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The Dark Knight - speculation and news

 
  

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iamus
10:52 / 17.12.07
was there really anything there to tell you that this guy doesn't have a good time doing what he does?

To me, the Joker has always worked better when his laughing is less so much about having fun, than it is something he has to do to keep his eyeballs from turning inside out.
 
 
Dead Megatron
11:53 / 17.12.07
To me, the Joker has always worked better when his laughing is less so much about having fun, than it is something he has to do to keep his eyeballs from turning inside out.

That is an interpretation mistake. They are both the same thing! [enter psychotic evil laugh]
 
 
deja_vroom
12:30 / 17.12.07
WARNING: In this trailer, a man who is dying from a painful gunshot wound sees fit to address in speech the problem of the rampant moral decay that is sweeping the criminal underclass. The same man has a grenade stuck in his mouth and does nothing to remove it from there, despite having both hands free. Extreme suspension of disbelief recommended. PG-13.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
12:35 / 17.12.07
Apparently there's also a guy in the film who dresses as a bat to fight crime. I wish they could have treated the subject matter more realistically, you know?
 
 
deja_vroom
12:36 / 17.12.07
It happens to be the central concept of the film, my friend. Not many ways they could have worked around that, don't you think. I still would fight as fuck is some clown tried to stick a grenade in me mouth. Nothing but laziness can satisfactorily explain that scene - and the lust for shock value. To each its own, I guess, As someone pointed out earlier, Bats will punch the Joker amidst explosions, so all is fine - if that's what you're aiming at.
 
 
Spaniel
12:48 / 17.12.07
Well, I'm of the opinion that the first film was quite a bit better than that, so I'm hopeful that this one will be too.
 
 
CameronStewart
12:54 / 17.12.07
I think the bank manager's hands are tied. It's difficult to see because the picture is half-obscured but I'm sure I read a few weeks back in the spy reports that he's tied up.

With you on the speechifying, though, that was a little off.
 
 
Spaniel
12:59 / 17.12.07
Also, while I have yet to watch the prologue (prologue, not trailer), the idea that someone in the pay of the mob - a gangster basically - might start monologuing about honour amongst thieves is something I'm entirely comfortable with. We've seen it a thousand times before - whether it's truthful or not, it feels plausible to me because that's the kind of thing fictional gangsters do.

The hand grenade may be more difficult to explain away, however. I was wondering how they got that plot detail to work just the other day.
 
 
Spaniel
13:00 / 17.12.07
I think the bank manager's hands are tied.

That's the solution I came up with.

Really need to watch the thing...
 
 
CameronStewart
13:06 / 17.12.07
Just had a realization - all the Joker carries are knives, and with that line "Now let's put a smile on that face" it suggests that perhaps he goes around cutting those Glasgow Smiles onto his victims...

shudder
 
 
Spaniel
13:08 / 17.12.07
Yes. Nasty.

I'm hoping for some Joker gas too. Some kind of modified fear gas from the first film.
 
 
deja_vroom
13:11 / 17.12.07
Sorry if my tone was a bit rusty on the edges. Obviously I care a lot about Batman and the Joker in a way that's perhaps best left unknown to the Church.

It's just that I came here fresh from having watched the prologue (thx Boboss), and that bit of incongruence JUMPED at me in a way I had to vent out a bit lest my head fucking exploded.

And, just clarifying on my reply to the point that On Final made, and I'm sure you will agree with me - the fact that the central concept of a story is in itself removed from the constraints of drab reality will **not, never** excuse said story to still follow the only rule that can't be ignored if a work is to be considered at least marginally solid: The characters in it (if they're not lunatics or dumb in a way that was established as integral to the work) must act within a perimeter of perceived common sense and intelligence. People still need to behave in a recognizable manner for the story to resonate with the intelligent viewer, right?
 
