Dark (K)night

Note: Posting early this week on account of weekend road trip.

    The most striking thing about the new Batman movie, now smashing the all-time box office records, is its emphasis on sado-masochism as the animating element in American culture these days. It must appeal to the many angry people in our land who want to hurt others, even while they themselves feel deserving of the grossest punishments. In other words, the picture reflects the extreme depravity of the current American sensibility. Seeing it all laid out there must be very validating to the emotionally confused audience, and hence pleasurable, in all its painfulness.
      The rich symbolism in this spectacle represents the tenor of contemporary America as something a few notches worse than whatever the Nazis were heading toward around 1933. We like nothing better than to see people suffer and watch things get broken. The more slowly people are tortured (including the movie audience) the more exquisite the pleasure derived from the act. Civilization offers no consolation. In fact, its a mug's game. Thus, civilization is composed only of torturers and their mug victims.
     Gotham City, the setting for all these sadomasochistic vignettes, is a place devoid of comfort. (The suburbs are missing completely.) Even the personal haunts of "the Batman," a.k.a. zillionaire Bruce Wayne, are hard-edged non-spaces. His workplace (cleverly accessed via a dumpster) is an underground bunker the size of about three football fields with a claustrophobic drop ceiling and a single furnishing: the megalomaniacal computer console that is supposed to afford him "control" of the city, but which appears to be, in fact, a completely impotent sham piece of techno-junk, since it can't even outperform a $300 GPS unit in locating things. By the way, Hitler had a brighter sense of decor in the final days of the bunker. Bruce Wayne's personal apartment is one of those horrid glass-walled tower condos beloved of the starchitects, which, in its florid exposure to everything external practically screams "no shelter here!"
      At the center of all this is the character called "The Joker." Judging by the reams of reviews and reportage about this movie elsewhere in the media, the death of actor Heath Ledger, who played the role, adds another layer of juicy sadomasochistic deliciousness to the proceedings -- we get to reflect that the monster on screen may have gotten away, but the anxiety-ridden young actor who played him was carted off to the bone orchard before the film even officially wrapped, (and therefore deserves extra special consideration for America's greatest honor, the Oscar award, while the audience deserves its own award for recognizing the lovely ironies embroidered in this cultural phenomenon.)
      The Joker is not so much as person as a force of nature, a "black swan" in clown white. He has no fingerprints, no ID, no labels in his clothing. All he has is the memory of an evil father who performed a symbolic sadomasochistic oral rape on him, and so he is now programmed to go about similarly mutilating folks, blowing things up, and wrecking everyone's hopes and dreams because he has nothing better to do. He represents himself simply as an agent of "chaos." Taken at face value, he would seem to symbolize the deadly forces of entropy that now threatens to unravel real American life in the real world -- a combination of our foolish over- investments in complexity and the frightening capriciousness of both nature and history, which do not reveal their motivations to us.
      By the way, forget about God here or anything that even remotely smacks of an oppositional notion to evil. All that's back on the cutting room floor somewhere (if it even got that far). And I say this as a non-religious person. But the absence of any possible idea of redemption for the human spirit is impressive. In the world of "the Batman," humanity at its very best is capable only of being confused about itself. This is perhaps an interesting new form of dramaturgy -- instead of good-versus-evil you only get befuddlement-versus-evil. Goodness has lost its way in the dark night of the American psyche, as might be understandable considering the nation of louts, liars, grifters, bullies, meth freaks, harpies, and tattooed creeps we have become. The best we can bring to this predicament is the low-grade pop therapy that passes for thinking nowadays in educated circles. Any consideration of the heroic is off the menu here. We can't ask that much of ourselves. It's too difficult to imagine. Meanwhile, The People -- that is, the citizens of Gotham City -- literally banish even the possibility of heroism from town at the end of the movie -- they take an axe to it! -- perhaps indicating that they deserve whatever befalls them or, shall I say, "us."
      A few other striking elements of this spectacle deserve attention. One is the grandiosity that saturates the story elements, and the remarkable impotence of it all. The Batman possesses every high-tech weapon and survival implement ever dreamed up, yet they avail him nothing -- except a lot off sickening leaps off skyscrapers and futile hard landings on car roofs, shipping containers, sidewalks, and other human carcasses. I doubt the writers/director Chris and Jonathan Nolan consciously aimed to depict good old American ingenuity as utterly valueless in the face of chaos, but that's the effect. Otherwise, everything in the Batman's world is overscaled and out-of-whack from the size of Bruce Wayne's fortune (what an executive package his Daddy must have made off with, and from which investment bank?!), to the energy expended in so many car chases and explosions, to the super-sized doom-worthy towers of the gigantic, soulless city.
      Finally there is the derivation of all this sadomasochistic nihilism out of a comic book. How appropriate, since we have become a cartoon of a society living on a cartoon of a North American landscape, that the deepest source of our mythos comes from cartoons. We're so far gone that real human emotion is beyond us. We're too far gone -- and even without shame -- to care how this odious movie portrays us to the rest of the world. It is already making a fortune out there.

