The Dark Knight: The Joker

As we've been discussing, in Dark Knight, most of the characters face moral dilemmas and struggling with violating their own principles. Many are the ways, large and small, in which the persons of the drama betrayal themselves, others, and the principles they profess. But none of the betrayed the principles they profess more than ...

the Joker.

The Joker, as portrayed by the late Heath Ledger, is very convincing liar. So much so, that I've noticed that he managed to deceive lots of people in the audience as well. "Oh," I hear people saying, "the Joker was such a force of chaos! He represents anarchy!" Um... yeah.

What part of "It's all part of the plan?" did you not get?!

Yes, the Joker does represent chaos ... in a way. But I'm astonished at how many people seem to have overlooked the fact that the Joker's brand of "chaos" requires enormous amounts of complex and detailed planning. The opening bank robbery scene ALONE is a masterpiece of clockwork scheduling. Watch the film; right after he says, "I kill the busdriver," the Joker steps a bit to one side. He's getting out of the way of the incoming bus. That presumes he knows exactly when and where it's arriving.

The list is almost endless. Planning on the reactions that send people to the ferries. The bombs and their detonations. The burning fire truck blockade. Getting captured. His one phone call. Batman is the one who's improvising in this story; everything the Joker does is coldly calculated in advance.

And that includes his carefully crafted persona. Hanging his head out the car window like a crazy dog, "I just do whatever comes into my head," playing the unpredictable lunatic. Did he convince you? That was all part of his plan, too.

He professes to be an agent of chaos, but he's actually a mastermind of order. But, in fact, he has a clear agenda, and goes to great lengths with elaborate plans to make his point. It's a great way to write him and very consistent with his original portrayal, in which advance planning was his forte and how he stayed a step ahead of the police.

The Joker's goal is make all the other characters in the Dark Knight betray and abandon their old principles. But in order to do that, he must betray and abandon his own, and much more severely than they do. To be what he says he is, he must be exactly the opposite ... and keep you from noticing it..

Somehow, however, I think he'd be okay with that.

The Dark Knight: Bruce Wayne

I have to say I was very impressed by the, well, the sanity with which Bruce Wayne was written/portrayed in Dark Knight. I mean, really; if Batman's not sane, what's the point of pitting him against the Joker at all?

One of the most distressing Bat-trends in the last 20 years has been the revisionist Batman-is-crazy craze. The worst problem is that younger readers seem to be unaware that it's revisionist at all; they think it's just Batman 101: "He dresses up like a bat, of course he's crazy!" The idea that Batman is -- like the scores (hundreds?) of other costumed crime-fighters in the DCU -- not only perfectly sane but impressively so is utterly alien to many of them. I blame Marvel.

It's clear in both Dark Knight and its predecessor, Batman Begins, that Bruce Wayne is a highly rationale person, choosing his M.O. carefully and with a purpose in mind. Dark Knight also makes it clear he's ready-- anxious, even -- to abandon the Batman schtick if it appears that the regular instruments of justice can get and keep the city on an even keel. In fact, as mentioned in previous Dark Knight posts here, that seems to be what everyone in the film is hoping for. Well, everyone except the Joker.

Make no mistake; this is not the revisionist Bruce Wayne who has to be the Batman, and is merely Batman's tool. This is the original, the real Bruce Wayne, who's quite capable, even willing not to be Batman if there's no pressing need for him to be. The fact that this Bruce Wayne is quite willing to sacrifice Batman is made concretely clear at least twice in the film. First, it is not "Batman", but Bruce Wayne who winds up saving the life of Coleman Reese -- the man who could end Batman's career. Christopher Nolan doesn't do things like that by accident. Second, Bruce Wayne risks ending Batman's career by letting his alter ego take the murder rap for Two-Face, instead of favoring Batman's own ability to continue his crime-fighting with public approval.

But, as also mentioned in previous posts, Bruce Wayne's use of the Batman identity creates a moral dilemma for him. It does help get the regular crime situation under control; Dent & Co. almost have it licked and are ready to ermanently break the back of organized crime in Gotham. The dilemma is that the concept of the Batman -- the law-enforcer who colors outside the lines and breaks the rules to accomplish his goals -- also leads to the concept of the Joker -- the law-break who colors outside the lines and breaks the rules to accomplish his goals. Why, it's like something Two-Face would come up with, isn't it?

Batman does solve the ordinary problems, which starts to make him unnecessary; but he also generates extraordinary ones, which starts to make him necessary. Bruce Wayne is darned if he does and darned if he doesn't.

