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.

Reflections on Hawksmoor's Churches

The Hawksmoor Churches have become minor cultural icons over the last half century, despite being almost forgotten since their construction in the early 1700s, but perhaps not in the way their creator, Nicholas Hawksmoor, may have wished. Since Iain Sinclair's poem Nicholas Hawksmoor: His Churches first espoused the notion of some satanic connection others have picked up on and expanded the theme, notably in Alan Moore's From Hell and in Peter Ackroyd's post modern novel Hawksmoor. It is from the latter that I became aware of the churches and intrigued by the tremendous power they had over the writer and his unfortunate characters.

So it is I recently completed a rather different sort of pilgrimage to explore these apparently arcane creations dotted throughout London's East End, from St. Alfege's at Greenwich in the South to St. George's in Bloomsbury. Exploring the city on foot reveals the power of these structures even now when most are surrounded on all sides by ever taller buildings and their fundamental grandeur is still undiminished by man's constant expansion towards the heavens. Their spires, which once denoted the promise of safety and worship, now became beacons for the architecturally curious as they appear and disappear between more modern titans of brick and glass. They still rise into view, filling what space is afforded them between cramped houses and businesses and narrow streets. The sheer confidence of their power cascades down from their towers, each quite different but sharing a common power to enthral and silence even the most casual of viewer.

Their varying characters react to the changing landscape of London and its teeming inhabitants, seeming to capture the spirit of the place in all its guises. St. Alfege's is perhaps the calmest of the six, an impression helped by its now curiously backwards composition. The main road passes by the rear of the church with its serene columns and large stained glass window whose true beauty is only revealed to the worshippers within. Meanwhile its ornate tower and frontage is turned away from the casual spectators as they pass by and instead faces back towards the church's grounds and school. Even this tower when fully revealed has a solemnity to it uncommon to Hawksmoor's other more challenging designs. This, perhaps more simplistic, creation slots into Greenwich with a distinct ease, reflective of the slower pace of this tranquil part of London. In Hawksmoor's time this would have been a place of recuperation and reflection as injured sailors recovered in the new Royal Hospital for Seamen whilst man watched the stars from the Royal Observatory. Perhaps Hawksmoor was also aware of the placement of the church near to one of the many great triumphs of his master, Sir Christopher Wren. The Royal Naval College looks out onto the Thames with supreme mastery and even a work of Hawksmoor's true power may have struggled to live beside it. Whatever the cause, St Alfege's is a place of welcoming worship, where all feel free to saunter inside its gates and place themselves in His domain. A place of worship is perhaps the simplest of the purposes of a church but it is not the only reason for their existence nor is it the only face of the church as an institution.

Hawksmoor's St. Alfege came to be after a previous church on the site was too badly damaged to be repaired. Its parishioners petitioned the crown for help and from that movement came legislation to build 50 new churches throughout London. However, only twelve were ever built and the six Hawksmoor churches make up half of that quota. The churches were deemed necessary in response to new religious threats that had rushed into the city after the Great Fire, sweeping up lost congregations into new orders. Anxious for their drifting flock, the masters of government deemed new churches a priority to provide places of shelter and worship. Hawksmoor may have been aware of the lost souls and degrading power of the national religion, but perhaps he felt the people of Greenwich needed no such allures as their campaign had created the rush of building, hence the calm, inviting style. However, other areas of London needed to be reminded of the raw power of the church, perhaps none more so than the notorious squalid lands of Spitalfields.

Christ Church Spitalfields is less a church than a searing imposition of will upon the surrounding area. Soaring above all around, it demands attention and plunges its neighbours into the metaphorical and literal shade. The narrow façade shoots skyward, turning into a steeple pointing towards heavenly bodies as if it is an eternal reminder of His presence. The surrounding area had long been a slum area, and was now home to the establishment's permanent bête noire, mass immigration, as Huguenots ploughed into London. Its poverty led to desperation and perceived moral decline, long held historical rumours of thieves and prostitutes mixed with the religious threat of new chapels built by the French immigrants. A hundred and fifty years in the future Jack the Ripper would plunge the area into terror and grimy mythology but even in Hawksmoor's time it was notorious. Nowadays it is a new sort of godlessness as the casual urban youth, ironic, detached and cynical, meanders about in the faux decay and measured detachment of modern cool. Hawksmoor's call to order and God stands watchfully over the low market stalls its power undiminished but its influence waning. His harsh walls and geometric shapes do not offer comfort, only a calculated kind of perfection, an icon of the possible if one devotes to God. Rising out of the squalor it was designed to send a message to all, that ascension is achievable, even from the foetid earth and rancid meat of an 18^th century marketplace. Its clean, white stone contrasting with the surrounding mud and filth. The church as an ideal, as a hope, as a saviour.