Comments

[hooting]

Uh, wow! Guess I'll pass on this movie and tend to my garden...

[Johnny Rico]

Uh-oh. Remus discovered Maddox, now we're all *really* in trouble.

Wall:1
Earnhardt:0

[mmkendl]

I've watched this movie for 10 minutes in agony and come to this conclusion: "I've died and went to hell. I was surrounded by spirits of insanity, chizophrenia and human aliens."
The title should be changed to
" Children of a depraved mind "

[Uncle Remus]

Jeebus Jimmy, you need a drink.

[Uncle Remus]

"Uh-oh. Remus discovered Maddox, now we're all *really* in trouble."

Nah. I just thought the NASCAR thing worked for a Friday quick post.

I did like his Crocs rant tho.

[Johnny Rico]

Enjoy your road trip, Jim. I guess you've left and won't be reading this.

I feel like you may be projecting something onto the film that either isn't there or that most viewers (or at least this one)are not seeing.

Most intelligent critics I've spoken to about The dark Knight seem to agree that it is head and shoulders above the previous 5 modern Batman flicks and that it is unique in its portrayal of a truly conflicted and human superhero.

The filming, effects, story, and portrayal of Gotham City make the viewer feel she is rooted in reality rather than a comic book.

Notable are the various grades of shades of moral ambiguity represented by all the characters, most notably Commissioner Gordon and Harvey Dent.

But you are way smarter than the rest of us, so you're probably right. Thanks for not making any predictions this week.

[Johnny Rico]

What is "most striking" to me is that it got a PG-13 rating. I thought it deserved an R, but Hollywood studious have obviously found a way around that nuisance.

They at least need a new NC-13 rating. It is ridiculous how many parents bring their 8 and 9 year olds and younger to this kind of thing. That's what is messed up with this society. Not Tatts and Kraft singles.

It got the rating for violence and "mayhem." I read a review before I saw the flick and couldn't figure out what the hell mayhem meant in a rating since I had never seen it before. Only sex, violence, language, and drug use.

So I asked everybody in the office. Nobody knew. Now I know.

Good stuff.

[enobarbus37]

Thain from Merrill Lynch is the archetype. He lies and lies and lies and lies.

The question is, "How long will the lies keep the morally bankrupt nation afloat?"

Not much longer.

You're right Jim. You're right.

[Johnny Rico]

"whatever the Nazis were heading toward around 1933. We like nothing better than to see people suffer and watch things get broken. The more slowly people are tortured (including the movie audience) the more exquisite the pleasure derived from the act."

Speak, for yourself. Personally this kinda thing turns my stomach. And it is NOT what Dark Knight is like. C'mon. It was PG-13. It was 2-1/2 hours and it flew buy. You must be getting old.

But if you are serious about Nazis, "torture-porn" as they call it, and film - check out this French film I had the pleasure of seeing.

I saw it on a week with few no decent Hollywood releases a few months ago. I read the review too quickly and didn't even know it was French until it started playing. I thought it was going to be about Zombies.

Highly recommended for the sado-masochistically inclined. Very well done. It will make you dislike Nazis if you don't already.

Frontiere(s) - 2007
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0814685/

I still have no idea what they mean by the title. Maybe thal or Holmes can venture a guess. They're educated.

[theroachman1]

In the movie the Crow which was Brandon Lee's death his make up looked a lot like Heath Ledger's does in this movie as the joker.

