Batman carries on beginning in ... The Dark Knight

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.

uh

[personally I find it difficult to disapprove of imaginary acts.]

something about this statement doesn't sound right to me. all events within fiction are imaginary acts. so does that mean we don't bring any feelings of right and wrong, approval or disapproval, ethical norms and violations, to bear on anything in fiction? I think the last poor sod to profess that was sent to Reading Gaol in 1895 - I hope he wasn't treated like Batman treated the Joker.

I was surprised that they did not end with Dent turning into Two-Face so that he could appear in the third movie.

Well then.

saddest moment for me = ledger: "i think we'll be doing this forever." that just made me feel uggggggghhh. too sad.

sadder if he said it in I'm Not There?

Okay how 'bout when he held a gun to his motherjumping head? I was mad squicked.

I didn't really have any of those feelings about Ledger. Possible explanations:
1. the film was compelling so I wasn't thinking about actors much
2. Ledger was in make-up etc so didn't look like Heath Ledger
3. great performance --> he became character, I didn't think about HL
4. most important I think: I don't know much about HL, have hardly ever seen him in a film, so while anyone's passing is sad, his name / persona doesn't really mean much to me

in fact yes I saw him as ... THE JOKER !!!

Saw Hancock last night, which I think is actually better in contrast to The Dark Knight than it would have been on its own.

After seeing TDK, I wondered if there was any pressure from studio folks to make something more compact (90-minute movie for $120 mil instead of 2hr30 for $180, more screenings per day, etc.). Hancock runs about 90 minutes, goes light where TDK goes dark, and at the same time works hard to tell a fresh superhero story (alcoholic, troubled guy in that case). Jason Bateman, with perfect timing, makes it work.

[personally I find it difficult to disapprove of imaginary acts.]

something about this statement doesn't sound right to me. all events within fiction are imaginary acts. so does that mean we don't bring any feelings of right and wrong, approval or disapproval, ethical norms and violations, to bear on anything in fiction?

sure we bring them, but they might be at odds with the author's intent. rather than morally judge acts in fiction I'd rather think about why and how they're presented. if the author invites judgment, so be it. but I'm not sure that that's what nolan's up to when he turns blowing up a hospital into a slapstick bit.

put another way; you get turned off by a porno movie - does that mean it's not an erotic film?

i didn't get any satisfaction from the interrogation scene, 'cause the joker was obviously getting a kick out of bats/the police losing their control and getting violent.

but I'm not sure that that's what nolan's up to when he turns blowing up a hospital into a slapstick bit.

hello he's called THE JOKER

x-post, which may or may not be compromised by what EIII has just written but I will post anyway, in haste:

The more I think about it, the more sure I am that Edward III is wrong in his [personally I find it difficult to disapprove of imaginary acts] position -- but the way he puts it makes it hard to deny or argue with.

But I think I have a suggestion. Insofar as fictional acts and events are hypothetical, with an 'as if' or 'what if' status, our moral judgement on them has the same status. It does sound foolish to disapprove of something that doesn't exist. But there is a modality in which fictional events do exist, a speculative / conjunctural one, and within that modality, that level of thinking if you like, our moral judgements about it exist just as much. We make moral judgements about fiction which are proportionate to fiction, which belong to the same universe as the fiction.

This is a vast and vexed question, but you only need imagine fictions about all kinds of terrible acts to see that you could not, would not, approach them with an amoral attitude in which the moral content of the actions was irrelevant to your response. For a fairly non-shocking example which also raises all the questions of beauty's relation to morality, aesthetics to ethics, we need only go back to Lolita.

I find it difficult to disapprove of imaginary acts

strangely enough, i thought it summed it up for me very nicely.

yeah, you can go to the movies and empathise with the characters, but an outpouring of grief for a hospital blowing up in a comic book film or 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." is surely taking it way too far?

the film exists to put a good guy and a bad guy into a climactic final showdown that looks good, is played stylishly and has a few killer lines- even with a director with ambitions as lofty as nolan may have can't lift it into the realms of humanitarian studies.

Zing?

not sure? i just can't stand to watch a lot of onscreen violence because i prefer not to carry that around with me, like once you see something horrifying you can't un-see it

like gigli

I do have less tolerance for violence as I get older, yes.

actually i wish i could have un-read a particular Joker story some kid in my elementary school class had a copy of, maybe it was in an anthology, I guess this was around the time the burton batman movie came out. not a comic book, just prose, but.. really terrifying, i remember it to this day.

which one???

hey my friend wrote a review

Well, I finally caught A Dark Night Turns starring deceased lothario, Keith Olbermann. Aside from his starring role as America's Funnyman, this film was an interminable mess. Still, his transcendent performance should get him some good looks from the luminaries who make these modern day parables come to the silver screen. I see a very bright future for this young man! Can't wait to see what the future holds for Olbermann.

I enjoy the many acts of violence on screen as it makes me forget I want to slaughter half of this world

jordan -> google tells me that apparently in 1989 they had a bunch of horror writers put together stories for a collection called 'further adventures of the joker'? i think it was in that. i suppose there was something that struck me about stephen king type of horror (which was v scary at age 10) + characters i was already familiar with. at least i didn't make it up!

i just can't stand to watch a lot of onscreen violence because i prefer not to carry that around with me, like once you see something horrifying you can't un-see it -- daria-g

I enjoy the many acts of violence on screen as it makes me forget I want to slaughter half of this world -- Bo Jackson Overdrive

I definitely see both side of this. Screen violence as an imaginary and harmless proxy for your own pent-up aggression is not a bad thing. But lord knows I have a large, varied, and disturbing cache of violent images from movies and TV stored up already, on file in my brain for immediate access anytime. So, I'm good, thanks.

So, to sum up, man smart, woman smarter. :)

lol, I in no way think my way is the right way necessarily, I am pretty much desensitized to all forms of screen violence and there's no doubt it's had an effect on me!

pussies, all of you. y'all deserve to have batman shove you around a little. builds character.

I had a nightmare of horrible bloodshed last night thx to watching Batmovie yesterday. But I do that after every creepy movie, a nightmare of some sort. It does have an effect, tho.

Bale should have replied to reporters:

"It's not who I am on the inside, its what I do that defines me"

i've had dreams where I've murdered people before but not usually after movies, usually when I'm depressed.

oddly enough I didn't have any Batman themed dreams after seeing it either time...maybe the third time's a charm!