Batman’s War on Terror
has already made close to one billion e Dark Knight dollars at the box office worldwide Directed by Christopher Nolan and may well be on its way to becom- Written by Christopher Nolan and ing the highest-grossing movie of all Jonathan Nolan time. Undoubtedly, the film’s immense Warner Bros., 2008. popularity is partially due to the suc- Reviewed by Benjamin Kerstein cess of its predecessor, the enduring popularity of the Batman character he resurrection of the superhero in both comic books and pop cin- Tmovie has been an American ema, and the more prurient interest pop-cultural phenomenon at least aroused by the premature death of since the massive success of the Heath Ledger, who co-stars in the X-Men and Spider-Man films in the film as the Batman’s perennial nem- early 2000s, but it has reached a new esis, the Joker. None of these reasons, apex of popularity with the recent however, are quite sufficient to ex- release of e Dark Knight, the latest plain the extraordinary success of e installment in the long-running Bat- Dark Knight. ere have been other man franchise. Director Christopher films based on beloved comic book Nolan’s highly anticipated sequel to characters, such as 2006’s Superman his 2005 blockbuster Batman Begins Returns, which have not been met
• A / • with the same epoch-making enthu- Indeed, if any film is going to stake siasm, and superhero sequels are by a claim for the comic book movie as no means guaranteed blockbusters in serious cinema, it is e Dark Knight. any case, as was demonstrated by the It is not a great film, but it is unques- lackluster performance of Batman tionably a work of genuine quality, and Robin in 1997. More interest- made by a director of ambition and ingly, e Dark Knight has been met skill. But the most likely reason e with a degree of critical acclaim un- Dark Knight has become a phenom- precedented for its genre. Even such enon, and not just another hit movie, highbrow organs as the New York is that beneath the standard pyrotech- Times and the Guardian, which usu- nics of the summer blockbuster, it is ally treat comic book films and se- a surprisingly explicit allegory to our quels in general as symptoms of the current age of terrorism, the challenge decline of Western civilization, have it presents to traditional ideas of hero- praised the film for both its artistry ism, and America’s own ambivalence and its content. Some reviewers have in confronting this challenge. In the even gone so far as to suggest that film’s deeply uncertain depiction of e Dark Knight represents a new an all too human superhero, Ameri- maturity for the superhero genre as a cans are watching their own tortured whole—that what was once a ghetto and conflicted relationship to the war for popcorn flicks is slowly becom- on terror laid bare before their eyes. ing something like an art form. e always reliably middlebrow critic atman first appeared in 1939, Roger Ebert went so far as to write, B and the character has outlasted “Something fundamental seems to almost all of his contemporaries. be happening in the upper realms of With the exception of Superman, he the comic-book movie…. e Dark is the oldest and most popular of the Knight move[s] the genre into deeper superheroes and a perennial favorite waters… these stories touch on deep of American pop culture. Despite fears, traumas, fantasies, and hopes.” Batman’s longevity, however, the Joe Neumaier of the New York basic underpinnings of the charac- Daily News summed up the phe- ter have remained remarkably un- nomenon in fairly succinct terms: changed over time. Set in the mythi- “is new Batman action-drama— cal uber-metropolis of Gotham City, ‘action-adventure’ is too slight a de- all the incarnations of the Batman scription—marks the moment su- mythos have chronicled the adven- perhero movies turned serious.” tures of Bruce Wayne, a fabulously
• A / • wealthy playboy who lives a secret to his own considerable talents as a life as a costumed crime-fighter. In director of visceral and kinetic genre his childhood, Wayne witnessed the films which still retain a measure of murder of his parents at the hands of a intelligence and subtlety. But it has petty criminal. As an adult, the trau- also been a result of the care which matized billionaire channels his grief Nolan and his co-writers have taken and rage by transforming himself into to emphasize the qualities that made the superheroic Batman. Each night Batman such an enduring character he stalks the rooftops of Gotham, in the first place: While Batman is battling criminals in a high-tech suit a superhero, he is not superhuman. of armor which gives him the appear- He has no special powers and relies ance of an enormous bat, the better to on high-tech gadgets and his own terrify the city’s evildoers and recreate strength and wit to combat evil. himself as a dark and silent guardian More interestingly, there is a basic of the shadows. schizophrenia to the character—he is In 1989, maverick director Tim a human