If you haven't yet seen the new Batman movie, "Dark Knight", then stop reading right here and move along to something else. I don't do many new movies, and this is the first review of one. It will be short and to the point.
In the tradition of "Death Wish", the Batman series has now descended into a moral morass in the pursuit of "right". But the pursuit of right in these cases is defined by the individual, not the absolute previously known as Right.
In this amorality play the final descent occurs when Batman and the new Police Commissioner decide between them that the 30 million residents of Gotham cannot survive without an unblemished hero, and that hero had just been dragged down into the abyss by murdering several of the bad guys. So Batman takes the blame for the murders and becomes an outcast vigilante, sought by the law. Thus the populace can be kept innocent of the truth about the hero they so desperately require.
What are we asked to believe here? First that real evil is so powerful that it cannot be fought by good - that it requires an equal measure of evil to conquer it. Then that the populace is so weak that it cannot but collapse under the weight of that knowledge, and must be protected from that reality. Third, that the ultimate necessary good is to use evil in secret, disguised as good, to fight evil. Last, that the ultimate altruism is to sacrifice yourself to protect the lie... the lie that "the people" require.
What is tarnished here is the idea that all humans are fallible; that truth is the most powerful weapon against evil; that morality is not relative. Perhaps it is the fallibility of the human underneath the rubber bat-suit that is being spotlighted here. If so, that is not obvious from this movie, which leaves the viewer marvelling at the altruism of Batman who is sacrificing his own reputation in order to hide the truth from the population of Gotham.
The residents of Gotham must be very weak to be dependent upon a perfect hero. That's where the movie confuses us the most: the citizens who are placed in the position of needing to destroy each other in order to survive themselves, choose the high road. They are fearful yet morally strong in a desperate pinch.
The movie thus convolutes the message, which leaves us in a paradox: are the people morally weak or are they morally strong? The decision at the end by the two real "heroes" leaves us concluding - against the evidence - that the people of Gotham are weak. And that Batman is morally corrupt himself, with a low opinion of Gothamites, and a lower opinion of the truth.
The next Batman movie should be called "Living the Lie". And Batman should be living with the consequences of his erroneous decision. Otherwise this cinematic ethical collapse will not be redeemed.
3 comments:
What was your opinion of the dark knight rises? Was the ethical collapse redeemed?
Didn't watch it.
You should watch it, it has major socialist/leftist/totalitarian themes. Plus I would like to read your take on it.
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