Batman confronts another irony in the Dark Knight: just as the Joker has confirmed for Batman his resolve not to kill, he chooses to take the rap for Two-Face, gaining a reputation as a killer. This is an even bitterer pill for the viewers than for the characters; we "know" Batman doesn't kill and the whole thing is just wrong. Gordon and Wayne's use of the Batman identity causes an escalation in the crime war (as personified by the Joker) that breaks Dent, promotes Gordon, and criminalizes Batman. It's not just an unfairness to the characters; if feels like an unfairness to us, and that's part of the emotional impact of the film.

Dark Knight: Two-Face

Now, I've thought often about the character of Two-Face; he's one of my favorites. In fact, I've written about him on this blog several times. Unlike most people, what I was anticipating in the Dark Knight film wasn't Ledger's performance as the Joker (the trailers were pretty solid clues about that), but Eckhart's performance as Two-Face, and what the script would give him to work with.

Yes, Ledger's take on the Joker was very important and powerful. But the Joker's reputation as a solid character didn't necessarily rely on Ledger doing well. If Ledger had not acquitted himself so finely, it would have been taken as a reflection on Ledger, not the Joker. But Two-Face needed to be done well in this film to establish a broader public reputation as a serious Batman villain. He may be almost as famous as the Joker within the comic book world, but the only exposure to him most people have had is Tommy Lee Jones' performance in Batman Forever, which didn't really do the character justice.

But how do you do a character like Two-Face justice? First and foremost: don't portray him as a split personality. He wasn't portrayed that way when he was introduced, and to do so vastly oversimplifies and weakens the character. The Ventroliquist/Scarface is a split personality. Harvey Dent is a man whose concepts of morality have broken down and Two-Face is the man who forges a new concept of morality to work from. As I have said before, Two-Face isn't Harvey Dent's problem, he's Harvey Dent's solution. And, with unexpected wisdom, Christopher Nolan wrote Two-Face exactly that way. That alone makes the Dark Knight a great film in my eyes (although, there are certainly many other reasons, as well).

Note only did Dark Knight's Two-Face meet my high hopes it exceeded them; it taught me something about Two-Face, it gave me a perspective on him I'd never had before. Someone finally showed me that Harvey Dent is a perfectionist and a control freak.

Gordon's men aren't "pure" enough for him, even though they're helping Gordon and him clean up Gotham. His effort to clean up Gotham gangs isn't just about justice, it's about tidiness and control. Remember the courtroom scene with Rachel, where he plays -- lies, really -- about letting Rachel take charge of the case if his coin comes up tails? It won't, of course, because it's a two-headed coin. It's rather a cruel trick to play on her; I mean, is that really an appropriate thing to do to ones co-worker and fiancee? Dent uses the coin as a mechanism of control, or, as he puts it, he "makes his own luck". He doesn't believe in luck, or fate, or chaos; only control.

And, like a good attorney, he works the law to his advantage, redefining justice in a way that suits his purposes. The biggest example is the hat trick of the use of RICO laws against the Gotham gangster. His pointless grilling of the asylum lunatic he captures is another; "This is craziness," Batman points out, "you can't control it through sheer force of will." But even trying to gain control of the Joker situation by claiming that he is Batman is an example of Dent's need to control everything with his own plans.

Now, I'm not saying that's bad per se; but it doesn't work out perfectly well for Harvey, does it? In his comic book origin, it's the scarring of his face that sends him around the bend, as a perfectionist pretty boy like Dent isn't well equipped for such a thing (if anyone is). In the filmic origin, it's the essential unfairness of what happens to him, his own failure, that undoes him. He did everything he could to control the situation; but he couldn't. He couldn't "make his own luck", and he doesn't know how to handle a world where he can't be in control. Thus, the Joker easily seduces him into adapting by abandoning control of his decision and abrogating them to a flip of his coin.

The coin releases Dent from further moral dilemmas. It creates a form of "justice" -- or, at least, the fairness of even odds -- that seems more adapted to this world he now sees he cannot control, where justice cannot always be forcibly imposed. It's not something he's tied to, or controlled by; it's something he uses to relieve himself from the burden of controlling the world. The relief is very evident in the scene where he put a gun to his own head to decide whether he lives or dies to pay for his role in Rachel's demise. There's no tension at all in the decision, it's no more difficult for him then deciding whether to shoot Batman or Gordon's kid.

