The Dark Knight Offers Awesome Explosions, Moral Complexity

The Dark Knight is the greatest movie ever made, at least according to the democratic standards of the Internet. Currently voted as #1 on IMDb, the movie’s popularity will eventually subside, but for now, our collective imagination belongs to Batman. How can The Godfather compete with the neat sound of Batman’s motorbike as he rides up a wall and flips over, his screeching tires overcoming the roar of flipping semis?

Perhaps the film’s most visceral pleasures can only be replicated by buying another ticket and filing back into the theater, but—aside from the one-liners, impossible gymnastics, and awesome costumes—The Dark Knight leaves its audience scratching their heads, providing plenty of food for thought on the subway home.

The story resembles one of the grandiose psychological experiments of its main villain. As skillful as the Joker, The Dark Knight manipulates the audience through sympathy and anger, using emotions to confuse our judgment and forcing us to question our gut reactions.

Screenwriter (and producer and director) Christopher Nolan picks and chooses various pieces of Batman lore for the screenplay, and the script often feels rushed in its attempt to include as much material as possible. Despite 152 minutes of complex plot, though, Nolan never seems to be tacking storylines on. Rather, each plot element fits into a fairly coherent whole. What the script lacks in smooth execution, it makes up for in ambition.

The Joker’s hypothesis: all men are just like him, just as willing to stab their neighbor in the back. To test this theory using Gothamites as lab rats, the Joker sets up a series of experiments, his variables completely insane and his constants cruelly logical. Brought to horrible vivid life by Heath Ledger, the Joker may be flashy, but the clown has hidden depths. The dead actor’s performance echoes this contradiction. The actor may cackle away wearing impenetrable make-up, but he also displays flashes of disturbing emotion, set to almost inaudible whining. The Joker literally has no good in him, no moral ambiguity. Even a story about his childhood, seeming to explain his scarred soul, turns out to be infinitely flexible, designed to manipulate his prey. How does one define a hero against such a straightforward villain, bent only on “seeing the world burn”?

We expect either a simple hero or perhaps an antihero. But perhaps what’s most surprising about this populist film is its conflicted sense of morality, far from the “good vs. evil” of Superman Returns or the “evil vs. slightly less evil” of Sin City.

As the Joker’s games move in an ever-expanding circle, from mobsters to mayors before encompassing the entire population of a city, the heroes become more and more troubling. By the film’s conclusion, it seems that good can only exist as the theoretical sum of incompatible parts, the public confidence of politician Harvey Dent combined with the brutal methods of the criminal outlaw, Batman. Though evil stands out, clearly delineated, good becomes nearly impossible to pinpoint.

Despite this confusion, The Dark Knight is an extraordinarily idealistic and ideological film. The concepts of morality, honor, and faith pop up every few minutes. Take, for instance, the notion of democracy—an ideal clung to by the various good guys of the film, something that may yet restore Gotham City from its sins. The story challenges democracy on multiple fronts, but Batman and the good people of Gotham ultimately prove far more destructive than the Joker’s final hand.

Immersed in messy political realities, The Dark Knight mirrors the last eight years of our lives. The parallels quickly become clear. The Joker is explicitly referred to as a terrorist several times, and so Batman builds a device to monitor the telephone lines of every citizen in Gotham City. (One can only imagine a politician showing up to rebuild the city, and offering amnesty to Batman the wiretapper.) One character strenuously opposes the spy machine, observing that it makes a mockery of human rights. But here, Batman departs from the traditionally liberal sentiments of Hollywood. As the superhero argues, the Jester (a terrorist, you may recall) represents a threat serious enough to warrant such technology, despite the consequences.

In an impressive storytelling feat, the citizens of Gotham simultaneously wage their own war against the ideals of democracy, their moral compunctions melting away under pressure. Their fate lies out of the Joker’s hands, yet the public must still fear itself. Democracy and privacy, family and the police force—all are good things, The Dark Knight insists, but its moral dilemmas relentlessly twist these ideals into forces of evil.

By the conclusion of The Dark Knight, Gotham City believes a massive lie, which Batman calls “faith.” Though this conclusion initially seems cynical and elitist, we the audience have more cards in our deck. We are better equipped to see the divide between good and evil, as Batman and the Joker alike strip us of our freedoms.