July 23, 2012 The Dark Knight is dead, long live the Dark Knight!
Last summer while I was visiting my parents in Pittsburgh, Christopher Nolan was shooting Dark Knight Rises at Heinz Field. I could have huddled in the stands with a few thousand other unpaid extras, watching the Steelers dress up as their alter egos, the Gotham Rogues. It’s a winter scene, so the crowd had to pretend to shiver as they sat in parkas in 90 degree heat all afternoon. But no one complained. They were grateful just to be part of the show.
And that pretty much sums up the Dark Knight trilogy.
Erinn Hutkin from Chicago’s Suburban Life phoned me last week to ask why Batman is so popular, why this movie was so highly anticipated. I’ll tell you what I told her.
Batman is the kind of make believe we love to mistake for reality. Usually superheroes give us exactly the opposite: blatantly larger-than-life abstraction. Men who fly. Men with impossible bodies. Men made of pixels limited only by the imagination of their computer animators. The biggest difference between the Superman cartoons of the 1940s and the barrage of superhero films of the last decade is technological. Hollywood has gotten more skilled at portraying the absurd.
Batman is different. Even “Bat-Man,” Bob Kane and Bill Finger’s 1939 original, stood apart from the other leotards. No alien rocket, no magic ring, no transformative laboratory catastrophe. He’s just a vigilante in a freaky suit.
There were plenty of non-superpowered crime-fighters before him—the Shadow and his gangs of 1930s mystery men—but Batman was the lone comic book hold-out. Even his origin story was a throwback. When Superman decides to champion the oppressed, there’s no motive. He could as easily rule the planet. The core of the superhero formula (regular Joe gets powers, dedicates himself to justice) is psychological nonsense. Stan Lee fixed that in the 60s, but Finger and Kane found it first. Like so many of those other mystery men, Batman is all motive: BLAM! BLAM! in a back alley. His war on criminals isn’t ad hoc mission. It’s revenge. No magic bat swoops down and bites him on the neck. He transforms himself.
Christopher Nolan and his script brother, Jonathan, capitalize on that. Their Batman is made of flesh and crunching bone. He inhabits a world that looks a hell of a lot like ours. Tim Burton’s Gotham was phantasmagoric. His second movie was literally an amusement park. Nolan’s second Batman opened on street level Chicago. Joel Schumacher’s villains were cackling cartoons in campy costumes. Nolan’s are grotesquely broken human beings, not a superpower in sight. In fact, the most incongruous thing in Dark Knight Rises is the batsuit. It barely belongs.
But this doesn’t make Nolan’s vision any less artificial. Where Burton cast Mr. Mom, Nolan went for the naked guy with a chainsaw in American Psycho. Both choices are wonderfully silly. But we’ve been trained to experience Nolan’s mass consumer product as “gritty realism.”
Which is why it’s so hard to divorce Dark Knight Rises from its very real world context. This Batman wears his political colors on his bruised and bloodied knuckles. He doesn’t just war on crime. He wars on terror. The Nolans upgraded Heath Ledger’s psychologically devastating Joker to stadium-bombing terrorism and revolutionary anarchy. Joker wanted Batman’s soul. Bane wants America’s.
Despite the Obama campaign likening the villain Bane to the villainous Bain Capital, and Rush Limbaugh accusing liberal Hollywood of brainwashing voters against the Republican nominee, Mitt Romney isn’t the allegorized bad guy of the film. If anything, he’s the hero. Romney grew up in the same neighborhood as Bruce Wayne. The 99%, on the other hand, are played by Ann Hathaway. “There’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne,” says the world’s sexiest Robin Hood. “You and your friends better batten down the hatches. Because when it hits you’re all going to wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.”
Bruce is a 1%-er devoted to championing the status quo. He’s a vigilante because that’s what the job requires. Government brutality is unethical and, worse, ineffective. Nolan makes that clear from the opening scene. A CIA agent interrogates prisoners at gunpoint, ready to toss their corpses from a plane. Any sympathy—he’s only trying to protect us from Terrorism—tumbles through the open door too. America can’t employ violence without corrupting itself and fueling its enemies. We need a proxy. We need a guy in a freaky suit.
Or a three piece suit. In which both Christian Bale and Mitt Romney look significantly better. And expectations couldn’t be higher for either millionaire. Have the words “Oscar buzz” and “superhero” ever travelled in the same sentence before? Batman Begins grossed about $200 million, while The Dark Knight topped $500. Sequels aren’t supposed to do that. Neither are Presidential runs. Romney’s 2008 campaign was a flop, but the sequel raised over $100 million last month alone.