Of course, Two-Face isn't an entirely different person than Harvey Dent, and how he uses the coin is proof of that. I remember being shocked when the coin spared Maroni; "Wait," I thought, "Is Two-Face just going to let Maroni go with equanimity? That's hard to believe!" Of course, he didn't. Having abided by the coin flip, he immediately redefined the process to get his own way, and shot Maroni's driver (thus killing Maroni). Two-Face, like Harvey Dent, still works the system. He still manipulates others and the world, he's just let go of controlling himself.

The Dark Knight: Commissioner Gordon

Gary Oldman is so good as Commission Gordon that you don't really notice him at all. And, yes, that's a real compliment.

You can tell Oldman is outstanding, in short, because he doesn't stand out. It's a good trick, since of all the characters in the movie, his is perhaps the moral center.

Like Harvey Dent, he's a law and order kind of guy. Like Batman, he's not afraid of unorthodox approaches to a problem. But the closest character of comparison for Captain, er, I mean, Commissioner Gordon, is Assistant District Attorney Rachel Dawes.

Both Dawes and Gordon are civilian law enforcement officials who are faced with a choice between ordinary and extraordinary methods of justices, as represented by Harvey Dent and the Batman, respectively. For Rachel, a choice must be made; you can't have your cake and eat it, too, and her romantic relationships with Harvey and Bruce highlight this dilemma.

But, for all his being a good guy, Gordon isn't an idealistic; he's a pragmatist and an opportunist. He doesn't see Harvey Dent and Batman, and what they represent, as two things between which he must choose. He sees them as two useful tools for accomplishing his mission, each with its pros and cons. To Gordon, Harvey Dent (ordinary justice) and Batman (extraordinary justice) are just two sides of the same coin.

The script makes a point of positioning Gordon as more flexible, less extremely hard-nosed than Harvey Dent. It's kind of subtle, but several times he and Gordon are in conflict about the fact all the men is Gordon's hand-picked unit don't have exactly spotless records. That's unacceptable to Harvey Dent; after all, you're either all-good or all-bad, right? Small wonder the cops call the unforgiving Dent "Two-Face" behind his back.

Gordon's a bit more practical than that. The issue is underlined later when Detective Montoya, oops, I mean, Ramirez, confesses how she was suborned by the gangsters when in desperate need for Money For Her Sick Aunt May (or some such). Is Ramirez a bad guy? No, she's essentially a good guy trying to cope with bad circumstances (like many citizens of Gotham). Gordon understands that better than Harvey does.

Gordon's real test isn't choosing between Harvey Dent and Batman (which he doesn't do). It's in deciding to fake his own death and in cooperating with the conspiracy of silence about Two-Face's misdeeds. But even in those decisions it's just about having to hurt his family and his friend Batman in the process, not any intrinsic moral principles.

James Gordon, pragmatist; he bends his principles, so he doesn't worry about breaking them. That's what makes him successful in the films and makes him the character most immune to the Joker's various machinations in the film.

The Dark Knight: Rachel Dawes

Ah, Rachel, Rachel, Rachel.

Poor Rachel. Because unlike most of our other major characters, Rachel doesn't exist. Rachel's not real. That is to say, she's not a part of the DCU.

And the universe has a way of taking care of things that don't fit in continuity, doesn't it? "Rachel Dawes" ain't an MJ Watson. I mean, it's not like anyone would ever dare take MJ's relationship with Spider-Man out of continuity!

Poor Rachel also had the misfortune of being portrayed first by an actress who wasn't very good and then by an actress who isn't really as attractive as she needed to be for the role. Of course, MJ has the same problem; it was just the same actress each time.

Rachel also had the problem of choosing between a gorgeous famous wealthy crimefighter and a gorgeous famous non-wealthy crimefighter. Throw me in that briar patch, please.

Of course, in a film like the Dark Knight, Rachel's dilemma isn't just a matter of personal choice. Her choice between Bruce and Harvey symbolizes the city's choice between extraordinary justice and ordinary justice. Ordinary justice is what the city is striving for. Bruce is hoping throughout the film that extraordinary justice (Batman) is just a means of getting the system back on track, so that ordinary justice can take over.

But the temporary means to an end have a way of turning into permanent methods of operation. Indeed, that's the very thing that Lucius Fox fears from Batman's use of the bat-sensor-web. And Batman's hope is in vain; extraordinary justice doesn't, in this case, lead back to ordinary justice, it leads instead to extraordinary injustice (the Joker). Once that's in place, extraordinary justice isn't merely an option, it's a necessity for survival.

