'The Dark Knight' is a masterpiece
By Meredith Carter
My, but Gotham's finest has come a long, long way from "Holy rusted metal, Batman."
Indeed, after more misses (sorry, George and Val) than hits, Christopher Nolan has used broad strokes of his dark genius to recreate the Batman legend into one that dazzles the eyes and ears as much as it haunts the mind. With "The Dark Night," Nolan's painstakingly crafted what will soon be called the "antisuperhero movie." Here, the hero's brooding and conflicted, there are consequences to his heroic actions and the villain -- a pluperfect Heath Ledger -- is cheerfully devoid of any morals or scruples. "Dark Knight" may well be the darkest but most compelling superhero movie made in years.
"The Dark Knight," more or less, picks up where "Batman Begins" ended: Gotham City's caped crusader (an appropriately somber Christian Bale) continues to rid the streets of villains. There's a problem, though -- he's battle-scarred, worn out and sick of being labeled a "vigilante" by the public. (Plus, he's inspired more than his share of foolish copycats.) Then appears District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), an eternal optimist who believes in making his own luck and vanquishing Gotham's criminals without help from Batman. Dent, however, didn't count on The Joker, a mysterious, cheerfully amoral miscreant who specializes in creating moral dilemmas Batman and Dent can't reason their way out of.
To say more would be mean spoiling the fun -- though "fun" might not be the most appropriate word -- in winding through the twists, turns, explosions and moral quandaries The Joker dreams up. Visually, "The Dark Knight" is a stunning achievement, a film where shadows and fog and eerie moonlight create an atmosphere of dread and unease. And, sadly, though S.C. viewers can't see the film in Imax, the wide-angle shots (including several breathtaking scenes on Gotham skyscraper rooftops) are impressive. They give the film the feel of an epic, endless tragedy.
So do the performances, which deserve even more praise than the cinematography. In "Batman Begins," Nolan built a Batman legacy based on characters and stories; here, he improves upon that already strong approach. Bale is, arguably, the best actor to don the cape and suit, an actor who knows when to speak and when to keep quiet. His Batman is a gloomy, conflicted figure, not a quippy camera hog, and the movie benefits tremendously from Bale's quietness and steely resolve. The rest of the all-star cast is faultless -- Michael Caine makes Alfred a wise but cynical father figure, while Morgan Freeman brings a touch of moral balance to inventor Lucius Fox. Nolan's substitution of the always feisty Maggie Gyllenhaal as Assistant District Attorney Rachel Dawes is a welcome one. (Let's agree to forget Katie Holmes/Joey Potter ever played that role, shall we?) Gary Oldman registers impressively as Lt. James Gordon, who functions as the film's moral core. Eckhart, so good at snarky comedy ("Thank You for Smoking"), makes for one hell of a great Harvey Dent, a smug, superior chap who's based his life on making his own luck but discovers that life rarely follows the plan.
And then there's Heath Ledger. He steals the camera every time he appears. Pull out a thesaurus, look up "fantastic" and highlight all the synonyms that follow -- they're all appropriate to describe the pitch-black magic Ledger weaves as Batman's most unpredictable nemesis. Slathered in smeary clown makeup, he's the sort of monster who makes Stephen King's "It" seem like Bozo the Clown. Ledger's mannerisms alone are unsettling. His Joker circles people like a lion closing in on a wounded zebra, and his vocal pattern follows no rhyme -- it's a voice that rises when it shouldn't and deepens to an insomnia-inducing pitch. And his laugh? Expect to hear that in your dreams.
But Ledger doesn't stop with mannerisms. He plumbs the kind of psychic depths that make us wonder just how dark a person he really was. He creates a character for which there is no explanation at all. Where did The Joker come from? How did he get those scars? Nolan's script doesn't reveal this, and Ledger gives nothing away, either. Instead, the actor gives us something more sinister: a villain who's a villain because he enjoys it. That's it. The Joker blows up buildings to watch them burn. He has no ulterior motives, no master plan, no ultimate goal. It's an astounding, wrenching performance, the kind that cannot be followed by any other actor who attempts to reprise the role. Had Ledger lived, one wonders if he ever could have topped this.
In fact, Ledger's untimely death only serves to drive home the sense that "The Dark Knight" is a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. In Nolan's world, in this Gotham City, rules of right and wrong matter little. Darkness prevails; everyone bears the consequences of choices good and bad. Indeed, in "Dark Knight," prepare for a long journey into not one but several hearts of darkness.
Grade: A+