{"id":8249,"date":"2012-07-26T20:30:41","date_gmt":"2012-07-27T03:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/?p=8249"},"modified":"2012-08-01T03:41:57","modified_gmt":"2012-08-01T10:41:57","slug":"the-dark-night-rises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/2012\/07\/the-dark-night-rises\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dark Knight Rises"},"content":{"rendered":"

Film (2012)<\/p>\n

Directed by Christopher Nolan
\nStory by Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer
\nScreenplay by Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan
\nOriginal Characters conceived by Bob Kane<\/p>\n

With Christian Bale (Bruce Wayne), Gary Oldman (Commissioner Gordon), Tom Hardy (Bane), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Blake), Anne Hathaway (Selina Kyle), Marion Cotillard (Miranda Tate), Morgan Freeman (Lucius Fox), Michael Caine (Alfred), Matthew Modine (Foley), Liam Neeson (Ra’s Al Ghul)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Christian<\/a>
Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne, a.k.a. Batman, and
Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle, a.k.a. Catwoman
\u00a9 2012 – Warner Bros. Pictures<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The third in the new Batman series, grim, bleak and full of excitement. Anne Hathaway as a wry and slinky Catwoman, and the new airborne and multi-jointed Batmobiles, add pizzazz.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Batman is back for this third installment of the latest rendition produced and directed by Christopher Nolan. <\/p>\n

This trilogy, indeed, is a dark version of the epic. <\/p>\n

Gotham (the loose analogue for New York) mourns its deceased Mayor Dent, but now seems at relative peace. But trouble brews underneath the city. Someone named Bane is doing bad things down below and various forces are at work to support him. Bad business people, irresponsible law enforcers and corrupt politicians all contribute to the messy mix. <\/p>\n

Batman has been out of commission for awhile, but things get bad enough to rouse him out of his torpor. This causes Alfred (Michael Caine) his dutiful butler, considerable angst and things get altered. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) is at work holding down the female agility corner, and another appealing potential consort for Bruce Wayne, Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard), shows up on the scene with apparent help. <\/p>\n

The newest Batmobiles are better than ever and get thorough workouts from their owner in trying to dispense with the time-sensitive disaster that Bane has cooked up.<\/p>\n

\"Batman<\/a>
Christian Bale as Batman and
Anne Hathaway as Catwoman
\u00a9 2012 – Warner Bros. Pictures<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This entire three part incarnation directed by Christopher Nolan, from the beginning of its run in 2005 with Batman Begins<\/em>, has had a macabre and grim quality. Scenes are dark, and frequently violent. If peace and light emerge, they hover briefly and are seen as ironic departures from the ordinary. The only place of sanity and comfort is the inside of Bruce Wayne’s mansion, protected by the warmth of Alfred’s (Michael Caine) glow. Otherwise, the world is a mess.<\/p>\n

But, despite this dark tone, Christopher Nolan has taken the Batman <\/em>series and reinvented it in an interesting way. Preceding interpretations had crazy villains (like Jack Nicholson’s Joker in the 1989 version of Batman <\/em>directed by Tim Burton) at the core, but the entire world they challenged did not seem chaotic and awful. Here it does. <\/p>\n

Virtue itself, made emblematic, but not owned, by Batman, gets to shine against its morally dreary backdrop.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

As a result, virtue itself – made emblematic, but not owned, by Batman – gets to shine against its morally dreary backdrop.<\/p>\n

Christian Bale continues to provide charm, though a grim and anguished form of it, to the role of Batman. He reasonably conveys a commitment to virtue that rises up through despair. It is not a particularly fun portrayal, but that is part of the challenge in this bleak interpretation of the tale. (It struck me, however, Bale has such a distinctively shaped mouth that I would think anyone could identify his Bruce Wayne even with the Batman mask on.)<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/a>
Two Good Cops
Blake(Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman)
\u00a9 2012 – Warner Bros. Pictures<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And there are, in addition to the protagonist, several additional points of moral light. <\/p>\n

Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), an idealistic cop, exercises virtue from the ground in the way Batman does careening around in his great cars. He is a great, terrestrial complement to the largely airborne hero and Gordon-Levitt provides a street-smart clarity to the role.<\/p>\n

Anne Hathaway’s lithe physique poured into her full body catsuit gives new meaning to the word slinky<\/em>. But, through her physical and moral slinkiness, we are able to see a deeper sense of virtue taking shape.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Selina Kyle, a.k.a. Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) though a morally complicated character, has a lucidity and wit that shines a light on whatever dark alleys she happens to cross. Hathaway’s lithe physique poured into her full body catsuit gives new meaning to the word slinky<\/em>. But, through her physical and moral slinkiness, we are able to see a deeper sense of virtue taking shape. It adds an interesting twist and moral shading to a story which might easily threaten to be black and white. This role is one of the real highlights of the film, and Anne Hathaway gives a sassy and fun sharpness to it; whenever she shows up in a scene, she makes it cook.<\/p>\n