Like the city, Rachel is grateful for Bruce/Batman, but doesn't want to embrace him as her permanent way of life. She longs for the normality, the stability that Harvey Dent represents (as does the city). She wants Bruce to represent that, to give up being Batman, but she realizes that's simply not going to happen (or, at least, she's not willing to wait until it does). Girls swoon for the bad boy on the motorbike, but they want to tame him eventually. If they can't, they almost always wind up marrying the stable, less dramatic guy.

Of course, that's simply what Harvey Dent represents; it's not what he is. He's not stable because the regular system of justice isn't stable; its stability rests on on the overall stability of society. The regular system is dependent on rules and underlying assumptions about the wholesale goodness of people (or, more cynically and perhaps more accurately, most people's innate understanding that the stability of society is more important to their well-being in the long-run than any short-term gains they might make in undermining it or breaking its laws). When that apple-cart is upset by an outside force (the Joker) and the stability of society is threatened, ordinary morality can breakdown (just as it happens with Harvey). Indeed, it's why society permits us to kill during war.

In the end, Rachel makes the only sensible choice: she chooses ordinary over extraordinary. Unfortunately, when living in an extraordinary world, the sensible choice may not be the right one.

The Dark Knight: Coleman Reese

Coleman Reese is the weaselly blackmailing Waynetech employee whose name you probably didn't catch. That's how minor a character he is.

And, yet, in a film that spills over with moral dilemmas, his is perhaps one of the most severe, realistic, and resonant for regular people.

He knows his Big Boss is up to something, and it's something quite big. He decides he wants a cut for being a silent parent in the Batman secret.

It's all well and good to sit on the other side of the screen and label Reese a bad guy. After all, Batman is the good guy, Reese threatens Batman, therefore Reese is a bad guy. But if you found out your boss was Batman, what would you do? Nothing? Start sewing a Robin costume in your own size? Ask for hefty raise and the freedom to never work again?

Like Fox, Reese isn't someone Bruce Wayne chose to bring in on the secret; he just figured it out. Fox, of course, just happens to go from being fired to being the head of Waynetech; not a bad recompense for keeping the secret a secret, is it? Doesn't Reese deserve to be compensated, too?

That's certainly what Reese thinks. He's not really out to stop Batman. He just wants his silence to be part of the blacklined Batman budget that the Wayne business can easily afford. It's blackmail, of course. But, Batman of all people should know that if you break the law (like, by being a vigilante) you make yourself vulnerable.

Foxy Lucius calls the young weasel's bluff. "Dad" doesn't save your ass, he just warns you when something you've done looks like it's going to bite you in the ass. "Hey, Bruce; got another problem for you to deal with over here! Good luck, son."

But then Reese has a moral dilemma. Expose the Batman or keep quiet? What is his responsibility to society? Remember, it's not just a matter of undoing a vigilante; by this point in the action, the Joker has committed to killing someone every hour that Batman's identity remains secret. Technically, by revealing Batman's identity, Reese is saving lives, potentially more than Batman is saving. Isn't that his civic duty? Reese would go from being a blackmailer to a hero; but the result would be that the Joker's terrorism would have succeeded.

Before that happens, however, Bruce Wayne goes to great lengths to save Reese's life. Reese thinks first and foremost of himself, and when he realizes that HE needs Batman to save him as much as everyone else does, he chooses to clam up. He suddenly is reminded that Freedom To (expose Batman or get money for his silence) is always and of necessity secondary to Freedom From (the threat of destruction to himself and society).

Of course, that's the very hub of society's issue with the need to protect itself from crime and terrorism (and a central theme of the movie). They don't want their own freedoms curtailed in the process of protecting them from danger. "How dare Batman take the law into his own hands! How dare I be required to show documents! How dare Batman and/or the government listen in on my cellphone!" And, if the Joker (or another terrorist) kills you or destroys the society that protects you from predation, how much does that really matter?

By the way, did you think that whole scenario with the RICO indictments was just showy fun? Nuh-uh. What's one of the things RICO is most commonly used for by law enforcement and government agencies?

To justify wiretapping.

Yes, the more you think about the Dark Knight, the more it has to say ... .

The Dark Knight: Lucius Fox

Ah, Morgan Freeman. How he's managed to parlay playing the exact same role -- Easy Reader -- into a mutlizillionaire Hollywood career and a deal with the Devil that he must appear in one out of every three films the industry produces, I have no idea. But if Michael Caine is Bruce's personal confidant then who better to play his business confidant, since Freeman and Caine have nearly identical career strategies: do any movie that's offered to you, as long as all you have to do is play yourself.

