PLANK JULY 19, 2012
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Christoper Nolan is currently cinema’s master of foreboding. In Memento, he managed to convey anxious tension throughout a movie that was literally playing in reverse, and thus one whose “conclusion” was already known. With Insomnia, he trapped his characters in a perpetually-light but somehow gloomy Alaska, where menace seemed to lurk in the fog. And in his three Batman films, Nolan—aided along by Hans Zimmer’s and James Newton Howard’s overbearing but powerful score—has created a freaky, atmospheric Gotham where life appears permanently on the verge of going awry. Only David Fincher, among modern directors, is more adept at causing unease in his audience about what is coming next.
But absent some measure of subtlety and irony, foreboding can easily morph into portentousness. It is therefore no coincidence that Nolan, who has an evident weakness for grand philosophizing about good vs. evil and heroism vs. villainy, is the most portentous filmmaker we have. Asked about the trilogy whose final chapter, The Dark Knight Rises, opens Friday, Nolan said that he set out to answer questions such as, “What gives us fear? What gives us hope?” Sometimes, in other words, he seems to forget he is making superhero movies.
But it’s not just that the comic book plot of The Dark Knight Rises is inadequate to the themes Nolan wishes to address. The biggest problem with his latest film, the weakest of the series, is that the director’s obsessive gesturing at philosophical themes has overwhelmed the other requirements of successful filmmaking: plot cohesion, believable dialogue, tight editing.
None of these shortcomings is likely to matter much to viewers. Indeed, the bloated running time (164 minutes) and characters who seem more interested in speechifying than survival or self-interest are actually liable to thrill Nolan’s fans. The film’s inevitable success will be the latest evidence that nothing pleases audiences more than the belief that the film they are watching is grappling with life’s Big Questions. Christopher Nolan’s genius has been to make movies that flatter the audience by inviting it to participate in the discussion.
“BATMAN IS THE hero Gotham deserves but not the one it needs right now.” So says Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) during the finale of The Dark Knight (2008), the previous entry in the series. The problem with this line, and with the scores of others like it in this latest film, is that I have no idea what it means.
The Dark Knight, which was quite good for the first 90 minutes of its running time, eventually bogged down in ridiculous plot twists and ham-handed lessons in right vs. wrong. (Harvey Dent, the crusading district attorney, is so angry that the love of his life was killed that he decides to join forces with…her killer.) Eventually it is decided that the city of Gotham will not be able to handle the truth about Dent’s turn to the dark side. Batman is cast as the villain instead, which presumably would also have been hard for the citizens of Gotham to accept, but never mind. Sometimes heroes must bear the greatest burden of all. (Nolan’s scriptwriting style is infectious.)
The reason for recounting this creaky plot is that it is used as the set-up for the latest film, with the city of Gotham peaceful 8 years later. But a new super-villain, Bane, played with great menace by Tom Hardy, is intent on bringing Gotham down. He wants to return the city to the people, or destroy it, or both. The politics of the movie are muddled and confusing, but Bane does desire to humiliate the wealthy, and neuter or destroy the police. One of the many amusing aspects of the plot is that Bane and his henchmen, all psychopathic murderers and terrorists, are angrily moralistic that the police lied to Gothamites about Dent. These villains certainly have a strange ethical code—murder good, lying bad—but I think here, as elsewhere, we can glimpse Nolan the freshman philosopher peeking out from behind the camera. (Nolan obviously does not believe that lying for the greater good is on par with murder, but merely raising phony ethical dilemmas has an obvious appeal to him.)
Bane’s plan, in addition to isolating Gotham and taking the entire city hostage, is to lure Bruce Wayne out of retirement. The reasons for this, too complicated to explicate, have to do with the characters’ backstories. This in turn forces Bane to utter dialogue whose weightiness is undoubtedly the X factor that every fan-boy craves. “The shadows betray you because they belong to me,” he notes at one point, and we are undoubtedly supposed to nod and appreciate whatever symbolism we presume Nolan to be imparting.