 
Spaniel
13:18 / 17.12.07
(Just for the record, I did and do completely agree with that line of thinking)
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:22 / 17.12.07
Absolutely. A person reacts to trauma by dressing as a scarecrow and inventing gas that makes people hallucinate their worst fear. We're going for psychological realism here, folks.

Psychological.

Bloody.

Realism.
 
 
Spaniel
13:29 / 17.12.07
I dunno, I don't think they're quite the same thing. One is necessary, afterall, and is therefore invisible to a lot of viewers - we simply have to believe that people can and do behave like that in superhero movies - the other isn't necessary and as a consequence isn't invisible, so people are, I think, free to criticise if it doesn't work for them.
 
 
deja_vroom
13:41 / 17.12.07
Absolutely. A person reacts to trauma by dressing as a scarecrow and inventing gas that makes people hallucinate their worst fear. We're going for psychological realism here, folks.

Psychological.

Bloody.

Realism.


Totally. The problem is: If the central concept of your movie - or its central characters, heroes or villains - are people who dress like bats or scarecrows or giant tortillas to commit or fight crime - you will have to work with that, you won't be able to avoid that - and that's why I think that all this (not Haus's, Christopher Nolan's) talk about "psychological realism" is just pseudo-jargon from someone not too familiar with the tropes of storytelling. There's a better flavored substitute for realism in cases such as this, and it is called verisimilitude.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
13:42 / 17.12.07
But what about common sense, Boboss?

Good old-fashioned common sense.
 
 
Spaniel
13:48 / 17.12.07
I think that all this (not Haus's, Christopher Nolan's) talk about "psychological realism" is just pseudo-jargon from someone not too familiar with the tropes of storytelling

I'm not sure it's a question of being unfamiliar with the tropes of storytelling, more that he's using the wrong words to describe what they're attempting.
 
 
Jack Fear
14:05 / 17.12.07
Let's face it, Jack, was there really anything there to tell you that this guy doesn't have a good time doing what he does?

Let's see... the face stony beneath the horrible clown makeup, the hunch, the stillness, the coiled intensity—even the laugh came off (as noted above) as a nervous, letting-off-steam gesture, not as an expression of genuine amusement. Ledger seems furious throughout the trailer.

Which doesn't seem right to me, you know? To an outside observer, the Joker is a horrible psychotic killer—but he thinks he's the funniest guy in the room. He doesn't do what he does for money, or for fame, or for power, or for revenge. He does it for laughs. He should be having a good time, all the time.

If you look closely at the trailer, Ledger never actually smiles—he lets his make-up and his disfigurement do the smiling for him. And that seems like an odd acting choice, to me. The Joker should always be smiling—even if it's just a tiny, private smile at a joke that only he understands.

To the audience, he's hideous; to himself, he's hilarious. He's Ricky Gervais's David Brent as a mass murderer.

It's early days yet, and the movie may, in the end, sell me on its particular vision. But it raises the question so often raised by film adaptations of comic books: how much of a major conceptual shift can a character withstand before he is no longer the same character?
 
 
This Sunday
14:17 / 17.12.07
[The thread's sped up again, and there was crosspost.]

Internal logic and verisimilitude are necessary to almost all things narrative and go hand in hand. People dressing in costumes and kicking one another doesn't mean we assume suddenly no one in this world, for example, brushes their teeth or pays rent. Were Metron or the Metatron to descend and pontificate instead of a mob banker, it might be internally inconsistent, but I'm sure Batman will weather a beating no actual human could avoid being crippled by, explosions will go boom in fabulously hollywoody ways, and there will be monologues and unnecessary catchphrasey witticisms, because those things are consistent with the reality defined in the first film, the tone and atmosphere we've seen so far of this one, and the expectations of the bulk of the audience.

On the guy in the bank: I'm pretty sure his hands are tied, but even walking out of the theater a few people were complaining about that.
 