They make fair bookends within the story, too. Alfred is Mom, treating skinned knees, cleaning up the cave, fussing about Brucie's social life, and giving Sunday school homilies. Lucius, on the other hand, is clearly Dad.

"As long as I don't find out about it, it's okay."
"Hey, son; want a pocketknife?"
"Here's the keys to the Tumbler, son; knock yourself out."

But the Dark Knight being, as mentioned yesterday, not so much a movie as it is a film, Lucius has more on his plate than simply playing "Q" to Bruce's "Bond". Like the other characters, he's faced with uncomfortable moral dilemmas.

His basic mode is one of "plausible deniability"; whereas Alfred says "the Batman" in every other sentence, Lucius never speaks the word. If Alfred decides, "the less Bruce knows about what Rachel was going to do, the better", Lucius decides, "the less I know about what Bruce does, the better." Ah, but when Lucius discovers that Bruce has his own secret plans going on -- the adaptation of cell phone technology into the bat-sensor-web -- he's a bit disappointed and worried. "Wait, you're keeping this even from me? The cool dad?"

Suddenly, Lucius has found his (oddly place) lines of conscience. "Hey, it's fine by me, if you run around breaking people's limbs and tearing up the city in rumbles with one of your old pals who taught you how to knife-fight. But when you start using society's telecommunication infrastructure to locate mass-murdering psychotic clowns, well, that's a line I'm not willing to cross."

Lucius becomes Tony Stark; suddenly, he decides to find himself accountable for the applications of the technique he helps create, and wants to make sure its use is consistent with his own principles.

Lucius "bravely" lays down the law: either this thing goes, or I do. But not really. His position is actually, "Well, son, it's okay this one time, as long as you don't make a habit of it." Seems to me that what's really at stake here isn't Lucius's principles -- he's willing to sacrifice those for the Dire Situation at Hand (and there's one of those in Gotham on a weekly basis). What seems really to be at issue for Lucius is, "Am I part of your moral compass or aren't I? If I'm not, then count me out, and I won't be facing down any bullies who want to blackmail you about your secret life any more."

The Dark Knight: Alfred

Let's talk about the Dark Knight.

Naturally, I was moved and impressed. Almost everyone who sees it is. It is, as a friend put it, not a Batman movie, but a Batman film. When discussing the film's power, many people focus on the strength of the performances. But that shouldn't be allowed to mask the strength of the material the actors are working with. Thanks to the script, most of the major characters face a strong moral dilemma or two, and unpleasant compromises of their ideals.

Today, let's talk about Alfred.

Alfred

Michael Caine's horridly lower-class accent, by the way, is still like an icepick in my ear, but it seemed a little less harsh this time, as if the icepick were wrapped in velvet while being shoved in my ear.

His character is the voice of tough love -- sort of an icepick wrapped in velvet -- and forces Bruce to realize when he has to make the tough choices in his own dilemmas, and what the right thing to do is. While he succeeds in helping Bruce make his moral choices, I think Alfred's tragedy in this film is that he badly errs when making his own moral choice.

Alfred faces one of the film's quietest and most intimate dilemmas, and his decision to destroy Rachel's note rather than share it with Bruce is also one of the most questionable. Clearly, he thinks Bruce has suffered enough, and a post-mortem rejection isn't really what he needs on his plate.

But, if your life has been anything like mine, you've been hurt far more often and more deeply by people ostensibly trying to spare your feelings than by people actively trying to hurt them.

Who knows? Perhaps Rachel's note might have helped Bruce move on and lessened his burden. In any case, it shouldn't really be Alfred's decision to make; Rachel left to Alfred the decision of when to tell Bruce, not whether to tell him. And make no mistake; Alfred doesn't hide the note away, he burns it.

In keeping the note from Bruce, Alfred is still treating him as a child, not an adult. He deceives Bruce by omission, and proves himself unworthy of the trust Rachel placed in him (and that's to say nothing of the trust that Bruce has placed in him).

Which is worse? Finding out that the person you loved, but weren't realistically ever going to get with anyway (who, I might add, has been very seriously dating someone else), and who's now dead, wasn't planning on waiting for you, or..

finding out that the person who raised you and who continues to be the person you trust more than anyone in the world deceived you about that fact?

Alfred's dilemma and decision don't engender any explosions, societal issues, or life-threatening situations. Yet, I find Alfred's quiet betrayal once the bitterest moments of the film, and perhaps the deepest cut of all.