The rest of the film concerns Batman’s battles with Bane and other assorted villains, his romancing of Catwoman (well played by Anne Hathaway), and the helpful advice he gets from the film’s voices of wisdom. I counted five major characters whose raison d’être is to lecture Wayne and the audience on the “good” values that contrast with Bane’s. (My respect for my readers prevents me from translating the French.) The utter seriousness of the movie eventually saps the performances, too. Bale is a wonderful actor who can be funny, but he is so buttoned-down and serious here that you’d hardly ever guess it. In one dramatic scene, he whispers all his lines, presumably to convey their weight. Meanwhile, Hardy’s character, Bane, speaks through a mask for the entirety of the movie, distorting his voice.
Prior to the film’s release when test audiences reported difficulty understanding the character, Nolan loftily informed the studio that he would only consider changing the audio slightly because, as one executive said, “Chris wants the audience to catch up and participate rather than push everything at them. He doesn't dumb things down. You’ve got to pedal faster to keep up.” One is tempted to inquire why Nolan perceives a link between incomprehensibility and intelligence. (Indeed, Bane is not the only character who is hard to understand. Several other actors have trouble being heard over blasting music.) But it is more important to note the backhanded compliment to the audience, as if watching the movie is in itself some sort of intellectual achievement.
What is surprising for a director as talented as Nolan is how sloppy much of the movie is. Twists occur with little plausibility or coherence, characters appear in places they have no reason to be, and a crucial feat of physical strength is premised on the idea that Batman cannot do something that a small child was able to accomplish years before. This particular absurdity can be explained by Nolan’s tiresome eastern spirituality (“you must journey inward,” Batman was informed in the first film.) With a near Gandhian focus on mind-body distinctions, Nolan sets forth the opinion that any physical feat can be accomplished if one has the necessary inner strength. This may be risible (or worse) as morality, but it does add a dose of pretentiousness to Nolan’s appeal.
And it’s that appeal that is set to conquer all this weekend. Nolan cannily understands that the last thing an audience wants is to feel condescended to (“condescend” being one of those words that is misused in the script.) The Dark Knight sparked an endless amount of commentary over its supposed relevance to the Bush years, and this latest film has sparked related murmurings on the potential similarities between Occupy Wall Street and Bane’s gang of thugs. But don’t be fooled. Taking Nolan seriously as a social commentator is giving him more credit than he deserves. He has nothing to tell us about good or evil, other than the idea that evildoing and darkness are by definition profound. I remember being 17 when The Matrix was released, and partaking in endless conversations about “what is real” before grasping that it was these chats that explained the movie’s success much more than the slow-motion fights did. Audiences want one thing more than entertainment: They want to feel respected. If only Christopher Nolan actually respected them.
15 comments
"What is surprising for a director as talented as Nolan is how sloppy much of the movie is." What makes you say Nolan is so unusually talented? Sure, "Memento" was a slick little showpiece of po-mo noir and was genuinely impressive for a freshman effort, but "Insomia" was a dud, and the first two of Nolan's Batman flicks were distinguished from competing superhero movies mostly by the self-seriousness that you describe here. The other night, "Batman Begins" was shown on broadcast tv here in Oz as a bit of pre-DKR hype. Talk about a loose and baggy monster! They could've cut 40 minutes from that movie and it would have been the better for it. And it wasn't that it was overloaded with a lot of interminable, CGI-heavy action sequences, either. There were literally dozens of scenes stuffed with slack, expository dialogue and close-ups of Christian Bale throwing the bulk of his effort into speaking with an American accent. In the end, for film critics--and I know you're not a film critic generally, but you're acting as one here--to pay these men-in-tights comic book dramas any serious attention is sort of like a gourmet food critic writing a critical essay about the newest flavor of Doritos. Christopher Nolan is as good a director as he needs to be to do the job he's been given, which is to haul in a billion dollars in box office receipts.
