The “Knight” has never seemed so “Dark”

It’s a visual style. It’s a movie genre. And nearly 70 years after it first appeared, film noir is not only
still with us, but has successfully moved into the worlds of science fiction, the graphic novel and
now, perhaps even comic books. Take “The Dark Knight” (TDK), for instance. It’s not just the latest
in a seemingly endless series of comic-book films making the rounds these days, but a pop culture
phenomenon taking the world, and the box office (need I remind you that it has just past the $900
million mark in worldwide grosses this weekend), by storm. With this in mind, it's easy to forget
that it's also a brooding, dark story filled with moral ambiguities, torn souls, and sadistic foes; not
the usual popcorn munching, summer blockbuster one would expect from Hollywood these days.

Chris Nolan seems to creatively dance in and out of Film noir repeatedly throughout many of his
flicks and his latest offering, “The Dark Knight,” is no different. The film does a great job of flirting
with moral ambiguity while expressing the hardboiled school of crime fiction. “TDK” definitely
portrays the influence of film noir, filtered into a quite unique vision.

Some critics insist that a film noir, to be authentic, must have a bleak conclusion. However, many
acknowledged classics of the genre have clearly happy endings, while the tone of many other noir
denouements is ambivalent, in a variety of ways. What makes “The Dark Knight” so brilliant and
fascinating is that it has all of these. Harvey Dent falling to his “death” and Batman on the run
would be your bleak conclusion, the hope of Gotham sustained by not revealing Dent's crimes being
your happy ending and the lingering questions of whether Dent really dies and if Batman really is a
hero or merely a Fascist madman forcing his will on the city of Gotham, giving the story its
ambivalence.

“The biggest thing about noir is moral ambiguity, characters who are not easy to pin down - who is
good, who is evil?,” says “Dark Knight” director Christopher Nolan, referring to the genre and his
own film. “In the greatest film noir there is this continuing pressure being put on the character, and I
was looking back to a film like (the 1944 classic) ‘Double Indemnity.’ There is a spiraling sense of
doom in these films, the characters are under pressure, and you see how they react.” This is also
where Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard's score for the film succeeds so effectively. The
sense of doom and relentless pressure is echoed by the musical themes throughout the film. With
the constant one note track constantly heard in the background you find yourself overcome with an
almost uneasy, unnerving fear as you watch “TDK”. Even the more upbeat, action orientated theme
used for Batman is very downplayed and dark, much less heroic than one would expect.

“The Dark Knight” therefore also moves the comic-book-movie genre into much deeper waters.
Nolan realized, as some comic-book readers instinctively do, that these stories touch on deep fears,
traumas, fantasies and hopes. And the Batman legend, with its origins in film noir, is the most
fruitful one for exploration.

Film noir, literally “black film,” is a term coined in the 1940s by French critics to describe the dark,
cynical American crime dramas of the era. The genre’s classic period, roughly 1944-1958, emerged
from the horrors and cultural dislocations of World War II, and dealt with everything from the role
of women in society to the ways in which returning veterans, some of them shellshocked and drug-
addicted, attempted to fit into the postwar world. Noir movies often featured a private eye, a femme
fatale and a sadistic hoodlum. While “TDK” may lack a femme fatale, it makes up for it with an
abundance of the rest. Further more, many noir films were concerned with notions of identity, moral
ambiguity and the search for the truth, and these form the base of the entire “The Dark Knight”
story.
“Noir is caught up with postwar disillusionment, and the coming of more explicit crime literature,
like ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice,’” says Paul Meehan, author of “Tech Noir: The Fusion of
Science Fiction and Film Noir.” “It’s a study of nihilism, perversity, the darkness inside people.”
That also makes it a perfect style for the science-fiction and comic-book worlds, which, in works
like “Blade Runner” and “Road to Perdition,” have been flirting with dark themes for years.
“Because science fiction by its nature is allegorical, it allows you to discuss dark territory,” says
David Eick, co-executive producer of the critically acclaimed TV series remake of “Battlestar
Galactica,” which has explored classic noirish themes like the search for identity. “The science-
fiction genre fits with the film noir style,” he adds, “because it allows for a more emotionally
charged discourse.”

This sense of noirish doom has now also invaded the comic book and graphic novel, which have
increasingly turned to bleaker themes and visual styles, as seen in works like “Sin City” and the
upcoming film versions of “Watchmen” and the classic crime-fighting comic book hero “The
Spirit.” And who better than the dark knight himself. “Batman was the first noir superhero,”
Meehan says. “He inhabited a noir universe, the dark streets of Gotham City, filled with twisted,
crazy criminals.”

And while “‘The Dark Knight’ is essentially a crime story,” Nolan adds, “and not all crime stories
are film noir. I think you’re seeing a desire in storytelling to have moral ambiguity, and that’s been
the basis of film noir from the very beginning.”

What all this means is that despite its origins in a war that ended more than 60 years ago, noir
doesn’t seem to be fading. In fact, given the right stories and circumstances, it remains as vibrant,
and cinematic, as it ever was and “The Dark Knight” definitely proves this. “It continues to feel
very contemporary to me,” Eick says. “The viewing public ultimately wants something that reflects
the times and the condition of their times, and because of its allegorical power, film noir is a
mainstay.”

“Noir will come in and out of favor,” Nolan adds, “because the desire to see these stories depends
on the world outside the movie theater. When you’re in unsettled times, that’s when the genre rises
to the fore. Like the concern in ‘The Dark Knight,’ the fear of anarchy invading society is a very
contemporary fear.”

