Summer Movie Suicide Mission No. 21: The Dark Knight

In which one man attempts to view every summer blockbuster for the entire season, regardless of taste, genre, or getting chased by a Mack truck-driving nutcase in clown makeup.

With all the hype surrounding The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan’s follow-up to the excellent Batman Begins, I couldn’t help but be a little underwhelmed. It’s hard not to be; every word I’ve read about the film has been so laudatory that I came to expect nothing short of perfection.

The Dark Knight is not a perfect film. It dismisses what could be a major plotline for a sequel in the last fifteen minutes, and Christian Bale’s put on Batman voice is more than a little distracting. But those problems are so insignificant in the grand scheme of things that they can’t really diminish the overall work, which handles the superhero genre with a complexity that Iron Man or The Incredible Hulk only dabbled with by comparison. And I loved both of those films mostly for the complexity with which they handled their superhero characterizations. The Dark Knight is, simply, a cut above. It’s not a perfect film, certainly. But it’s damn close.

Nolan directed Memento, which is the kind of bizarre character study that a lesser filmmaker would ruin, and Nolan handled it deftly and subtly (Guy Pearce’s standout performance didn’t hurt). Following up with Batman Begins, Nolan again did excellent work, but was hampered a bit by the necessity of an origin story that went on a little too long. The Dark Knight has no such necessity. Bale’s Batman is already developed, and the film can focus on a single episodic adventure, as complex and far reaching as this one happens to be.

The standout performance is, of course, Heath Ledger’s Joker, a role he plays with the kind of sociopathic bravado that Jack Nicholson, great as he was, could never aspire to. Even as the Joker, Jack was still just being Jack. Ledger puts on the clown makeup, but never once feels like a cartoon. He’s more Hannibal Lecter than Cesar Romero.

Aaron Eckhart, as new District Attorney Harvey Dent, delivers a similarly good turn, and like Ledger, outshines Bale on screen. Bale does a fine job as the Bruce Wayne/Batman dyad, but The Dark Knight is not really his movie. It’s more of an ensemble piece, the kind of great crime thriller that transcends the superhero genre into something more eventful, more grounded, just, more.

It’s also a great city showcase film, with Chicago subbing for the fictional Gotham (Even the license plates look like Illinois’). It’s the first Batman film that makes Gotham feel like a real place; Tim Burton’s adaptations gave painted Gotham only in shades of black and gray, while Joel Schumacher’s versions were strange technicolor abominations. 

The hype machine is a strange beast. It can bring in a massive audience, but it can leave people disappointed. In The Dark Knight’s case, it certainly has done the former, but it mostly delivers on its promise.

Film: The Dark Knight
Director: Christopher Nolan
Stars: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Aaron Eckhart, Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman

Viewing Situation: Weekday evening, full house; standard projection
Rotten Tomatoes Average: 94%
My Grade (Out of 10): 9

Next Up: Space Chimps

Mad Men: Season Two, Episode 1, “For Those Who Think Young”

Advertising seems like such a modern American phenomenon, it’s easy to forget that the medium is as old as mankind. Western capitalism has refined the process to such a point that, today, products are almost indistinguishable from the messages that sell them. The medium is the message, to borrow McLuhan, and so it goes that the delivery system is just as important as that which is being delivered.

Mad Men protagonist Don Draper (Jon Hamm) grasps the significance of that, and lives it, operating as he does in the golden age of his business. During the post-war prosperity of the 1950s, consumer products were more sought after than ever. Production was high, and consumption kept pace. Unlike in other markets throughout the world, the television industry in America sprung up with advertising as its backbone, providing an optimal venue for moving product. While advertising was ever present in American life before the TV age, it was around this time that it became integral and unavoidable. It was a great time to be selling pretty much anything.

When Matthew Weiner wrote the pilot for Mad Men in 1999, he was looking to explore the end of the prosperous 1950s, when the whole experience of being American was becoming something radically different that it was during the decade’s infancy. He chose the advertising industry as a lens to explore the culture in flux, an industry that changes slowly (in lockstep with the societal tide), in almost perfect contrast to the fast and furious messages it delivers.

It’s in this spirit that Mad Men paces itself: slowly, deliberately. This is not a criticism; for a period drama that begins in 1960, when the massive social shifts that would define the end of that decade just beginning in a slow burn, it’s hard to imagine approaching it any other way. Little happens in any given episode of the series, but the devil is buried deeply within the details. The show so richly develops the period and its characters that even the tiniest plot turn is incredibly rewarding.

Season one dealt more with a changing tide in the American lifestyle, where the traditional family structures and gender roles became steadily more liberal and diverse, while exploring the vestiges of the old ways and contemporary taboos. Season two, which premiered Sunday, seems (if the first episode is any hint) to delve more deeply in the changes to come in the ad business. Draper and company seem poised to ponder their own obsolescence, as the Sterling Cooper agency reluctantly approaches a youth movement.

As Draper interviews some potential young new hires, the fear among the rest of the old guard is palpable. Undoubtedly some will not survive, while others will adapt to stay afloat. As Weiner’s camera has increasingly gone beyond the agency walls as the run of the series has gone on, we’re likely to see how the youth movement effects life outside of business, which, of course, is the whole point.

Episode one continued at a familiar pace, but it’s noticeable that the stakes are being raised. Roles are changing: after a fourteen month lapse in the plot, Peggy Olsen (Elisabeth Moss) is (almost) fully accepted in her creative position; Betty Draper (January Jones) is escaping her home life more than her husband would previously have allowed; Don is being reluctantly faithful to his wife; and Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) is, well, still kind of a pain in everyone’s ass.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or just change really, really slowly.

On a show like Mad Men – or really, on any show worth a damn — the subtext is much more important than the surface message. And subtext is more valuable the deeper it’s imbedded. This might as well be an advertising credo. Draper knows that selling a product is really about selling the consumers a better version of themselves. Weiner knows that when he tells his narrative, he’s really taking a new look at history.