The Dark Knight

This might a Batman sequel but the Joker steals the show.

The most anticipated film performance in 2008 is sure to be one of the most memorable due to the brilliance of Heath Ledger’s new interpretation of the Joker and the mystery surrounding the actor’s death.

Following the massive success of Batman Begins in 2005, which made over $US350million worldwide, the sequel, The Dark Knight, was always going to be one of the most anticipated releases of 2008.

Then, during post-production on January 22, 2008 Heath Ledger, who stars as the Joker, was found dead in his Manhattan apartment at the age of 28 from an accidental overdose of drugs prescribed for insomnia and anxiety.

The buzz surrounding Ledger’s unparalleled and haunting portrayal of the Joker increased exponentially following his death and journalists couldn’t help but speculate about the similarities between Ledger’s on-screen performance as the deranged and disturbed psychopathic Joker and the reports of off-screen personal trials, insomnia and his inability to switch off from his Joker mentality in between takes during film production.

Well, the speculation can end as the film has now arrived. It is completely intact, including an early scene where Ledger, as the Joker, is brought into a room in a body bag. As the film neared its premiere date last month, there were questions of ‘taste’ in showing the scene in light of Ledger’s subsequent death, but the filmmakers have stayed true to their vision and allowed Ledger’s brilliant performance to speak for itself irrespective of real life occurrences.

I don’t know if it was the subconscious knowledge that the young man portraying the Joker on screen is now dead somehow added another dimension to my viewing experience, but every scene featuring the Joker is truly engrossing, haunting and mesmerising. Christopher Nolan, who directs and co-wrote this sequel and its predecessor has created a masterpiece of cinema with The Dark Knight in large part because of his re-imagining of the Joker.

Batman is, of course, a comic book character. And while comic books are increasingly becoming the sources of excellent material for filmmakers, the Batman franchise and its characters have had a chequered history. Batman begun as a dark character in the DC Comics of the 1940s but had become a camp figure by the 1960s thanks to the television series. Batman then regained his darkness and edge thanks to the comics and films of the late 1980s and early 1990s but the Batman films of the late 1990s let the terrible tongue-in-cheek tone creep back in. Nolan worked hard to rebuild the franchise with Batman Begins and now that we can take Batman seriously again, Nolan has given him a villain truly worthy of serious examination.

What makes Ledger’s Joker so frightening is that he is more unpredictable than the typical film villain. His modus operandi is impossible to nail down, except that he wants absolute chaos and disorder. The Joker burns a massive pile of cash earned from mob bosses – millions and millions of dollars – right in front of them to prove that his motivation is much more than mere money. His self-inflicted (or is it?) ‘Glasgow smile’ leaves his face with a permanently accentuated blood-red grin. But the Joker’s most twisted goal is to force the Batman to break his honour code – to never kill a person – proving that even heroes are corruptible. The Joker goes as far as to put his own life on the line to create a form of chaos that surely not even Batman can overcome. “And tonight, you’re gonna break your one rule…” the Joker mockingly tells Batman, while hanging far above the ground.

The Dark Knight really contains two overlapping, but distinct, story arcs. The second concerns District Attorney Harvey Dent whom, as Batman aficionados know, will become Two-Face. Dent is the man whom Bruce Wayne hopes will become the hero of the city, ridding it of crime without a mask thereby allowing Wayne to shed his Batman alter ego. However, when Dent has what is dearest to him brutally stripped from his life due to the actions of evil and corrupt men and women, his catchphrase “You either die a hero; or live long enough to see yourself become the villain” becomes a dark prophecy of his life. The once hero Dent proves to indeed be corruptible as he seeks immediate vengeance even to the point of taking human life.

While the Joker does not mastermind every evil act done in the movie, he is an evil figure who puts people into situations where the opportunity to choose evil over good is an enormous temptation. Many give in; seldom few choose well. The Joker really is a Satan-like figure in The Dark Knight seeking to create chaos and disorder. Like the serpent who threw just enough doubt into the minds of Adam and Eve when he twists the true words of God saying, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”, the Joker also delights in turning people away from what is good and right through subtle manipulation. Interestingly, Batman also plays a Christ-like role in The Dark Knight through his willingness to give himself up and bear the consequences of other’s wrongdoing, despite his clear innocence, all for the sake of the greater good of Gotham City.

The Dark Knight has a strong morality running through it. It is right to choose to do good; wrong to choose to do evil. Self-sacrifice for the sake of others is regarded as the highest virtue and Bruce Wayne in or outside of the Batman costume is the best at living up to this ideal. However, as with almost every Hollywood film, believing in the goodness of each other is the best we can hope for. The trouble is, as the book of Romans shows us, humans in their Godless state cannot possibly do right and honour God, leaving humanity in a pretty hopeless state. In fact, as crazy as the Joker is, he might have the most accurate description of the human condition verbalised in the film: “When the chips are down, civilised people will eat each other”. You only have to read Lamentations to know that even God’s people could regress to this state.

The Bible teaches that we must look to a saviour outside ourselves for salvation and God, in his mercy, gives us the God-Man Jesus Christ for this purpose. The Dark Knight’s idealised morality appears very honourable. But its message of humans as our own source of salvation is an obfuscation of the great truth of the gospel. It’s one that Christians ought to be wary of as they view any film that places human beings as the hero of the story.

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