- AaronW
July 19, 2012 at 4:38pm
Yeah sorry, still love the movies and the director.
- ARealHero
July 19, 2012 at 7:13pm
And I love Doritos.
- AaronW
July 19, 2012 at 7:16pm
And I gotta get to the drawing board, figure out how to illustrate the new (very serious) novel, "The Dark Knat." Or, gnat. Whatever. :)
- Sophia
July 19, 2012 at 10:28pm
The first movie was kinda fun, the second incoherent, and it sounds like the third is neither fun nor coherent. Enough of this crap. Nolan doesn't have anything profound or interesting to say, and, even if he did, guys running around in Halloween costumes is a stupid way to say it. All this nasty carnage and bullshit solemnity -- you have to earn that. How? I don't know. By having a genuine point, maybe. By creating real characters, maybe. Otherwise, you're just being nasty for the fun of it, which is despicable. It's also numbing for the audience. Not mind-numbing so much as heart-numbing, which seems to be the great evil at the empty core of so much of today's pop entertainment, from point-and-laugh reality shows to retrograde romantic comedies to "torture porn" to unbelievably violent video games to the latest pile of poo shit out of Adam Sandler's diseased asshole. This is the age of best sellers -- for kids, mind you -- about the insipid romance of vampires or kids fighting to the death in staged competition; when women are devouring a series of books about female submissiveness to a rich douchebag under the heading of "naughty fantasy"; when Ayn Rand is serious reading for allegedly intelligent people; when even fancy television is about delightfully intriguing sociopaths -- polygamists, serial killers, drug-dealers, and, of course, vampires, from sociopaths in the Old West to sociopaths behind bars, from the sociopaths of modern gangland New Jersey to the sociopaths of Olde Tyme gangland New Jersey, not to mention the sociopaths of the Jersey Shore. Fuck New Jersey, already. Sorkin's Newsroom, whatever its flaws -- and I think they're overstated -- at least is populated by reasonably nice people, and we needn't be so embarrassed by idealism. It's all that other stuff we should find embarrassing and ask questions about -- specifically, "Is this okay?" Often the answer is, nah, not really.
- JakeH
July 19, 2012 at 11:43pm
Assuming your reading of the movie is correct - the only way Nolan is disrespecting the audience is if he's serving up less than he's capable of. What evidence do you have that that's the case? Maybe he's engaging at the highest level he's capable of (= respect), but just isn't all that smart.
- floydsm8
July 19, 2012 at 11:43pm
On reading JakeH's comments: Nolan's a genius. Many people will go to a superhero movie, and some smaller number will go to a weighty, or weighty-seeming, cinematic engagement with Big Ideas. Nolan's got almost all of the first group, a surprising share of the second, and a bunch of others who come along to see what the excitement's about. Which makes you a loser who doesn't get it, Isaac. Sorry.
- floydsm8
July 19, 2012 at 11:46pm
floydsm8, sorry, are you saying that Nolan's a genius at *making films*? Or are you saying that he's a genius at filling seats? Cause those are two different things. After the topic sentence -- "Nolan's a genius" -- the rest of your paragraph was only in support of the latter proposition. I know this fact is contrary to the essence of contemporary American values, but you know that box office success doesn't actually make the movie good, nor does it make critics "losers." I prefer your previous post, in which you suggested that Nolan "just isn't all that smart."
- JakeH
July 20, 2012 at 12:10am
Wow. Two thoughts come to mind: 1) Damn Isaac, you're right. Despite my enjoyment (and apparently that of ARealHero), you did indeed crystallize that underlying, disbelieving skepticism I was peripherally aware of. And 2) TNR Commenters: I hope the rest of our TNR friends aren't such killjoys. It is kind of fun to suspend disbelief from time to time, but I understand if Nolan wasn't the director able to get you to do it willingly.
- RJSampson1
July 20, 2012 at 3:32am
He got me to enjoy it willingly. I just like his movies and I'm not ashamed to admit it.