 
Spaniel
14:24 / 17.12.07
To the audience, he's hideous; to himself, he's hilarious

I've seen a number of interpretations of the Joker over the years, and it seems to me that a number of them don't fit that description, or don't fit it neatly. Did (indeed does - he's alive and well over in ASBATS) Millar's Joker - one of my favourites - think of himself as the funniest guy in the room? Was that the defiing feature of Moore's vision? For me the Joker has always been pretty nebulous. Most of the time he's two-dimensional (in a very bad way) and therefore lacks any and all gravitas, so much so that it seems to me that the DC editorial staff are completely lost when it comes to the character.
Bearing all that in mind, as far as I'm concerned, as long as he bears a family resemblance to the other Jokers in the pack (chortle), manages to be genuinely scary and nemesistastic, and has a solidity so often lacked in the comics then I'm going to be happy.
 
 
deja_vroom
14:36 / 17.12.07
Boboss: That's a fascinating discussion, and one which can get very byzantine. Let's see how brief I can make this (and sorry for mild off-topicage, maybe it's the case that this discussion should merit a separate thread).

I'm not sure it's a question of being unfamiliar with the tropes of storytelling, more that he's using the wrong words to describe what they're attempting.

...Which would be in itself a little bit troublesome. People who tell stories, in whatever media they choose to do it, should be on top of their games with words - at least good enough with them to not commit the blunder you accuse him of.

Please don't be so hasty as to assume that, since directors work on a visual media, they should be exempt of the burden of being good with words, no - it's the exact opposite: Since movies are based on written scripts, however flimsy they be, a good director must be someone that's at least functionally good with words (see Polanski's work on "Rosemary's Baby" adaptation, for a glimpse into that forlorn time where love and respect for the source material was the rule of the game - but I digress), and then, on top of that, have the directorial/visual prowess/exuberance that will transform the text in striking moving pictures.

I haven't seen much examples of verisimilitude at play - not in this prologue, and not in "Batman Begins": Remember the scene where the mob boss Falcone taunts Bruce Wayne saying that his father begged like a dog before dying? Do you know what is wrong with that scene, and how it bespeaks for an unhealthy tendency on Nolan's part for empty, embarrassing theatrics (which, I'm afraid, will plague this second installment)? Because Bruce Wayne saw his bloody father die! Thomas Wayne died in front of him, so Bruce knew his father didn't beg! And Falcone knew that, too!.

And so it is that they just give you that world and you must accept it. It's all presented in a gritty way, with a visual style that tries to sell the harsh realities of street life as they are in our world (What was the example Nolan used, when he compared "Batman Begins"'s style to one of those 70's crime dramas? "The French Connection"? "Serpico"? It can't have been "Dog Day Afternoon", he wouldn't dare to film this robbery scene with the clowns if he had watched and possessed at least a miser gram of self-respe... Oh).

Verisimilitude is about the appearance of being real, about clever prestidigitation, about making a world which seems believable enough - but internally, and in a way not necessarily close to our own world.

More short and to the point: Verisimilitude can be picked apart - but if it's done right, it will be only after careful, cold analytical consideration, something that a true fan of the story will never do - I know I wouldn't (again, see "Rosemary's Baby" for a premise that reveals itself to be ridiculous once you pick it apart, but it's done so artfully you would feel a philistine if you tried to). After all, Why spoil the fun?

Bad realism is just embarrassing to all parts involved.
 
 
Spaniel
14:42 / 17.12.07
Boboss: That's a fascinating discussion, and one which can get very byzantine

A deep can of worms thoroughly opened
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
14:45 / 17.12.07
Jesus fucking Christ.

Apart from anything else, the point of Falcone taunting Bruce Wayne is that insulting his father's honour, especially regarding his death, is always going to rile him, even if Bruce knows that he saw how his father died and Falcone didn't.

But nevermind, I am quite sure a well-written letter in exquisite English will get that hack Nolan thrown off this franchise and a top fellow like you given the role of storyteller in chief, chief!

I don't know about anyone else, but I sort of know how the Joker feels, you know?
 