Where, perhaps in Hawksmoor's view, the people of Spitalfields needed enforced inspiration, the smallest of his churches represented a very different view. The only Hawksmoor church within the City of London, St Mary Woolnoth, is crowded on all sides by old and modern monuments to economic advancement. In its day it was overshadowed by the Royal Exchange, and soon after its consecration, the Bank of England. Now it sits above a tube station that at once stage threatened to demolish it, on one side of the church a lift to the platforms and an inevitable coffee shop have been built flush to its original walls. Hawksmoor responded to these threats and the tiny allotted space with an altogether different style of church. St Mary Woolnoth appears almost as a fort with high ramparts jutting into the sky. Its compact, box like shape implying solidity and untold depths of resilience. Built as the power of finance was becoming clear it is perhaps designed to be a last redoubt for religion in the square mile where economic imperative frequently triumphs over moral direction. In its limited space Hawksmoor packs in feature after feature, not the tall, silent walls of Christ Church Spitalfields but an ever more complex mesh of lines, pillars, arches and windows. So often stuck in the shadows it takes on a brooding countenance, watching, waiting, unmoving as the City's perpetual state of flux speeds round it. Once St Mary Woolnoth has your eye it will not let go, each feature leads into another. Constantly changing parameters as your eye is drawn to its distinctly unecclesiastical peak. No spire or steeple for the City, it would soon be outmatched by more dominant neighbours. Instead its square towers suggest there is a force to this church, a sense it will never leave. This church feels ready for battle with its monetarist surroundings and represents the church as defender of faith in the face of the ideological modernity of the City.

While St Mary Woolnoth finds Hawksmoor in combative mood, St George's church in Bloomsbury finds him at his most whimsical. The front of the church is an almost Roman-esque design of tall columns supporting a distinctly temple like roof. Designed to give the gentry of the day an alternative to other local churches principally located in slums, St George's is a stately, regal presence, now partially hidden by office blocks. This church is not about power, or even much about God, as much as about societal expectations of the church. Impressively ornate, the frontage of the church is back from the street, allowing it to be properly appreciated and this feels like a church designed for proper appreciation, and it does not dominate or impose like its siblings. This theme of societal ideals and regal solemnity extends to the steeple, one of Hawksmoor's most unusual creations. A stepped tower inspired by Roman architecture is beset with figures of lions and unicorns, seemingly contesting for space, while at its peak stands George I in Roman dress, watching over his city with a patrician's gaze. It is one of Hawksmoor's more bravura moments but it is in keeping with the lofty ideals of the church. It seems to represent the building's pre-occupation with the social order of the church, the monarch as literal head of the church with the power to look down upon all who worship there. Perhaps one of the reasons this church feels so out of step with its current surroundings, particularly compared with his other works, is that this social structure no longer comes from the church. Whilst his other buildings still have a modern, relevant power to them, St George's Bloomsbury feels more like a relic of a forgotten time, a place to think about what was, not ponder what is and what will be. In that respect the face of the church it represents has shifted, once it was the social order of the church, now it is the church as link to the past. One cannot look upon its set columns and restrained façade without reflecting on the church through time as the constant line in a mismatched frenzy of history. This is the church at its most solid and comforting but also its least relevant.

If St George Bloomsbury detaches the church from religion and God by marshalling it into a social order and hierarchy, the St Anne's Limehouse wallows in the spirituality at Christianity's core. Something ethereal and otherworldly seeps out of the very stone of the walls and the ground of the churchyard. Only adding to the air of a mystery is a pyramid that was originally destined for the top of the church but which now sits, isolated and without context in the grounds. It is no wonder that this is the source of so much of Hawksmoor's recent association with the demonic and malevolent. There is an air of the dead that makes itself known as you wonder around the grounds kept in shadow by bending, twisting trees. Unlike his other churches St Anne's feels sunk into the ground, as if it its being gradually reclaimed by the former worshippers buried all around it. St Anne's is of the earth but also free from worldly concerns, not only out of its time but also out of its place. When you enter the churchyard you are transported as if to another place, one where London is not present, where there are no cars, no shops, no Mondays, nor any other earthly concern. Again it is tempting to think that Hawksmoor saw the needs of the surrounding area and accommodated them in this extraordinary creation. Limehouse of the time was another of London's desperate slums and remained so for centuries after, supported by the dockyards it was the home of disease, hard labour, and strife but without hope. The dockyards would always be the dockyards, the necessary and unpleasant side of becoming a global trading super power. Without the promise of salvation on this earthly realm Hawksmoor may have tried to give them something else, a brief window into the everlasting afterlife. A place where the soul could free itself of mortal concerns and consort with the angels of promised freedom. St Anne's is the church as a spiritual place, a side of Christianity that is increasingly obscured by our obsession with earthly matters. Maybe this is why modern writers feel the satanic breath upon them here, as we have so forgotten its angelic equivalent. Hawksmoor did not mean for this place to be so interpreted but modern faith has stripped heaven of its incorporeal qualities while allowing the devil and his cohort of demons to take their place as the epitome of the supernatural.

