Reflections on The Dark Knight Rises

Advance warning: the below is less a review than thoughts and discussion of The Dark Knight Rises and its meanings, as such there are substantial spoilers, as in ruin everything up to and including the final shot of the Movie spoilers, which will ruin the film if you have not seen it.

I haven't really had time to proof read the below much but I thought I would post it while it still has a mild touch of relevance to anything.

Rises is an extremely good film that offers a satisfyingly meaty conclusion to an excellent trilogy. Nolan builds on foundations laid over the two preceding films and creates an opus that justifies its considerable length by pitting competing ideals and visions of the world against each other. Whilst ostensibly this third film of the trilogy is similar in design to the previous two, in that it plays out as a contest between two men using an entire city as their own personal battlefield, there are distinct differences between Bane and the Joker which change the nature of the confrontation and thus the film.

Evolving Genres

The Dark Knight Trilogy (as I have just decided to call it) has veered strongly in genre over the course of its constituent parts. While the first was an alternate world set sci fi film, and the second was a crime drama with costumes, the final film is very much a comic book Movie. The kind of world where villains humans can achieve the impossible, and where plots can envelope entire cities. It is a world where broken backs can be fixed in 5 months and one detonator can trigger bombs across an entire city. Its the most comfortable fit of the three, Batman Begins never settled into a coherent atmosphere and struggled to locate its mood. In the end it was neither other worldly nor realistic. The stricter reality of The Dark Knight conflicted with the more extreme elements of the Joker's plans, specifically the hijacking of the ferries felt jarring within the confines of a Michael Mann-esque crime epic whilst the Joker's plan to get himself captured felt beyond the bounds of the film's own realities. However, with Rises, Nolan has now found the right voice to tell a modern Batman story. Bane's inhuman strength and massive secret organisation sit comfortably next to the Bat Wing and Catwoman's audience pleasing outfit.

Gotham all Grown Up

Alongside the changes in genre, it is gratifying that the unnecessary near future aspects of Gotham's design were dropped for the sequels. The Gotham of Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises is very clearly a modern American city. This is a much better fit for Batman as his origin is emotional rather than sci fi, and means his technology, whilst impressive, doesn't come to dominate the film.

Gotham itself has also moved on through the trilogy. In Begins it is a city under siege from low level street crime and a very powerful mob. In Dark Knight, the streets are cleaner but the mob is still all powerful, at the start of Rises there are barely any criminals to be seen. The city has now come under the thrall of corporate power and traders. The Gotham of Rises has its cracks concealed under a paper thin layer of respectability built on a repressive law and order regime inspired by a mythologised Harvey Dent. In this Rises is a remarkably prescient film, written and filmed in 2010, before #occupy and the Arab Spring, it predicts the caustic meltdown of social structures that comes when relentlessly growing wealth exists in an ever poorer world. Gotham was always at conflict, but in Rises the conflict is between the haves and have nots, its much sharper than the lawless versus the lawful of previous Movies but more on that later.

The Bat, The Cat and The Monster

Christian Bale is again superb. He has nailed a Batman character that is powered by vengeful anger and self righteousness. If there is a flaw it is simply that he suffers so little self doubt as to make the film processional. Even an inescapable prison on the wrong side of the world and a broken back are merely obstacles to overcome, not the end of his journey. This relentless self belief infects the audience too, at no point do you doubt that Batman will return to Gotham, and in effect the Prison sequence, while effective, is an extremely lengthened Rocky montage as our hero implausibly trains up for the fight of his life. However Bale spends much of his time in the Movie as Bruce Wayne, reclusive, embittered, wounded and lost. Batman barely appears, and suffers a little from this. Due to the brilliant work on Bane and Not Catwoman he is essentially the only costumed character in the film and it makes some of his surprise entrances strikingly uncomfortable within the new Gotham.

Not Catwoman, as she is never named thus, is a curious character. Like so many in Nolan's recent films she becomes a bit of a cog in a storyline machine rather than a rounded character. There seems little reason for her demeanour to change as it does through the film other than this is typically how characters evolve through a film. The key moments that form this arc: leading Batman to the beating of his life, realising the house she occupies during the revolution was once a family home, and understanding the depth of Batman's commitment to Gotham are not handled uniquely. The same events could have happened to any character and formed an arc. It is harsh to criticise as good a performance as Anne Hathaway's but she is let down by a script to hung up on her looks and not concerned enough with her thoughts.

