I’d really intended to stop posting about The Dark Knight. Really. I did.
Since watching the flick, however, I’ve been reading some commentary on the film, and in the process I’ve discovered some interesting discussions that center on the film’s political and philosophical grounding. Strange that a Batman film is generating some genuinely serious conversations about filmmaking, politics, and philosophy – but there it is.
It seems a number of people are perturbed not only by the film’s darkness, but by the possibility that the film has nihilist underpinnings. Others, it seems, are disturbed by the perception that director Christopher Nolan has attempted to advance a politically conservative agenda with regards to the war on terror.
While I don’t agree with the notion that the film is nihilist (dark, sure, but I do not think the film posits the absence of good, or hope), I think that there is room for debate on the political issue.
I liked the film quite a bit. I also consider myself a liberal. So what the hell am I to do if I say I can see the logic in the argument that the film is, at the very least, ambiguous in its treatment of vigilante justice? I don’t really know the answer to that one.
To cite one example from the film: the character of Lucius Fox, played by Morgan Freeman, objects when Bruce Wayne uses high-tech gadgetry to essentially wiretap the whole of Gotham City. I’d object to this too, frankly – on the grounds of privacy issues and the breach of civil liberties. It is notable, however, that Fox agrees to help Wayne ‘just this one time’ – to defeat the 'terrorist scourge' known as The Joker.
Nolan's decision to have Fox make an exception in this one case would seem to support the argument that extreme measures are warranted in fighting extreme threats – even if those measures infringe on civil liberties.
Another example: a Chinese businessman guilty of helping the mob launder money has escaped the police and fled. The Chinese won’t extradite him – and so the Gotham police and the district attorney’s office ask Batman to make use of his extralegal status and retrieve the man from his home in Hong Kong. Batman does so successfully (violating any number of international treaties in the process), and the film plays this as a good thing.
There are several other instances in the film that could conceivably be used to argue that it is conservative in nature.
One counterargument to this, of course, is that the film portrays Batman not as a clear hero, but as a man whose morality is highly questionable - and that, as a consequence, the argument that the film wholeheartedly endorses conservative ideals rests on shaky ground.
I honestly do not know the answer to this one. I am a bit perturbed by the notion of the film’s conservative underpinnings myself. The Dark Knight is a difficult title to simply dismiss, in part because of its content, and in part because the people involved in its making are genuinely talented people – and the film, love it or hate it, is made with genuine artistry.
Below you will find five links to articles that discuss the film’s dark content.
1. David Edelstein, NPR - 'Dark Knight, A Cheerless Blood-Drenched Allegory’
2. Andrew Klavan, The Wall Street Journal - 'What Bush and Batman Have in Common'
3. Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com – ‘The Saga of George W. Batman’
4. Dave Kehr
5. Keith Uhlich, The House Next Door – ‘Trickster Heaven, Two-Faced Hell: The Dark
Knight’
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