But Dark Knight success was largely due to the late Mr. Ledger, a performance gapingly absent from Rises. Instead we get Hathaway slinking next to Berry, Pfeiffer, and Kitt on the Catwalk of fame. Nolan fans might remember Tom Hardy from Inception (though probably not from that other franchise closer Star Trek 10, in which he plays Captain Picard’s younger yet equally bald clone). Bane is another bald villain, but this time Hardy has to roar his lines through a high-tech Hannibal Lechter mask. It’s a little better than Darth Vader, but Hardy’s eyes are only so emotive.
Still, the spectacle almost works. If Bane’s British accent is a bit muffled, well, so is his character. Does he want to Occupy Wall Street or behead it? The villain is a brawny reboot of the first 20th century supervillain, the guillotine-crazed Citizen Chauvelin of Baroness Orczy’s 1905 superhero ur-text, The Scarlet Pimpernel. That author, unlike Nolan, was a deposed aristocrat, so I get why she pits her hero against French revolutionaries—those “savage creatures,” as she terms them. But Batman belongs to the same ruling class elite as the Pimpernel. And Gotham’s proletariat is still “animated by vile passions, and by the lust of vengeance, and of hate.” Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Nolan literalizes the underclass by moving them to the sewers, but it’s those regular Joes working the cement trucks you really have to watch out for. They’re the devoted pawns of Bane’s socialist rhetoric, unaware that their leader is using them as political theater. The revolution is being televised to the humbled Bruce’s prison pit, which, although located somewhere in dusty Asia, is as accessible as the suburbs of Gotham. Will Bruce regain his spirit and climb out in time to disarm the nuclear bomb?!
The retraining sequence and rematch bear an unfortunate resemblance to Rocky III, which pitted its symbol of American exceptionalism against the Evil Empire. America has since moved from cold war to class war. If Bane is a political parody, he’s Evil Obama. Dark Knight Rises is a right wing morality tale aimed at the 99%. Protest financial greed and look what happens!
But even though Warner Bros. has a lot to gain from the Romney’s promised 10% corporate tax cuts, they’re hedging their bets. Dark Knight Rises gives us a split ticket, Batman-Catwoman, a superheroic feat unthinkable but in the reality-warping universe of “gritty realism.” The now penniless Scarlet Pimpernel lends Robin Hood the keys to the batcycle and together they defeat Citizen Bane before retiring anonymously to the middle class.
I predict Dark Knight Rises will retire into its own anonymity long before the Oscar race. If it has any impact on White House politics, it will be as yet another horror story in the gun lobby saga. No superheroes swung to the rescue of the twelve theater goers murdered in Colorado opening night. That’s a real world tragedy far far beyond the reach of even the grittiest realism.
Instead of social revolution, the rest of us get what we always get, a Hollywood-financed extravaganza, right down to the grassroots. My son came home from summer camp every day last week spattered in black paint and Gorilla Glue. They were building a cardboard batcycle to be parked in front of our smallville theater opening night. It rained all weekend, so we never got to see it. My son didn’t complain though. He and all the other Batman campers were just grateful to be there.
Let them eat popcorn.
Tags: Bill Finger, Bob Kane, Christopher Nolan, Heath Ledger, Mitt Romney, Obama, Rush Limbaugh, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Tim Burton, Tom Hardy
- 13 comments
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Nick
said
What’s with the change in tone in this post? Now it’s all popcorn and absurdity and silliness and other words, thought this blog cared unlike so many on the internet who profess to love superheroes, then reveal their true colors. Other than that, well-written post(though it does use political commentary that feels cliched already)
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Chris Gavaler
said
After last week’s Bane/Bain nonsense followed by the weekend’s shootings, I think I am feeling a bit tonally challenged. But to clarify one point, I don’t think silliness and absurdity are bad things. They were some of the best virtues of the comic book superheroes I grew up on. I have some trouble with Nolan because he removes too much of that fun and replaces it with a darkness that feels false to me. A little like eating popcorn that’s been spray painted black.
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Hunter Rose
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“Despite the Obama campaign likening the villain Bane to the villainous Bain Capital” I thought that this was Rush Limbaugh’s accusation, but I don’t think I’ve seen any news reporting supporting the statement.
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Chris Gavaler
said
Actually Limbaugh was responding to what was already buzzing. The Examiner reported on the 16th: “As the Friday release date has neared, liberal blogs were the first to connect Batman’s toughest foe with Romney’s firm. But now even some conservatives, concerned Romney isn’t fighting the Bain attacks hard enough, see a similarity in the epic DC Comics fight and the political campaign.”
I think Christopher Lehane may have started it: “It has been observed that movies can reflect the national mood,” said Democratic advisor and former Clinton aide Christopher Lehane. “Whether it is spelled Bain and being put out by the Obama campaign or Bane and being out by Hollywood, the narratives are similar: a highly intelligent villain with offshore interests and a past both are seeking to cover up who had a powerful father and is set on pillaging society,” he added.