Bane on the other hand is so much more than I hoped. He is a zealot, a leader, a physical powerhouse and a demagogue. Tom Hardy conveys significant emotional beats with the bare minimum available to him, eyes, body language and a disguised voice. The look in his eyes as Talia leaves him for the last time is perfect and adds a touch of humanity to what could easily have been an inhuman part. His voice, while occasionally difficult to understand, is gloriously lyrical and intellectual. It floats from the Monster's mask yet conveys great power at the right moments. It is as unexpected and as brilliant as Ledger's turn in Dark Knight but will win considerably fewer plaudits because of its less showy aspects. Tribute must also be paid to Hardy's physical presence, Bane needed to be played by a huge man to get the character right and its clear Hardy has put the hours in to achieve a truly threatening physique. His solitary hand on Daggett's shoulder inverts the relationship between those two characters because of this. It also makes the first meeting between him and Batman a true reflection of their relative stature at that point. Its a stand out sequence for the film. I remain conflicted as to whether “Victory has defeated you,” is Bane's best or worst line but it plays well in a scene where Bane completely dominates an arrogant Batman. It is also a nice touch that Bane is so powerful that ultimately someone has to break Batman's cardinal rules to stop him. Not that Batman seems too conflicted.

If there is an issue, its the interactions between these characters are not powered by as deep conflicts as between the 3 main protagonists of Dark Knight. Cat and Bane barely interact and the scenes between Batman and Selina Kyle just don't have the frisson that they should have if she is to be the woman he settles with. On a side note, their twin fighting scenes feel exceptionally forced. If Nolan has directed a worse series of shots than Catwoman leading Batman to Bane I have yet to see them.

Bane and Batman are both calm, collected rationalists driven by deep anger and both seek control of Gotham. They are both so restrained that, their confrontations don't lend themselves to drama. Whilst Bane is a more existential threat to the existence of both Batman and Gotham, he doesn't feel as threatening as the Joker to me. Heath Ledger's criminal clown felt capable of anything putting all of his scenes on a knife edge. Bane's actions feel more pre-determined, feel more logical and just simpler. When the Joker burnt the Mob's money and betrayed his fellow gangster it felt like a genuine betrayal, and that the city had been handed over to a madman. When Bane murders Daggett it feels inevitable, not scary. Bane may break Batman's back but it felt to me that the Joker got a lot closer to breaking his will. Joker proved by turning Harvey Dent that anyone after a very bad day could do the unthinkable. Bane never gets that far into Batman's head.

The Supporting City

There are so many supporting roles in Rises that it feels as if Nolan has genuinely brought a city to life, from Wayne's cohort of Lucius and Alfred, to the range of policemen, and assorted villains from the corporate to the military. Nolan is an excellent caster and he pulls the same tricks here with Aiden Gillen and Burn Gorman appearing in minor but important roles. Even Cillian Murphy makes a repeat performance, indeed his continuing survival is one of my favourite aspects of Nolan's trilogy and help keep the films held within a consistent world. The film is universally well acted and its one of the great strengths of the series as a whole that there is hardly a single clunking line reading to interrupt progress.

I'll speak about Alfred later, but the rest of Batman's team of helpers do their jobs well. Trying to coax him out of his slumber and then looking to him for leadership when he is needed. Part of the joy of these films is the relationships between both Fox and Gordon and Wayne/Batman are so perfectly played mixtures of awe, frustration and a certain deal of love. It helps humanise an occasionally hard to love character. The major change to this set is John Blake, an idealist even in anarchy. He is the future of Gotham that Batman was trying to build but, while well acted, the role feels a little slight right up until the ending of the film (of which more later). Joseph Gordon-Levitt must have some kind of record for most minutes on screen in Nolan films whilst yet to gain a real character trait. Blake is a little too clean, a little too idealised and just a touch shallow compared to the pits of humanity he plays against like Gordon, Wayne and Alfred.

The array of minor and supporting villains are for the most part adequate. As a fan of the comics it is gratifying to see Dagget make his appearance in Nolan's universe, while Bane's men are generally silent. But with a villain as dominant as Bane, other characters on that side of the fence are largely unnecessary. Miranda Tate/Talia is the only other significant villain but she again feels underdeveloped. Her tryst with Wayne has to be explained away by the revelation regarding Rachel, because there is so little between the characters at that point. There never feels any reason for Batman to worry about her more than anyone else, unlike his relationship with Rachel. Indeed there is little to Miranda at all besides the late twist. Due to the completely underdeveloped nature of her character the twist feels, like Catwoman, as a cog in the machinery of the plot rather than a genuine character moment as it should be. (It could also be questioned why she spends so much money developing a Fusion power source before anyone works out how to weaponise it, but that’s a discussion for a much more pedantic blog.)

Nolan's supporting casts are always a strength of his films and they are again here but two new characters, Blake and Tate, that needed to be strong and developed simply aren't.

Reflections on the Revolution in Gotham

The centrepiece of this epic length film is Bane's revolution in Gotham. It is clear to the audience from the outset that this is merely a lengthy stay of execution for the doomed city but to Gotham's inhabitants it represents five months of apparent freedom. Bane promises anarchy, where the people will be able to take back what the 1% have stolen for themselves but, in actuality, the Joker is the true anarchist of Batman's enemies. Bane is a warlord presiding over a military dictatorship and employing the kind of brutal repression such regimes are famous for.

