Batman
Okay, maybe there are more than eleven of you out there, but according to Reuters this morning, Batman became the fastest movie to make $300 million, and it has only been out for ten days.
����������� Every now and then, a movie comes along that resonates in the viewers mind. Certainly Heath Ledger�s brilliant portrayal of The Joker is a huge part of the success, Christian Bale is convincing and the special effects are sterling. But that doesn�t explain why it resonates.
With apologies, then, let me point out a couple of my observations. In this movie, Batman is not quite as squeaky clean as he had been portrayed in past incarnations. He is conflicted, often coming right up to the very edge of the line that separates good from evil; right from wrong; perhaps he even crosses that line.
There is no consensus of whether what he is doing (his vigilante-ism) is good for the residents of Gotham or not. The population is split, some calling �the batman� a criminal himself. Even visually, the city of Gotham itself is darker than past portrayals. Is any of this starting to sound familiar, say, perhaps, when compared to certain political leaders or situations?
����������� But �The Joker� (Heath Ledger) steals this show. He is evil incarnate. Unlike previous villains, this Joker does not want money, or power.� Those are things we have grown accustomed to.� They no longer frighten us. In fact, they seem, in these early days of the twenty-first century, almost normal.
In one scene, the Joker sets fire to a pile of money, the ultimate crime to most Americans. What the Joker wants is to bring down Gotham, to throw it into chaos. Americans are just coming to grips with this notion. People understand the motivations of Napoleans and Hitlers who want to take over the world.
But this idea of declaring war on somebody for the sole purpose of destroying them is a relatively new one to most, say something they have had to get used to since 2001. The Joker does not want to rule Gotham, or to steal all of its money.� It simply wants it destroyed.
����������� Am I reading too much into this?� Perhaps.� My friends have accused me of worse. But besides the fact that it is a good movie on its own merit, The Dark Knight has managed to encapsulate our darkest fears. This movie is set in a world where good overlaps evil, and motives have changed.
I wonder if a movie goer in 1950 would even �get it�.� ����Sixty years ago it would have seemed preposterous that a villain would not want to take over the world. Ledger�s Joker would have seemed farcical, in fact, unbelievable. That is why this movie resonates. On some level, we are confronted with this sort of Joker every day.
He fills us with terror. He is truly frightening. More than any other movie I can think of, this movie is about the world in 2008.
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