being who dresses as a giant Burton re-imagined the character in bat, after all—which adds a layer of the first Batman feature film, launch- perversion and complexity to what ing a blockbuster franchise which would normally be a simple, heroic died an ignoble death with the afore- do-gooder. Moreover, unlike most mentioned Batman and Robin and of the classic superheroes, Batman was finally resurrected—or “reboot- is a relatively dark character: driven, ed,” as the current parlance goes—by tormented, and violent. He is more a British filmmaker Christopher Nolan Clint Eastwood-style vigilante than in Batman Begins. at film retold the clean-cut, all-American archetype Batman’s origin story in a new and represented by Superman, a contrast grittier style. Nolan’s realist take—to which legendary comics writer Frank the extent that any film about such a Miller took to its logical extreme fantastical and in some ways inher- in his acclaimed graphic novel e ently silly character can be called real- Dark Knight Returns, in which the ist—on the Batman mythos has both two icons literally beat each other to a returned the character to blockbuster pulp. It is also hinted, and sometimes status and given him a new lease on more than hinted, that Batman is at pop-cultural life. least slightly insane—perhaps just To a great extent, the success of as insane as the demented villains Nolan’s take on Batman has been due he pursues. It is this aspect of the
• A / • superhero which Nolan explores so fear and despair in the hearts of the effectively in e Dark Knight: his citizenry. status as an exception to the norms As the full dimensions of the of society, of law, and even of sanity, Joker’s plan begin to take shape, it along with the dangers and tempta- becomes clear that his terrorism has tions such an exception presents to a no rational, comprehensible motiva- society in crisis. tion. It is, rather, a form of psychotic performance art: e Joker is deter- he Dark Knight picks up precise- mined to demonstrate to Gotham T ly where Batman Begins left off: City that chaos is the natural state of Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is now things and that the laws and norms of well into his clandestine campaign society are powerless illusions. Ironi- to clean up Gotham City, which has cally, the Joker’s insanity is born of his suffered from years of crime, corrup- conviction that he is, in fact, the only tion, and neglect. In this quest, he is sane man on earth. “e only sensible secretly aided by his faithful butler way to live in this world,” he declares, and surrogate father, Alfred (Michael “is without rules.” is ruthless nihil- Caine), and police Lieutenant James ism presents Batman and his allies Gordon (Gary Oldman). Wayne with a menace they can neither un- hopes that Gotham’s new district at- derstand nor control. e Joker fears torney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) nothing, wants nothing, and cares will prove to be the “white knight” the about nothing. As Alfred sagely tells city requires to return to its former Wayne, “Some men aren’t looking for glory, which will render Wayne’s se- anything logical, like money. ey cret life as Batman—Gotham’s “dark can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or knight”—unnecessary. is fragile negotiated with. Some men just want state of affairs is shattered early in the to watch the world burn.” film by the appearance of the Joker e allusion to the horrors of our (the late Ledger, in a much celebrated current age is fairly obvious, and it performance), a thoroughly deranged is not limited to the film’s dialogue. psychopath who launches a cam- e Dark Knight is laden with the paign of terror against Gotham City, iconography of the war on terror: threatening and assassinating public e Joker is repeatedly referred to as officials and their family members, a terrorist. He makes videotapes of setting off bombs in public buildings, his victims which are eerily similar and deftly using the media to strike to the horrendous videos of jihadi
• A / • beheadings and other atrocities death and destruction as the Joker which have become so depressingly without breaking his own personal familiar in recent years. He manipu- code, which forbids him to kill. In lates the media in order to engage the end, he uses a city-wide surveil- in psychological warfare against his lance system—which fundamentally opponents. He destroys buildings violates the basic right to privacy of and landmarks that are promptly every citizen of Gotham—in order to swamped with rescue workers and find and subdue his adversary. -Ulti firemen in images chillingly remi- mately, the film seems to be asking niscent of the apocalyptic scenes at the central question of confronting Ground Zero. He deliberately targets terror—the “Guantanamo dilemma,” and murders innocent people indis- so to speak: At what point do the criminately. He makes use of human exceptional methods required to fight shields, booby-trapped bodies, and terrorism