Dark midKnight show

I never thought I’d see the day when a director would render Tim Burton's work as cotton candy fare. Looking back on the beloved first Batman movie, with Jack Nicholson’s playfulness and Michael Keaton’s two-dimensionality, it’s clear that Christopher Nolan’s new series is not about having fun. Of course, it’s hard for me to admit those things about Tim Burton’s Batman. I still ask, “Where does he get those wonderful toys?” and “Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?” every chance I get. Perhaps the truth is that 1989 was just a simpler and happier time, when even psychologically tormented men who “moonlight” as caped crusaders could keep it light. Nolan wants to examine heroes and villains much more closely in The Dark Knight, and his viewpoint is a dark one, shadowed further by Heath Ledger’s untimely death.

Nolan loves to answer the questions asked in Tim Burton’s films. Batman gets his toys from the thoroughly good closet nerd engineer Lucious Fox (Morgan Freeman). Why, yes, as it so happens, Batman has danced with the devil in the pale moonlight. Dark Knight is essentially a long and complicated tango between Christian Bale and Heath Ledger, where Burton’s Batman and Joker were a sort of palatable half moon cookie—both enjoyable and easily digested. Nolan parallels many of Burton’s scenes, such as in an empty city street when Batman comes barreling down on the Joker. There’s also a similar heart-to-twisted-heart moment on the top floor of a tall building in the conclusion. Though Nolan takes both Burton’s scenes and flips them over on their head, quite literally.

I don’t know whether it was because I saw the midnight show, but the movie’s dark implications made for fitful sleep, as I turned all of Nolan’s motifs in my head: good and evil, love and duty, justice and righteousness, and you could go on all night, which I actually did. Nolan’s focus is off of why Batman came to be, but more how he can continue to be. The other installments were happy to leave certain aspects unanswered (read: toys and stamina), but Nolan actually shows Batman’s battle scars and imprisonment. Bruce Wayne never fully realized how incarcerating his cape would be.

That being said, there were countless times when the audience laughed aloud, so it’s not a complete downer. Ledger’s performance is a beautiful one to watch. He has fun with it, but truly owns the Joker’s twisted soul, right down to the terrifying nervous twitch of licking his lips constantly. His performance lends the question: what came first, Ledger’s demons or the role of the Joker? A sort of chicken and egg conundrum. There’s been Oscar talk, which is justified upon seeing Ledger’s Joker.

Bale, as always, delivers. I think he will become the resident “series restorer” as demonstrated by the preview before The Dark Knight for Terminator: the Salvation. Bale can wear the suit—both bat and Armani. He wears Batman’s righteousness and frankness on his knife-adorned bat sleeve, and naively wears his affection for Rachel Dawes on his pinstriped sleeve. One wonders if the audience will ever tire of seeing Bruce Wayne suffer as he tries to really live when his is mask off. The answer is a wholehearted no—as long as Bale is at the helm.

Maggie Gyllenhal, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Cane are also great components of Nolan’s twisted tapestry. The script gift-wraps some of the more melodramatic and better lines of the film for Michael Cane, and he, of all people, can sincerely deliver them. Oh, and obviously the script has some nuggets for Freeman, though he can make any line sound like Robert Frost caliber poetry (even a line like: "Oh, you want to be able to turn your head in your new suit.") Aaron Eckhart holds his own among Bale and Gyllenhal, despite the audience’s loyalty and sharper attention for Wayne and Dawes. We vaguely see why Rachel may be tempted by a capeless life with Harvey Dent. Nolan also demonstrates his dominance over this series by seamlessly evolving Harvey Dent’s transition to Two Face.

The Dark Knight will require more and more viewings to fully wrap one’s head around it. Gotham and it’s citizens—both masked and unmasked—are clearly in for far more three dimensional problems, at least while Nolan’s in charge Though, I am sure each viewing will offer up a new philosophical cookie—much more complex and richly sinful than Burton’s half moon one—to munch and ponder. Again, it’s not that we didn’t like Burton’s batch, it’s just that Nolan’s is like tollhouse on smart and bad-ass steroids.