[Johnny Rico]

"performed a symbolic sadomasochistic oral rape on him"

meh. Not really, I believe the Joker's "smile" was simply stolen in this case by the creators from a groundbreaking, Japanese film "Ichi the Killer"(2001) by Takashi Miike.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0296042/

[Johnny Rico]

"Jeebus Jimmy, you need a drink."

Don't listen to Remus ... well ... actually, listen to him, but listen to me, too, when I say this.

You need to write two columns every week.

Do your regular one on Mondays but add a movie review on Fridays. You'll make mistakes at first, like today.

"But you will learn. I will teach you."
-R. Lee Ermey/Gunny Hartman

[thal]

JR,

My first choice for the evening was going out with a tattooed woman by the name of Angela, and when that fell through, I went to the neighborhood theater alone and saw The Dark Knight. Imagine my surprise to come home and read this post.

[Johnny Rico]

@thal - the Lord works in mysterious ways.

I walked to the store to pick up some smokes and a lotto ticket. something happened on the way there and I wanted to write about it here. Yes, it involved tattoed people.

On the way back I wanted to explain why I was walking, so I decided to pull out my trusty "Batmobile is in the shop" routine. It would give me an excuse to post this next link. I've been dying to use it all day but couldn't find a reason.

Who knew that he would have posted this the second I got back? Now I don't have to tell that lame story about the kids.

(this is all true except for the part about the smokes and lotto ticket)

Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 (as seen in "The Dark Knight")

http://www.clusterstock.com/2008/7/arab-sheik-ships-lamborghini-to-london-for-47-000-oil-change

[thal]

So JR, part of the original plan was to take the voodoo adorned cannibal woman to the Blues Fest, where the bands use coal-burning generated electricity to amplify their guitars. Seeing the movie was the better, or lesser, of two kinds of mayhem?

[Johnny Rico]

You're asking me?

Just get 'em drunk and throw a couple of cheeseburgers down their throat. (Joking!I'm joking, Ladies)

I won't bother to ask you about the specifics of the tattoo(s). Nick won't tell us about his redhead either. At least yours appears to be a meat-eater.

[thal]

I can only comment upon that which I've actually witnessed thus far. Really, she seems like a sweetheart.

Not that I've ever been wrong before.

Now about the movie...

[Johnny Rico]

Seriously, though. I'm hoping she picked the movie. If it was me, I would have been seeing "Mamma Mia" tonight.

It's only 90 minutes or two hours. I've grown as a person. I would have actually enjoyed it.

One of my fondest memories was taking my girlfriend (at the time) to see "American Psycho."

I think I was 29 or 30. We had been living together for at least a year. That relationship went on another 2 years. It was never the same.

That's still one of my favorite book/movie combos. But you learn things.

[Johnny Rico]

Yes, about the movie, and don't pull any punches.

[thal]

The DA's face, after half of it was burned off in a gasoline fire. Incredible special effect. I wonder how that was done.

JHK seems to have read the content at much deeper levels than I was able to get after only one showing. Perhaps he watched it multiple times. It usually takes me three or more showings/listenings to fully get a movie/song.

[Johnny Rico]

@Remus -

I couldn't figure out everybody blubbering and professing their love for Asoka (while ripping him apart) last week (last thread, this Friday post has caused a warp in the space/time continuum).

Personally, I love you. You're the only person I know who has even heard of Maddox.

My favorite is:

"Seven Sixteenths of One Inch: Turn it Off"

I've downloaded the photo and am ready to post it on any blog that allows images the next time some douche starts using caps.

http://maddox.xmission.com/hatemail.cgi?p=1#CAPSLOCK

[thal]

One of the notable exceptions to that was my first viewing of ACO. I spotted that one as a comedy right off. Then again, I was 19, and, er, it was 1971.

[Johnny Rico]

You need to keep writing, thal. I'm all ears. The Two-Face thing caught me by surprise. I'm not well-versed in comic book-story history. I definitely know a little but I'm no expert.

Can't wait to see what Bif has to say when he returns.

[Johnny Rico]

So were you the only one laughing?
This is fascinating. I've seen ACO in a theatre with other people(the Brattle in Harvard Square) but that was in the early or mid 90's and probably the 6th time I had seen it. Just not the same.

[Johnny Rico]

Being dressed in the latest Roman fashion...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQJ7YrWMdJY&feature=related