become a threat to the so- rocket-propelled grenade launchers ciety which employs them in its own similar to those employed by Iraqi defense? Can the norm be preserved insurgents. At one point he even in the state of emergency without appears as, quite literally, a suicide destroying it? bomber, with several grenades hang- is dilemma is played out ing from his coat. through the story’s three protago- Even more compelling is the film’s nists, each of whom follows a very depiction of its characters’ reaction to different path over the course of the terrorism. ough Gotham City is film. Harvey Dent, who eventually defiant at first, the escalating violence becomes the evil Two-Face, begins soon leads the citizenry to despair and the film as an upstanding officer of defeatism. As their usual methods fail the law. Several characters remark one by one, the police begin to resort that he is an idealist, an inspirational to increasingly aggressive and poten- figure. It is assumed that he believes tially dangerous tactics, such as tor- in the law and in the necessity of de- ture, endangering innocent people, fending it. At several points, in fact, and deceiving the media and the pub- he displays considerable moral and lic. Even the honorable Harvey Dent physical courage in the face of the uses violent coercion to get informa- Joker’s evil. But there are also hints tion from a suspect. Batman himself that he is not quite what he appears begins to wonder if he is capable of to be. He is self-confident to the defeating an enemy as indifferent to point of arrogance, personally vain,
• A / • and extremely ambitious. More im- the only morality in a cruel world portantly, his idealism is not as pure is chance. Unbiased. Unprejudiced. as his admirers believe. In his most Fair.” Like many idealists, Dent is telling scene, Dent refers to the an- ultimately unable to reconcile his cient Roman custom of appointing a lofty beliefs with the brutal realities dictator in circumstances of extreme of the world, so he abandons his faith danger, and wonders whether an in favor of an equally fervent belief in enlightened tyranny may not be su- nothing. perior to the rule of law—indicating a e other officer of the law, secret lack of faith in the institutions Lieutenant James Gordon, is the he represents. quintessential everyman. Unselfish, Dent’s weakness leaves him vul- hard-working, honest to a fault, ut- nerable to the satanic machinations terly lacking in personal ambition, of the Joker, whose savage and pur- Gordon works faithfully within the poseless cruelty finally breaks the bounds of the law despite the con- district attorney’s façade of nobility. stant frustrations of doing so. “I don’t “You had plans,” the Joker tells him. get political points for being an ideal- “Look where it got you. I just did ist,” he tells Dent. “I have to do the what I do best: I took your plan and best I can with what I have.” While turned it on itself. Introduce a little Gordon makes use of Batman’s serv- anarchy, you upset the established ices in order to fight crime, he is wary order, and everything becomes cha- of the vigilante’s tendency toward os. I am an agent of chaos. And you extralegal violence. At one point, he know the thing about chaos, Harvey? even attempts to prevent Batman It’s fair.” Convinced by the Joker that from brutalizing the Joker himself. pure chance is the only real justice in Gordon realizes that his efforts may the world, Dent abandons his duty ultimately prove futile, but he none- to the law in favor of the random theless persists. Somewhere beneath indifference of fate. He hunts down his tough exterior he clearly believes those he believes have betrayed him in the law and his small, often thank- and decides their punishment by the less role in enforcing it. Indeed, to flip of a defaced coin—heads, they a certain extent, Gordon is the only live; tails, they die. “You thought true hero in e Dark Knight. He we could be decent men in indecent does not take to the shadows, disre- times,” he tells Gordon. “But you garding the constraints of society in were wrong. e world is cruel. And pursuit of personal vengeance. His
• A / • normal, everyday heroism is the rule issues it presents. While the film raises to Batman’s exception. serious questions about the necessity And yet, as the German thinker and dangers of using extreme meas- Carl Schmitt—whose analysis of the ures to protect society from excep- state of emergency is the subject of tional threat, it never really answers much academic discussion today— them. is is most likely the reason once put it, “e exception is more for the diametrically opposed political interesting than the rule…. In the interpretations proffered by some of exception the power of real life breaks the film’s critics. Andrew Klavan in the through the crust of a mechanism Wall Street Journal wrote that the film that has become torpid by repeti- is fundamentally conservative and “is tion.” We are fascinated with Batman at some level a paean of