All of that said, there still is no clear cut definition of what is or isn't considered Film-noir. Critics,
fans, directors, and film buffs all have issues determining what genre films fall into, especially with
today's movies. “TDK” could, arguably, fall into any variety of genre's, whether it be Film-noir,
Psycho-noir, Crime Drama, Action, and/or comic-book movie. But it definitely has many elements
of film noir (low key lighting, dramatic shadows, on location and night shoots in urban setting, low
angle shots, wide angles, flawed and alienated hero, crime storyline, moral ambiguities, etc.), and
rightfully so. After all, Batman itself has its roots in film noir style and story. This, combined with
director Christopher Nolan's own unique style, which is often rooted within film noir (as seen in his
other films), fittingly makes the Dark Knight very film noirish.

Dark quests for redemption, whether religious or secular, are abound in contemporary culture. As
Nolan’s films indicate, these quest films owe a great debt to classic film noir. Classic noir takes aim
at some of the treasured assumptions and promises of modernity. In noir, the modern world,
embodied in an urban setting, is hardly the world of light, happiness, and peace that utopian
thinkers of the Enlightenment foretold. Modernity is about human beings exercising control over
nature and thus taking control of their destinies; in our modern technological project, knowledge
and power are one. The postmodern turn in noir is about the loss of control, the absence of
intelligibility, and the threat of powerlessness. But the quest has something pre-modern about it—a
sense of human limitations, of the dependence of human beings on one another and on events not in
their control. In this world, the outcome of the quest is tenuous and uncertain.

These dark themes and film-noir influences do, however, make the success of “The Dark Knight”
even that more astonishing, and begs the question: how can such an overwhelmingly dark, violent,
intellectual and, in a sense, “uncommercial” film be so commercially successful?

“The Dark Knight” begins as Batman, recently promoted Lt. Gordon and District Attorney Harvey
Dent (Aaron Eckhart) join forces to rid the city of its corrupt elements. Foremost among these is
super-criminal The Joker (the late Heath Ledger), a psychopath who kills without compunction.
Batman’s struggle against The Joker forces him to deal with the lengths he is willing to go to
eradicate injustice. And while all this is going on, a love triangle of sorts develops among Wayne,
Dent and Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal). Things become further complicated when Dent and Dawes is
attacked by Sal Maroni (Eric Roberts), who has taken over Falcone’s criminal empire.

While on paper the plot may seem reasonably straight forward and bland, in reality it is anything
but. With Chris Nolan's genius knack for storytelling, coupled with the brilliant performances of a
very talented ensemble cast, this plot becomes a layered substance of twists and turns, a thing rarely
seen in comic-book-movies, or even most modern commercial films for that matter.

But if there's one thing history has taught us, it is that a brilliantly made, well executed movie
doesn't necessarily guarantee commercial, or even critical, “success”. What has perhaps made “The
Dark Knight” the commercial juggernaut it has become, is the nature of pop culture itself. Whether
they would admit it or not, half the people who have seen “The Dark Knight” probably didn't like it
or even truly understand it. Most of the people who rave about how good “TDK” was or how they
can't wait to see it, probably never even knew about “Batman Begins” or even Batman in general,
besides that he's a superhero that dresses like a bat. But the reason they flock to see it and claim
how good it is, is due to the “cool-factor” the film has obtained. Your not “in the loop” if you
haven't seen “The Dark Knight, if you haven't seen Heath Ledger's virtuoso last performance. It's
like missing a “Friends” episode used to be. Some people even thought Ledger was portraying
Batman until they actually went to see the movie. And while I'm not detracting anything from the
film itself (it truly is a masterpiece), these factors have undeniably made a significant contribution
towards the movie becoming so massive. This, coupled with the fact that it was the widest released
film ever (a clearly huge contributing factor) and, although I hate to say it, Ledger's untimely death
(which gave the movie its unbelievable buzz and anticipation), has created an almost indestructible
aura around the film. People want to like it, they want Heath Ledger's performance to get him an
Oscar (I truly do believe he should), and they fool themselves in the process. This even goes for
some film critics as well.

A good way to illustrate my point would be the Batsuit. A strange example you might say? Well
ponder this: In “Batman Forever” and “Batman and Robin” (the two predecessors of the Batman
franchise before Nolan's praised revamp with “Batman Begins”), the suit was universally ridiculed
by Batman fans and pedestrian moviegoers alike, yet with “The Dark Knight”, almost nothing has
been said on the subject. Is it because the suit has been so improved that it looks impressive now?
No, if you think about it, the suits look quite similar in almost every way: the absurd rubbery nature
of it, the excessive futuristic pattern designs and the lack of any normal, let alone “crime-fighting”,
agility. It still just doesn't look like the real Batman.

So what has changed? The difference is that the previous films were universally ridiculed; critics
panned it and audiences hated themselves for going to see it, while “Batman Begins” and its sequel,
“The Dark Knight,” are seen as brilliant. The fact that the films may just be so good that the people
merely ignore the bad costume, naturally does ring true, but there is definitely some contributing
truth to my point as well.

All this said, and fanboy ranting aside, “The Dark Knight” is a wonderfully crafted film, done with
intellect, experience and a respect towards the source material highly lacking in other films. It's a
clever, though provoking, action-packed, and brilliantly orchestrated symphony, with all of its
various parts working together in tandem to deliver a quite superb piece of art. In short, it's beautiful
and it's what every batman fan, and even film noir fans, have been waiting for. The fact that it has
been so commercially successful and universally accepted due to some varying degrees of luck,
should also not detract from the fact that it truly is a very good movie. So instead of getting
annoyed at the nature of commercialism and pop culture, just be glad that an actual worthwhile
seeing movie has got the respect and place in history it so rightfully deserves.