After the Lehane comment was already out there, Limbaugh said six days ago: “Do you know the name of the villain in this movie? Bane. The villain in the Dark Knight Rises is named Bane. B-A-N-E. What is the name of the venture capital firm that Romney ran, and around which there’s now this make-believe controversy? Bain. The movie has been in the works for a long time, the release date’s been known, summer 2012 for a long time. Do you think that it is accidental, that the name of the really vicious, fire-breathing, four-eyed, whatever-it-is villain in this movie is named Bane?”
He semi-retracted the comment the following day because of the Twitter uproar.
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Hunter Rose
said
Thanks for the clarification! I was aware of the media comments surrounding Limbaugh’s broadcast, but I hand’t found any references prior to that with a casual search.
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k273
said
If it has any impact on White House politics, it will be as yet another horror story in the gun lobby saga. No superheroes swung to the rescue of the twelve theater goers murdered in Colorado opening night. That’s a real world tragedy far far beyond the reach of even the grittiest realism.
Loyal reader here, and I felt a great emotion while reading the above paragraph. I have been loving the Batman character and background so far, that as much as what you wrote above were true and hit the nail in the head, I found myself trying to deny it.
No superheroes swung to the rescue.
It’s beyond the reach of even Batman and the grittiest realism.
Good writing.
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Chris Gavaler
said
I remember a lot of superhero readers reacted to 9/11 with the same disbelief. With Batman, because he is the nearest supehero to our reality, it’s even harder. Between the shooting and Heath Ledger, I fear Nolan’s trilogy will be most remembered for events off camera.
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Max
said
I don’t think what’s on-screen in the film really supports your political reading of it. Bane shows himself to be contemptuous of both the rich (he and Talia mock John Daggett for thinking his money gives him power over them) and for “the oppressed”; note the near-sarcasm in his speech every time he addresses the people (i.e., calling the bomb “the instrument of your liberation,” telling the people “Do as you please! No one will stop you!”, and ridiculing the expected responses of politicians when he says “This once great city — it will endure.”) That, and the fact that he intends ultimately to blow the city up in the end, suggests that, as Gordon says, this isn’t some revolution.
You also have to look at the film kind of selectively to see it as a horror story about the lower classes victimizing the elite. As I mentioned above, the film is more critical of the rich than of the poor; the only completely unsympathetic Gothamites are the corrupt collaborator John Daggett and the fatuous mayor. During the montage during Bane’s speech in front of the prison, the film segues directly from Bane releasing and arming the prisoners to scenes of the rich being drug from their houses and put on trial, suggesting that the ex-mobsters are the ones responsible for all the class-warfare stuff. Showing the Scarecrow presiding over the proceedings reinforces this assumption. (It’s a pity, I guess, that Nolan didn’t provide us with a political statistics sheet for the film: “[X]% of Gotham’s working class voters are FOR this class warfare, [X]% are against it.”)
So the only way I think you could read this film as a fable about the evils of the Occupy movement is if you think that the ultimate goal of Occupy really is to reenact some Robespierre-ish “Reign of Terror,” spearheaded by convicted criminals. (Or even just the first part.) The only character in the film who could be seen as a legitimate mouthpiece for the Occupiers is Selina Kyle, who quickly becomes jaded with the anarchy of Bane’s true vision.
So in short, I’m not sure you’re being really fair to the film when you say, “Protest financial greed and look what happens!”
And one final aside: while Nolan’s films have a realistic aesthetic (thanks mostly to Wally Pfister’s cinematography and the on-location filming), they’re no more “gritty” or “realistic” than a Roger Moore James Bond film. That’s just an unfortunate label that some overzealous fans have attached to them, obscuring their really more stylized and mythical views of the world.
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Chris Gavaler
said
Good counter argument, Max. You make a convincing case for viewing the film through a more complicated and so therefore less reductive political lens.
I still think Bane’s contempt for the people and their inability to recognize that contempt as they become pawns of his false revolution suggest that Nolan is promoting an overall negative attitude toward Occupy Wall Street. But I do see your point about the film mocking members of the 1% too. All except one of course. Bruce is still a millionaire the working class (like the wised-up Selina) can get behind. While Bane just uses class warfare rhetoric to gain power. That’s not really that far from Mitt Romney’s sales pitch, is it?
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Max
said
Well-put, Chris. There’s certainly a Romney-ish quality to Batman’s crusade, one that’s been there since the beginning — in “Batman Begins,” he was established as a billionaire playboy who set out to “use fear against those who prey on the fearful” — but seems more prominent in “TDKR.” But on the other hand, this film also has a more egalitarian spirit than its predecessors. There’s a repeated emphasis on “the little guy’s” capacity for heroism: in the character of John Blake, whose name (as I’ve said elsewhere) makes the character seem like a Frank Capra-style every-man hero; Bruce’s statement that the whole point of Batman was that “he could be anyone”; in the way that that the cops in the end are joining in the assault on the bad guys, not just getting in the way of the Clash of the Titans like they were in the finale of “The Dark Knight”; in the (perhaps too on-the-nose) way that the orphans go around spreading word in the finale; in Batman’s final words to Gordon, assuring him that “a hero can be anybody”; and, most poignantly, in the way that Bruce learns to trust the people of Gotham, which is key his character arch and his decision to “kill” Batman.