praise to the precisely because he is anything but fortitude and moral courage that has normal and everyday. Like the Joker, been shown by George W. Bush in he is the quintessential exception. this time of terror and war.” Cosmo Driven by uncontrollable, chthonic Landesman in the Sunday Times, who inner forces, he is fanatical in pursuit disliked the film in general, claimed of his own sense of justice, which in contrast that “the film champions sometimes accords with the law and the antiwar coalition’s claim that, in sometimes does not. He is a force having a war on terror, you create unto himself who answers, ultimately, the conditions for more terror. We to no authority except his own per- are shown that innocent people died sonal definition of right and wrong. because of Batman—and he falls for In many ways, he is the Joker’s mirror it. Here is a Batman consumed with image; but while his enemy acts only liberal guilt and self-loathing.” to satisfy his insane compulsions, Bat- e key to e Dark Knight’s suc- man, like Gordon, is a self-sacrificing cess may lie in the fact that both men altruist: “I’m whatever Gotham needs have a point. e film certainly seems me to be,” he says. And at the end of to endorse the idea that society needs the film, Gordon muses that “He’s the men willing to take to the shadows: hero Gotham deserves.... Because he’s to act outside of society’s norms in not a hero. He’s a silent guardian. A order to save them. Indeed, Gordon watchful protector. A dark knight.” openly acknowledges that he needs Batman to go beyond the law and his may be the most interesting accomplish what he cannot. And yet T aspect of e Dark Knight: its the film also holds that this state of extraordinary ambivalence toward the affairs cannot be allowed to become
• A / • the norm: At the end of the film, is conclusion has some fairly Batman realizes that if Dent’s crimes dark repercussions, because it implies are revealed, Gotham will lose its last that, in some measure, the Joker is es- vestige of faith in justice and order, sentially correct: e norm is, in fact, thus giving the Joker his ultimate vic- a lie. Society needs the lie, demands tory. In a supreme act of self-sacrifice, the lie, if it is to survive in the face he tells Gordon to blame Batman for of an extraordinary threat. In turning Dent’s murders. “You’ll hunt me,” Batman into an outlaw, and having he says. “You’ll condemn me. You’ll him destroy the surveillance system set the dogs on me. But that’s what he has used to stop the Joker, the film has to happen. Sometimes truth isn’t holds that for the norm to remain the good enough. Sometimes people norm, the exception must remain an deserve more. Sometimes people exception, even if that exception— deserve to have their faith rewarded.” especially in a state of emergency—is e film ends with a sense of bleak existentially necessary for society. uncertainty as Batman, now a hunted In this sense, e Dark Knight is fugitive, disappears into the darkness, a perfect mirror of the society which determined to be the city’s shadow is watching it: a society so divided on protector, its dark knight, whatever the issues of terror and how to fight the cost. it that, for the first time in decades, is surprisingly desolate coda an American mainstream no longer implies that Batman’s sacrifice is -nec exists. Perhaps this is why the film has essary, because even if Gotham needs struck such a responsive chord with a dark knight, it cannot be allowed audiences: e ambivalence it ex- to consciously acknowledge this fact. presses is the same ambivalence with Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben which most Americans—consciously summed up this imperative with the or unconsciously—regard their cur- observation, “What the law can never rent predicament. Americans want tolerate—what it feels as a threat with to defeat terrorism, but they want to which it is impossible to come to defeat it without upsetting the basic terms—is the existence of a violence ideals of a free society. ey want outside the law.” To preserve the law, terror to be fought by any means people must believe that the man necessary, but without any of the at- who works outside it is a criminal, tendant horrors and compromises of however indispensable he may be. war. And e Dark Knight may well ey must believe, as Gordon says, be correct in positing that the only that “he’s not a hero.” possible resolution of such a dilemma
• A / • is not to resolve it at all, but to live particularly happy or optimistic mes- in a society based, in some manner, sage, but it is one which a great many on a lie. Because society, in order to Americans appear ready, and even be society, needs the lie. It is a noble strangely gratified, to hear. lie, perhaps, but a lie all the same. e alternative, the film seems to say, is to become a society of Harvey Dents or, Benjamin Kerstein is an assistant editor worse still, Jokers. It is, ironically, not a of A.
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