There are echoes of the French Revolution with Crane's Mountain from which he passes judgement, to the notion of show trials, ritualised executions, and attacks on the homes of the wealthy. The only problem is very little of it feels real. I accept the need for comic book exaggeration in films of this type but Gotham just never has the look or feel of a city breaking down, or a city being tortured. It just feels too clean, too ordered, and too much of what happens is done in clip format. Gotham felt more anarchic when the Joker shot a couple of police officers than when Bane traps the majority of the GCPD underground.

Bane's army is not explored enough either, who are these people, why are they working for him in overthrowing the existing social order. Are they simply his warriors and the freed prisoners or do the dispossessed and poor of Gotham join in. I don't feel like I know if Bane did force a revolution or if he simply invaded.

If the film is a metaphor for revolutions then Bane's bomb stands for the inevitability of bloodshed in such acts. It undermines the development of Free Gotham by promising a set date on which everything must be wiped out to begin again. Bane and the League of Shadows want to rebalance the world by removing Gotham's decadence and crime, his time bomb is the metaphorical terror necessary to complete the job that a mere revolution cannot do.

The adaptation of the No Man's Land storyline is a bravura touch for a director clearly full of confidence but a film has limited time to really get to grips with all the issues flowing from such a plot. By making the bomb a time-bomb Nolan deliberately undercuts the storyline to free himself from having to explore it in further detail and Batman's motivations for starting a war. Batman's actions are made correct by the presence of a timer, without which the massacre of cops and gangs alike could be deemed a more questionable choice of action. It is easy to cast Batman as the 1%'s avenger, using the strictures of the ancien regime to overturn an uprising and defend the rich who are the only ones who can stop the city being destroyed. Trust the rich and powerful as they no better could be seen as the message if you want it.

The Truth Will Set You Free

Truth is a keen theme for the film. Specifically correcting the convenient lies that littered the end of the Dark Knight. Characters continually expect the truth to do one thing when it actually ends up a very different way. Alfred's moment of truthfulness destroys his relationship with Wayne as expected but only pushes him towards Tate and even greater depths of anger. It makes him arrogant and nihilistic as he watches his fortune disappear, sleeps with a mysterious acquaintance before pursuing Bane without any reasonable expectation of victory.

The scene between Alfred and Wayne should be a key one for the trilogy but it just doesn't quite grip right. It doesn't twist your heart as it should do, partly because its not entirely clear what Alfred logically expects to achieve by telling Wayne. There doesn't seem a real connection between 'Rachel didn't love you' and 'stop being Batman' but then there isn't a logical reason linking Rachel loving Wayne and him staying as Batman but he seems to see one. The rest of the film distinctly misses Alfred as the one man who genuinely loves Wayne and not Batman. The burning of Rachel's letter was one of the outstanding moments of the Dark Knight, the ultimate act of paternal care from Alfred to Wayne but its revelation in Rises feels more like a footnote.

Bane chooses to break down the other lie built into Gotham's mythology by exposing Harvey Dent as murdered and madman. He uses it to destroy the foundations of Gotham's law and order regime when all it actually does is free the Batman to become his city's saviour. Bane doesn't realise the power of Batman's symbol because he can only perceive of the man he defeated in combat. It goes to Bane's core that he is a man of action and deeds, not built to really understand people and their moods. In exposing their false God, he gives them their true titan. I like that this moment facilitates the film's ending and its a neat little touch to turn Gordon and Batman's scheming on its head.

Endings and Beginnings

This is definitely the end of Nolan's trilogy. I can't guarantee an idiotic studio might try to squeeze a few more pence out of an incredibly successful series of films but Nolan is clearly done and his ending carries his points through. Nolan does what no other Batman writer has done in any form I have encountered, not in comics, other Movies, TV shows. He gives Wayne peace. The ultimate gift that Wayne has always shown himself incapable of receiving is finally delivered by a heroic sacrifice where he is finally secured as his city's saviour. Finally Batman becomes the symbol he hoped it could be, and a much more potent symbol than the Harvey Dent as he went through Gotham's darkest hours and stayed true. Wayne apparently sacrifices Batman to give the city the uncorrupted figure it needs, the unveiling of a statue to him shows the depth of their gratitude for a man they once tried to capture.

But its not just that Wayne is free, its that Gotham still has a vigilante avenger. Blake's rejection of his idol's compromises mark him out for Wayne as a true idealist to carry on his work. The entire trilogy has built to its final shot, finally a man steps forward who can be trusted to work hard enough, to stick to the unbreakable rules and take on the mantle. As the music rises and Blake ascends into the Batcave, Wayne's work is done. He has got Gotham to produce its own protector by providing the embattled city with a powerful symbol of hope and resistance to crime. It is deeply satisfying moment, and a moment that has been truly earned. By Wayne, by Gotham and by Nolan.

Rises has to go down as the best concluding part to a trilogy that I have seen but it still has its flaws, principally that Nolan has become a little too keen on his plots and not interested enough in his characters. However, those flaws are in the context of a phenomenally impressive piece of work. Nolan has made an indelible impression on the character of Batman which is a staggering achievement when you consider how many words have already been written about one of the mainstays of American popular culture for the last 70 years.