 
Spaniel
14:47 / 17.12.07
Thinking about Falcone's line, it struck me at the time that he wasn't so much describing the events of his father's death, more insisting that his father was weak and a coward - something echoed later in the film by Ras's insistence that the death of the Waynes was Thomas's responsibility. Falcone, like Ras, is a man who sees strength in one's capacity to do violence.
 
 
Spaniel
14:48 / 17.12.07
He was displaying his prejudices and being a sadistic bastard basically
 
 
deja_vroom
14:56 / 17.12.07
We'll have to part ways in our assessment of that scene, then. To me that's inexcusably poor storytelling, just. Other than that... On Final, riled up so soon? Please don't, there will be refreshments, I hear =).
 
 
This Sunday
14:57 / 17.12.07
[threadrotty]

I had a post ready to fire off, on Falcone taunting Wayne and why it worked, what it was about, but On Final said it better. All I have to add was that the bulk of the first film was all about processing the death of Wayne's father. Reconciling the negative opinions of his father and his memory (or myth) of him. (Momma, it's seems mostly counted for nought.) Falcone takes a bite. R'as takes his shots. Rutger Hauer's character essentially is a response to Thomas Wayne given business/industrial form. That elevated train, even, is arguably about Thomas Wayne's myth, memory, and how Bruce deals with it. Wayne Manor.

And they all worked on that level. Bruce Wayne knows his father was a good man, and that fuels his anger at others' perception that he was a failure, weak, or so on.

[threadrotty over]
 
 
Seth
15:01 / 17.12.07
The first film featured as one of its main plot points a maguffin that vaporised all water in its immediate vicinity while miraculously leaving humans (80% water) unharmed and intact. This was as silly as some of the stuff in Batman's Adam West years. Daft and jarring elements are to be expected in this kind of near-brainless Hollywood action special effects blockbuster, it's based on a comic. Oddly inappropriate musings on the nature of the universe at key narrative moments are just one of the things that Hollywood does.

Glad I resisted the urge to capitalise 'near-brainless Hollywood action special effects blockbuster' and 'comic.'
 
 
Spatula Clarke
15:39 / 17.12.07
Two points. First:

Jack: It's early days yet, and the movie may, in the end, sell me on its particular vision. But it raises the question so often raised by film adaptations of comic books: how much of a major conceptual shift can a character withstand before he is no longer the same character?

How valid is that concern when you're talking about a character like this, though? The Joker's been reinterpreted so many times that *any* reading of him is just as accurate as any other, surely?

Second:

This bollocks about the guy with the grenade in his mouth.

A: He'd been shot once already and was bleeding all over the floor.

B: The Joker would have just shot him in the fucking face if he'd taken the grenade out.

Easy enough, innit.
 
 
deja_vroom
16:03 / 17.12.07
No, Randy, this is just you wishing, but not hard enough.

B: The Joker would have just shot him in the fucking face if he'd taken the grenade out.

My complaint was about the guy's reactions being all off, forced and wrong while the grenade was being inserted in his mouth, not why he didn't remove it from there. But since you made me watch that wretched thing again, here it is: The Joker is already on his way out to the bus, with his back turned to the bank manager, who just looks at him in a weird, calm, almost interested way, hands free... grenade neatly tucked in his mouth. That's gotta be one of the most nonsensical bits of cinema I've seen this year, but - oh please, can't we pretend I never mentioned this in the first place? I don't wanna get in the way of you guys discussing the film.
 
 
iamus
16:06 / 17.12.07
That elevated train, even, is arguably about Thomas Wayne's myth, memory, and how Bruce deals with it.

I wouldn't say arguably.

Gotham is Bruce Wayne's Branes. The Monorail is the legacy of his father. Wayne Tower is the lodestone of Bruce's id. The Fear is The Fear, worming its way right into the middle, where it'll pull everything else down with it.