Michael Caine continues to be a great Alfred, here taking on a parentally protective demeanor replete with emotion.<\/p>\n

\"Michael<\/a>
Michael Caine as Alfred
\u00a9 2012 – Warner Bros. Pictures<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Gary Oldman, not long ago a very good George Smiley in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy<\/a><\/em>, is very good here as well in his vulnerably insouciant way, as the dutiful police chief who continues to pay retail prices on a behalf of virtue.<\/p>\n

And Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox, the CEO of Wayne Enterprises and undercover technology wizard, offers his expected dose of sagaciousness. In one of its aspects, his role is analogous to that of the gizmo whiz Q<\/em> in the James Bond series, but carries with it, especially in Freeman’s hands, additional moral force. Q is a pure techie and enthralled by the ingenuity of his toys, but, apart from their immediacies of ingenuity, he bestows no magic on them. Alternatively, Lucius Fox issues his technologies, laden with moral expectations, as though he were Obi-Wan Kenobi bestowing a light sabre on Luke Skywalker.<\/p>\n

The main villain of this film, Bane, wears a mask and speaks in a way that is so reminiscent of the character Darth Vader in the original Star Wars<\/em> trilogy that one can only assume that Nolan is referring to it, even though the masked Bane character is part of the Batman comic book legacy.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

The main villain of this film, Bane, wears a mask and speaks in a way that is so reminiscent of the character Darth Vader in the original Star Wars<\/em> trilogy that one can only assume that Nolan is referring to it, even though the masked Bane character is part of the Batman comic book legacy. As well, Liam Neeson (Ra’s Al Ghul), who showed up in the Star Wars<\/em> trilogy produced in recent years, shows up in a mythic role here as well. That role, also, is part of the built in Batman mythology, but one cannot help but note the coincidence. These might just be inside jokes, or they might, as well, be Nolan’s way of capturing an extra dose of cinematic iconography.<\/p>\n

\"Bane<\/a>
Tom Hardy as Bane and Christian Bale as Batman
\u00a9 2012 – Warner Bros. Pictures<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Some Republican commentators have complained about the use of the name Bane<\/em> for the heartless villain, which is spelled differently from, but sounds exactly like, the name of Mitt Romney’s company, Bain<\/em>; but this character, as well, hearkens back to the mythology of the Batman comic book series. And, though it is a curious synchronous association, one can be quite sure that the schedule for the film script antedated the schedule of results for this run of Republican political primaries.<\/p>\n

Marion Cotillard (Miranda Tate) has a central and complex role here, which she pulls off reasonably well. However, I found her leading performance as \u00c9dith Piaf in La vie en rose<\/em> (2007) a virtuoso accomplishment, while here, now captured by Hollywood in an action film, she seems to be a bit out of place and underusing her talents.<\/p>\n

\"Morgan<\/a>
Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox
\u00a9 2012 – Warner Bros. Pictures<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The film has a fairly complicated mythology of villainous intentions, which seems to tie together the dark suicidal impulses of those warped under duress with the more ordinary corruptions of bad business people and politicians. There is also a pretty scary segment here in which some released prisoners and regular citizens gone wacky set up a kangaroo court and decide whether to exile or execute the condemned.<\/p>\n

That court, and the way that Nolan handles the Batman theme, strangely made me think of Socrates and his condemnation in the Athens of the fifth century BCE, where that great philosopher came up against a misdirected court which condemned him to exile or death. <\/p>\n

Batman is not exactly Socrates, but there is, in this entertaining but dark interpretation of the comic book myth, something about holding to virtue in the face of a morally vulnerable society, that rings a similar bell. And, with all those great cars whizzing around and Catwoman not far off in that dark landscape, that bell gets rung in a way that seems to get a lot of people to listen. <\/p>\n

The Last Days of Socrates (Penguin Classics)<\/a>\"\"<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

– BADMan <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Film (2012)<\/strong>
\nThe third in the new Batman series, grim, bleak and full of excitement. Anne Hathaway as a wry and slinky Catwoman, and the new airborne and multi-jointed Batmobiles, add pizzazz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8249","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-movies","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8249"}],"version-history":[{"count":78,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8393,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8249\/revisions\/8393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bostonartsdiary.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}