when something horrible happens? Isn't the horror part of the weight of the picture - part of why we (or the city) need Batman to succeed?

It's a bit like how in my first response I was going on about improbabilities, and thinking someone wld say 'hey, it's a film about a giant bat, no wonder it's improbable' - etc. That sounds right - but then, no, the film takes itself more seriously than that. And think of the time and unbelievable money involved. It doesn't then make sense to say none of this matters. If it doesn't matter we shouldn't bother with the movie at all (and many won't, and won't spend their time writing overlong thoughts like this).

legal system != justice
yeah, if that's the case and officially/unofficially they sanction some psycho vigilante instead of doing what they can to fix the legal system, that's a path that makes everything worse IMHO
(i don't know anything about the batman comics besides seeing this movie & the tim burton ones)

Don Siegel, director of Dirty Harry, made genre films with decidedly non-reactionary political allusions (eg Invasion of the Body Snatchers), and Harry is clearly a less unambiguously "heroic" figure than the Cult of Clint (and sequels) made him out to be. (His throwing his badge away at the end of the film isn't often remembered.) DH critical controversy detailed within:

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/04/siegel.html

plz buy andwhat some remedial reading lessons, k thx

I'm not saying it doesn't matter, but you're holding the film to a higher moral standard than it holds itself. the film is geared to get the audience off on the joker's evil deeds - it's part of the frisson, the sinful deliciousness of bad behavior that we are allowed to witness/condone/participate in as an audience. we can tut-tut and disapprove all of the bad behavior in the film but then you're missing a rather prominent layer of the film, which is entertainment via sadism... something ned touched on above with his (astute) comparison to funny games.

xpost to pinefox

i'm not entertained by sadism, had to look away (well, preferred to look away) during some of the really violent scenes, and kept getting stuck on little moments of "that's racist, that is so xenophobic." couldn't turn it off.

ok, i was entertained by the dialogue that was just messing with people's heads, i admit. but i'm so baffled by how many people applaud the actual violence

Didn't notice that the film was racist or xenophobic. But agree with Daria-G:

[the film is geared to get the audience off on the joker's evil deeds - it's part of the frisson, the sinful deliciousness of bad behavior that we are allowed to witness/condone/participate in as an audience. we can tut-tut and disapprove all of the bad behavior in the film but then you're missing a rather prominent layer of the film, which is entertainment via sadism... something ned touched on above with his (astute) comparison to funny games.]

Don't know what Funny Games is. Don't think I share your enthusiasm for evil deeds. The only way I can dig your 'ents via sadism' idea is that watching the Joker getting beaten up by Batman in the cell WAS enjoyable - I wish he'd kept going, smashed his head in against the wall a lot more. But the Joker is evil and did terrible things, so I'm not sorry that I liked seeing him hurt. I don't think that's the same as enjoying the pain he inflicts on the innocent.

it wasn't in general there were just moments that sort of made me step back and consider it

you don't have to be entertained by the sadism, but that's what the film deals in. personally I find it difficult to disapprove of imaginary acts.

the racist/xenophobe thing - what in particular?

The only way I can dig your 'ents via sadism' idea is that watching the Joker getting beaten up by Batman in the cell WAS enjoyable

something for everyone!

i had trouble watching the interrogation w/joker where he gets beat up actually. couple interesting things going on though, gordon letting him go in there and beat the shit out of a suspect (because that's what he is, yes?), which is already wrong, then the result of batman barricading the door and going way too far, and getting information out of the guy through beating the shit out of him, but wait - it's bad information.

i have to admit i felt rather sympathetic and attracted to the joker. I'm not sure if this is my fault or the film's (most likely Ledger's charisma)....I missed him when he wasn't on screen. honestly i wish the move was just heath ledger and gary oldman!

I thought it was actually a pretty disturbing moment when batman was beating the joker in the interrogation room....the political ramifications of enjoying THAT seemed ugly to me.

i guess what's interesting about the joker to me (in a pretentious philosophical sense) is that he often exposes the limits of righteous justice through his implacable evil. ie, batman must transgress justice in order to preserve it. there is something appealing to me about that provocation.

but wait - it's bad information

exactly!

i just in particular didn't like the scene with the prisoner, i felt like it was too obviously setting up expectations and playing off them to make everyone feel good, like the director didn't have the nerve to undermine that with all sorts of ambiguity like he did most everything else. i was also kind of like, eh, let's see what foreign gang of criminals is of-the-moment in this action film, that changes but the fact they're mostly foreign never does.

ryan i like that

carl schmitt: the movie

Loved the movie, but honestly could have done with much less Rachel, Dent, and Batman. Like someone said above, Joker and Gordon made the movie for me, I got restless when they were not on the screen. I was surprised that they did not end with Dent turning into Two-Face so that he could appear in the third movie.