I honestly think Batman Begins is an incredibly excecuted story. It's a heroic fantasy, and while the world has to have internal consistency, the point is not in the minutiae. It's in the metaphorical/mythical sweep. Nobody bothers about the fact that Beowulf fights a dragon, or (as Seth says, though I disagree with near-brainless) that the Microwave Emitter is a physically inconsistant contraption. What's great about Begins is how the psychology of the heros and villains is so expertly tied into the world they live in and the situations they find themselves in.

Bruce Wayne's efforts to confront and master his fear and anger have him learning from The League and their toxin, and using the things he learns to become Batman. Batman is his way of protecting Gotham, which is really his way of honouring the legacy of his father.

But the League and the toxin mutate along with Bruce and use those same method's, their methods, to turn everything he's learned back against him. Falcone smuggling the drugs into the city for the scarecrow is what brings this home, because Falcone is representative of everything that's wrong with Gotham (as the thing that killed Bruce's father) and therefore as everything that's wrong with Bruce Wayne.

He gets taken out of the picture because everything steps up a level. The fear toxin gets weaponised and the baddies start wearing masks. As Bruce rises to fight it, it raises its game as well, till there's an all or nothing blowout on the train, as text and subtext, literal and metaphorical narrative all collide in one headlong rushing explosion.

All along the way, it places its characters on the board with the precision of a Kasparov chess match. I really do think it's that good a film.

What works for me, from what I can see of that trailer is that it's continuing with all of that good stuff from the previous movie. The Joker doesn't have to be anything but Batman's foil in one very specific sense. They both look into that horrible abyss of fear and where Batman scowls at it, The Joker laughs with it. How he does this is entirely dependent on the Batman he plays opposite.

Batman cries as Gotham falls apart. The Joker laughs as he watches it burn, and he uses the same setup of masks and clothing and theatrics to ram a very different punchline home. If that is what they give.... and it looks like.... then I'll be a very happy bunny.
 
 
Mug Chum
16:07 / 17.12.07
What was the example Nolan used, when he compared "Batman Begins"'s style to one of those 70's crime dramas?

I think it might have been Blade Runner (I think he gave the art direction crew a copy to inspire them and do something close to it; or something like that). The truck shots in the trailer had a manga Terminator2 feel to it. A bit appropriate with the TANK! tone of Miller's Dark Knight.

And please, don't talk about Nolan as if he's some hack with no talent whatsoever. This should be the fanboy dream. This type of director with this type of cast (when you have Morgan Freekin Freeman doing a bitsy role and Michael Motherfucking Cane doing Alfred, dude...). He earned street-cred with Memento alone. Leave him be.

And leave the grenade alone, man. I was more astonished by the fact that that actor would play that bitsy role in a short prequel.

And, really, the Joker is no-one. Morrison even made up that idiotic high/multiple personality disorder so it'd explain all away. He's appropriate here for film's "realistic" needs for normal no-comics audiences and coherent with the first film's tone, he's good, he's fine. He shouldn't be more x, less y, more purple, less yada. He should be what we're being given, no? And we don't know nothing. It was just a "explosion-cut-explosion-line-explosion" trailer and just 15 seconds of straight-on Joker acting with not much to use as a criteria with how it'll be (or from the little there is, I'm finding it most satisfying, even the "hit me!" nervous madness -- on better quality he's not full-on nervous, but even so...).

And any Batmovie that has openings for slash like "you're gonna love me" and "hit me!" is fine with me.
 
 
iamus
16:13 / 17.12.07
I love the way Ledger judders.

Look at him after he fires the rocket, or just as Batman goes to lamp him with the "You're gonna love me!" line.
 
 
Spaniel
17:04 / 17.12.07
Loved that judder too. We're on wavelength same as.

Deja, I don't really want to get into it in any detail, but I gotta say, I strongly suspect that business about directors needing to be masters of language is actually specious rot.

I could, for example, imagine David Lynch getting very muddled with his words.
 
  

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