By Dr. Alan Taylor (Oxon)
At the time of writing, Christopher Nolan`s 2nd directorial outing on Warner´s Batman franchise has chalked up $968, 074, 853 worldwide, signalling a vital commercial and critical success for both stuio and Hollywood.
What British director Nolan and his screenwriting partner/brother Jonathan have achieved in this latest installment is a skillful dovetailing of cartoon and the `real`, creating a mise-en-scene that in characters and locations widens and deepens the Batman mythology.
The mergence begins with the main character`s compromised position - Bruce Wayne`s childhood sweetheart Rachel Dawes/Maggie Gyllenhall is in full knowledge - and admiration - of his Alter Ego. However, her position as Gotham`s Assistant DA to Harvey Dent/AAron Eckhart makes Wayne´s situation all the more precarious. Early scenes between the three are therefore redolent with awkward and rich subtexts that otherwise would not exist if Batman`s predicament were just any interior one. Her predicament, of course, is with which one she is to commit her future to - with a `real`character or with Wayne who, one day, will have to grow up.
Similarly, the directorial choice to move Gotham to Chicago is itself crucial to this overall campaign to flatten the cartoon elements. Dent is filmed in his office that, in daylight, oversees the busy city below. The introductory shot incorporates both interior discussion with Police Commissioner Gordon/Gary Oldman and the external movements of real city cars, trucks and pedestrians. In other words, we have left the studio-bound claustraphobia of previous Batman outings and, in keeping with Warner`s own historical noir aesthetic, brought fictional story to the streets.
This trend if further emphasised as we move to modern-day Hong Kong that effectively employs all the familair tropes of a James Bond movie. The sequence (no doubt also supportive of the film`s global marketng agenda) begins as Wayne departs his chic yacht by launching himself into the bay. This gesture by the Wayne character to embark upon risky action when not in his Batsuit is reprised later back in Gotham as he speeds to capture the Joker during a nighttime escapade. Again, the edge between cartoon and `reality`is neatly challenged as the The Dark Knight is revealed as an elemental force in Wayne`s daylight self. It´s not, as the marketing tells us, "a world without rules", but a world without tidy borders.
As for the Joker. It is unfortunate that the fate of Heath Ledger has eclipsed the dramatic significance of his role in the film. In fact, the Joker remains the only cartoon element, a terrorist extremity of chaos and random violence that isn`t hooked into the logical mechanisms of the plot. That is why Nolan has himself pointed out that the true character arc of the film belongs to Harvey Dent and indeed it is in his movement - from `real`character DA to cartoon figure Harvey `Two Face` - that we can see Nolan´s overriding dramatic goal in action.
The film is way too long and eventually episodic, but held together in place - just - by the gradual evolution of Two Face whose descent into all-encompassing revenge gives the closing sequence its powerful tragic element. Hence, his cartoon character has expanded as if naturally out from the film`s narrative and not, as with the Joker, been imposed upon it.
The denouement that erases the promise of The White Knight DA forces Wayne back into Batman, a lone figure working for justice but hounded himself (literally) by the forces of good and as represented by Gordon. It is a major credit to the screenwriters that his earth-bound character as played by Oldman - with wife and children and suburban home - grounds the film, thus working as the main opposition to the erratic colourations of the Joker.
The final shot - Batman speeding on his bike from Gordon into a black and gold maelstrom - invties comparisons to storyboard sketches and, therefore, takes us and his character back to whence he came - away from present-day Chicago/Gotham and back into myth, fantasy and cartoon.
And from which, no doubt, with the Nolans or not, he will one day return.
© Article from EuropeFront.com - European News Network
http://www.europefront.com/news/542/the_dark_knight_2008_reflections_on_a_noir_of_our_times.html
Published: 26/05/2009