And I guess another thing to take into account is the fact that by the end of the film, Bruce is completely broke, and has lost everything except his costume and the Bat-wing. (Can’t bring myself to call it “the Bat.”) He’s still got the sense of noblesse oblige, but without the noblesse. Perhaps this is a Republican fantasy, the notion that any man can transcend class and be a hero to all. But then again, hasn’t the universality of superheroism always been a big part of the genre’s appeal? Or maybe not; Superman started off as a New Deal crusader against the corrupt, and Green Arrow… well, yeah.
If you want to see a superhero film that I think really IS contemptuous of the masses, check out Burton’s “Batman” (1989). The Joker even says, without much irony, “And now comes the part where I relieve you, the little people, of your sad and worthless lives.” It’s a line that could have just as easily come from Bane in “TDKR”, but the difference is that the negative depiction of the common people of Gotham in Burton’s film tends to vindicate the Joker’s judgment of them.
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Chris Gavaler
said
The “Batman could be anyone” line is the strongest evidence for your egalitarian reading of the trilogy. Personally, I wish Nolan had taken it further. I was disappointed when Bruce climbed out of the pit and put on the mask again. The Kevlar, sure, but I would have liked to have seen an unmasked Batman in the last sequences. And while he was in the pit, I wish Blake and the other police survivors had pulled on bat masks themselves (they way they use the bat symbol to a small extent) and gone vigilante against Bane’s corrupt pseudo-government. Which is the only political situation where vigilantism is legitimate, something that the trilogy, like almost any superhero story (except Zorro), tries to ignore.
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Max
said
I agree that it might have been more emotionally satisfying for Bruce to have confronted Bane as himself, and it might have been a better way for him to show Gotham that it can survive on the heroism of its own citizens. I think this film is more about celebrating the abstraction of the heroic ideal, rather than the physical reality of a hero. Where inspired citizens in “The Dark Knight” were putting on their own costumes to go out and kick some ass, inspired citizens here are (as you note) simply painting the bat symbol. The importance of Batman in the finale really comes from that bat-symbol burned into the side of the building — as a symbol of hope for the people of Gotham (like Foley, whom the film cuts right to) and as a symbol of defiance against the oppressors (like Bane, whom the film cuts right to immediately after showing Foley). It’s also telling that Bruce has shown some evolution in his thinking on masks: in the first film, he waxed rhapsodically about the use of a persona to inspire terror, and had to be reminded by Alfred that the persona might incidentally help protect his loved ones from reprisals; at the end of “TDKR,” he tells Blake outright that the mask is strictly utilitarian, a disguise to protect the people he cares about. (Contrast this with Bane, who clearly relishes the mythical status the mask confers on him: “Nobody cared who I was until I put on the mask.”) I guess he keeps the suit on to protect Alfred and Miranda (who he still thinks is a good girl). But you’re right: it would have been more interesting to see Bruce Wayne, unmasked and unafraid, take on Bane, masked and insecure. It would have made his character arch more stirring.
It seems that most superhero movies these days regard vigilantism as a form of philanthropy, rather than civic-minded righteousness. In “The Avengers,” the eponymous team is recruited because the world governments can’t handle this problem on their own. In “The Amazing Spider-Man,” Peter tells Captain Stacey that Spider-Man does what he does because the police can’t do it on their own. n “TDKR,” Bruce at least claims that he does what he does because the police don’t have enough resources to solve the problems on their own (to which Alfred aptly replies, “They would if you gave [those resources] to them.”) I guess that approach is appropriate for the first two, since neither the Avengers or Spider-Man break that many laws, but this approach seems like more of a lapse in Batman’s noir-world, where corruption ought to be one of his most persistent adversaries. The best Batman story-arches (“Batman: Year One,” “The Dark Knight Returns,” and the recent “Batman: Earth One”) all present the corrupt government as the primary antagonist, which gives more legitimacy to Batman’s brand of vigilante activity. (Not coincidentally, “The Mark of Zorro” is the movie that Bruce saw on the night of his parents’ death in “The Dark Knight Returns.”)
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Chris Gavaler
said
Superhero vigilantism was a tricky issue even before superheroes moved to comic books. The conversation between Bruce and Alfred that you mention above is almost identical to one between Lamont Cranston and his fiance Margo Lane in the first 1937 radio episode of The Shadow. Margo wants Lamont to give the police his special resources (the lost science of “Eastern” magic), but he refuses because then criminals would eventually get them too.