The Abyss Stares Back

After the resounding success of Batman Begins, Nolan made The Prestige. The story of two duelling, driven magicians in turn of the century England is as delightfully poncy as it is distressingly grim and choked with suffocating gravitas. With the possible exceptions of Pesci and DeNiro in Raging Bull, Goodfella's and Casino, The Prestige features the greatest piece of apropos dual lead casting in cinematic history. Hugh Jackman as Angier, the flashy, charming showman prone to leaning on his overwhelming stage presence to cover up his sloppy craft and Christian Bale as Borden, the humorless technique machine whose only interest is being the best, no matter the cost to his personal life or physical safety. To be entirely clear up front, there is absolutely nothing about this film I don't unreservedly adore. The period costuming, the convoluted joint journal reading narration deception device, the stately photography, the rumbling, portentous score. This film has an embarrassing wealth of everything that technically makes a movie great, but it's the universally pitch perfect performances that breathe life into this handsome construct, filling its lungs, causing its chest to rise.

Hugh Jackman is a treat as Wolverine and all, but I'd never considered him a serious actor until seeing this. He's classic Hollywood movie star huge in this with charisma off the charts. When he first performs his Tesla machine assisted Transported Man in front of an audience and the spotlight hits him on the balcony, my breath was literally taken away in the movie theater. He gets to hit some tortured, devious notes though as well, and he pulls them off nicely. Bale is brilliant as usual, only more so somehow. His intensity and sincerity in this film is nearly unmatched. As much as The Machinist, The Fighter and American Psycho draw (deserved) attention with their extremity, I find myself most engrossed with his quiet, complicated work in this. You also have nice turns by Caine, Serkis and Johannsen, but David Bowie really shakes things up as an aloof, bizarre Nikola Tesla.

All these great actors coupled with the Nolan brothers absorbing screenplay and Christopher's peerless directorial chops add up to an intellectually stimulating and heartfelt film. Made for roughly one fourth of the Batman Begins price tag, it still managed to turn a decent profit and gave Nolan the air clearing break he needed to gather his forces to undertake what would become the most important film of his career thus far and one of the most quintessential films of a remarkably turbulent decade.

George Bush took his re-election in 2004 as a message from the American voters to not only "stay the course", but to dramatically escalate his entrenched position of unilateral decision making in regard to how to wage his "war on terror". The years between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight bore shocked witness to a horrifying insurgency, warrantless wiretapping, Abu Ghraib, Muqtada Al Sadr and a million other atrocities ranging from rampant corporate thievery to no bid Government contract swindles to crazed lone gunmen like Cho Seung Hui at home. No matter your political or religious beliefs, it was a tumultuous, terrifying time with death at every corner, torture on every ones mind and Orwellian word crimes constituting the bile at the back of the collective American throat. Christopher Nolan took a 70 year old archetype and two of his most popular villains, dusted them off and crafted an epic crime saga that synthesized our National guilt and outrage.

The Dark Knight is simply put, a staggering work. It is a meticulously composed, cathartic howl. It effectively exorcised and explored the complicated issues surrounding our handling of the Iraq war. It admits the wrongdoings, but does its best to explain the rationale behind these Bush, Cheney, Rumsfield et. al stand ins who imagine themselves trying to "be decent men in an indecent time". It grapples with the notion that a man who dresses up as a bat and enacts vigilante justice is no different than a political leader who makes rash decisions based on fear and motivated by revenge. Ledger's Joker is a marvelous proxy for the inexplicable terrorist mindset. An approach whose motivation is to destabilize and demoralize as opposed to intimidate and profitably integrate. There is a fascinating article here that explains the infinite parallels between The Dark Knight and the global nightmare that inspired it. I highly recommend reading it.

This is all well and good for pedants such as myself, but the film certainly would not have had the unprecedented hold on the popular culture mindset it has if it wasn't also entertainment of the highest order. Nolan mastered the IMAX camera system with this and defined what an event film should be for the foreseeable future. He handles the action scenes more deftly and impressively than ever, the resolution and size of the IMAX screen far surpassing the immersive possibilities of 3-D. Zimmer's score is a monumental masterpiece the likes of which rarely grace big budget superhero fare. The Dark Knight also thankfully continues Nolan's endearing quirk of left field casting, giving the likes of Michael Jai White, Eric Roberts, Anthony Michael Hall and Tony "Tiny Zeus" Lister the chance to rub elbows with the A-listers, much to the audience's benefit.

Aaron "think about the future" Eckhart doesn't get nearly the credit he deserves for why The Dark Knight works so well. His charm and square jawed all American good looks are almost begging to be twisted beyond recognition in the unforgiving Gotham Nolan has fashioned and he plays that fall from grace beautifully. His tragic anger and horrific derangement an uncomfortable mirror held up to post invasion Americas polluted soul. It is a film about how we became monsters in the pursuit of a noble ideal and Aaron Eckhart's harrowing performance wholly embodies that dispiriting transition. It is a dark, deeply strange film with a self loathing, suicidal bent. However, a ray of hope pokes through toward the end, even if the Joker gleefully reminds us that such flights of fancy are short lived and soon shot down. When my grandchildren are studying 9/11 and the Iraq war in middle school social studies and are pointed my way for info on a report they're assigned to do, I will sit them down and show them The Dark Knight. It is the definitive punctuation mark on one of the uglier sentences we as a country have ever gave utterance.

I've written a great deal on Inception already, so I will bring this to a close. The future is bright indeed for Christopher Nolan and those of us who consider him to be a guiding light in big studio film making. He's still quite young and his final chapter in the Batman saga is sure to be the biggest film released this year. My anticipation is holding at a fever pitch and I don't know how I'm going to make it another seven months. All footage and stills released thus far have been astonishing to my eyes, the trick now is to avoid all further spoilerific media. He's helping out on the story and production end for Snyder's Superman and I can think of no more perfect pairing. Whatever comes after all that is up in the air. Nolan's maturation has been principled and his hand has remained steady and true. Unlike in the worlds his films often depict, the future looks bright and promising.