- ARealHero
July 20, 2012 at 4:19am
I love Nolan's movies. He's like a combination of Hitchcock and classic Spielberg (before Spielberg started phoning-it-in and making crappy movies). Most of Nolan's films are supposed to be fun, cerebral mind games. They're about complex plot twists and shifts in perspective. Take The Prestige for example; I don't think it's about anything more than the joy of seeing a movie. And Nolan doesn't rely on CGI, like the rest of these jokers making action films. You can see the big budget on the screen. His last two Batman films were the ultimate summer events, and I suspect that I'll feel the same way about The Dark Knight Rises, when I see it tonight. So many people say that Nolan took himself too seriously with this Batman series, but they're missing the point. What preceded his films? Burton's silly, slap-happy Batman movies, and Joel Schumacher's embarrassing celluloid stains. At least Nolan tried to approach the franchise from a different angle. And he's laughing all the way to the bank. By the way, every time Nolan has made one of these films, he's gone on to try something completely different--completely outside of typical Hollywood franchises. Inception, whether you love it or hate it, was not your typical Hollywood action film.
- maxhencke
July 20, 2012 at 9:35am
I liked Memento and Insomnia, which had characters. My theory is that even pop entertainment is character-driven, in the sense that if you don't care about the people, you don't care what happens to them. I'm not against suspending disbelief or in favor of strictly realistic drama or deep thoughts. In fact, we could probably use less in the way of attempts at deep thoughts. These guys who make movies don't generally seem like a very deep lot, and so it's a little embarrassing to have to endure their adolescent musings in all their fresh pomposity. You mention Hitchcock -- good contrast. He was a classy button-pusher of the first order who rarely if ever had anything very important to say. Then again, he didn't take himself or his movies so damned seriously. Vertigo -- the purported masterpiece -- is his heaviest, most humorless movie, and also may be his least entertaining. More typical was the breezy charm of North by Northwest, which I take as his real masterpiece, and is typical of the sort of movie Hollywood used to churn out with some regularity right through, say, the early 90s -- that is, adult thrillers featuring plausible likable people, some wit, some sex, some peril, a twist, maybe even a modest point or two. That genre is just about extinct. The last great example I can recall off the top of my head right now was a French movie from a few years ago called Tell No One. I'd say *Nolan* is the real kill-joy. Inception was such a deflating experience. Here's this neat notion involving dream worlds that has lots of potential -- as cinema, as clever story, as witty adult thriller -- turned into this turgid, bombastic load that failed on every level. I mean, the dreamcapes didn't even look dreamy! Not to mention the tedious details of the conceit and the utterly flat characters. So much in-your-face booming signifying nothing. Stop yelling at me, I want to say. I can hear you. It's just that you're not saying anything.
- JakeH
July 20, 2012 at 1:07pm
I guess I just don't read into it that much when it comes to Nolan. I found Inception really entertaining--as well as his other pop action movies. It's cerebral only in the way that a brain puzzle is: it challenges the mind in the immediate moment, but ultimately doesn't incite deep philosophical reflection. The difference between playing a game of a chess and reading Blaise Pascal. Then again, I've never really felt that Nolan was a "kill-joy." He deals with dark subject matter, but that doesn't bother me.
- maxhencke
July 20, 2012 at 2:46pm
Inception had some really beautiful visuals and an interesting plot but the action sequences, especially in the snow, were boring and interminable and derivative, truly unnecessary to the interesting plot. People love dreams, a mainstay of art and myth. Why destroy the ephemeral, ambiguous and beautiful challenge of dreams with snowmobiles and automatic weapons?
- Sophia
July 20, 2012 at 2:50pm
I feel no urge to watch this movie, though I read some of the comic books when I was a kid. I feel no urge to move to Colorado, though I have "out of law" in laws who live there. I don't know if today's news means you should pull or modify this article. It's your call. You never know when life will imitate art to vividly and dramatically.
- skahn
July 20, 2012 at 3:26pm