It is the last church of Hawksmoor's set where this divergence between the church of his time and the current church becomes all too obvious. St George in the East is a towering, magnificent and imposing structure, imbuing all who see it with a simple message that God is Great. This is distinct from a wrathful or terrifying God, but a God that is bountiful in His magnificence. Hawksmoor's building inspires as a symbol of what mankind can achieve when its sets its eyes on His countenance and fills the viewer with an awe of religion. This is perhaps the crucial aspect of the church of Hawksmoor's era, it was the sole owner of spectacle, it had a distinct faith in its own richness that no other body could match. Science and godless culture were yet to attain the brilliance and grandeur that He and His representatives could claim. Hawksmoor's creations are astounding because the great creator was astounding. They harnessed His power but in modern times the church has fallen behind.

Spectacle is now mass produced, packaged and sold piece by piece. Architecture has moved on from the baroque of Hawksmoor to new styles and ever more impressive feats and heights. The swagger of Hawksmoor's works are now replicated by any large company or product with a power untamed by any religious force. St George in the East is now looked down upon by that new edifice to our current churches of commerce and capitalism, the Shard's neo-brutalist spire of steel and glass. A phallic protuberance reaching ever higher, piercing His perfect canvas with all the arrogance and temerity that has become the hallmark of our godless consumerism. The ephemeral transience of the City's new glass towers, to go with their glass empires of imagined money and digital data, contrasts with Hawksmoor's hard stone. The fragility and transparency of these building's almost implies they are built ready for a time when they and their money will not be needed, whilst Hawksmoor's solid, eternal churches are crafted with a certainty that an Earth without God is as impossible as unimaginable. But modern Christianity does not have Hawksmoor's faith, it has yielded in the face of these threats and has become lesser. Indeed, it has forgotten that God is Great, instead God is now nice. Never was this clearer than the interior of St George in the East.

Rebuilt after destruction during the blitz, the interior of the church has been built in what could be called the church's modern style. The baroque grandeur that once was has been replaced with inoffensive pastel walls, wide spaces and a pulpit no higher than its congregation. God is equal. The walls are adorned with stories about cake sales and bike rides, nothing that could be objected to, nothing which could imply the existence of heaven. Here God's mission is more likely to explore the intricacies of baking than the afterlife. Faced with threats, the church has turned in on itself and removed the potentially distressing parts such as, faith, sin, the wonder of God's infinite love and the spirit of His staggering creation. When one looks for God's greatness in the modern church one can only see the fearful hatred and retching disgust aimed at the hell-bound. God used to be Great, he once created all life out of love. Now He condemns homosexuals and abortionists to fiery hell and endorses turgidly minor acts of everyday charity. But God can be great without being vengeful, He can be magnificent without hating. If one needs the proof you need only look at the works he inspired in Hawksmoor, not just staggering works of boundless genius but works reflective of the forgotten faces of Christianity. A welcoming call to worship, an transcendent ideal, a defence against ruthless capitalism, an attachment to the past, a deep spiritualism and a boundless brilliance. Even as an atheist it is hard to deny the raw power of such ideas, and sad to see them so dissipated in the modern faith.

Reflections on Bauhaus: Art as Life at the Barbican

Bauhaus emerged from the ruins of a shell shocked and traumatised Europe. Blinking into the sunlight of peace after five of the most brutal and destructive years ever forced upon the continent. The seemingly unending nightmare of the First World War had left Britain, France and Germany bled dry, collapsed against each other like drunken fighters with no punches left to throw. The war and subsequent peace treaties had led to the complete break up of what remained of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, as most of Europe was torn into new countries, territories and occupied zones. War followed by pandemic had nearly wiped out a generation of Europeans while the economies of Europe had been stripped bare in the mutilating drive for greater armament production. The only institutions and factories left standing were unsuited and unused to peace.

From such destruction, the desire for change is inevitable. Driven by the belief that something in society must be fundamentally wrong for such acts to occur, people reached out for causes, leaders and philosophies that would burn the past. This desire became an ideological scorched earth tactic that would drive the following tumultuous decades. Russia, having suffered humiliation and starvation, collapsed into murderous civil war and surfaced as the first Communist state. In France the search for cause became a demand for vengeance as successive Governments meticulously crippled the German state, while in the UK the Labour movement gained power for the first time as they replaced the Liberals at the top tier of British politics. Radicalism even extended to global politics as nations attempted to build a new world order with a supranational arbiter authority to decide conflicts between nations. The League of Nations' lofty ideals were too great a mismatch with the chaos of the age to last.

In Germany, the destruction spread to every area of society and government but, more than these physical scars, defeat was a blow to their national identity. Despite being a relatively new nation, unified only in the previous century, repeated military success and the political skill of Bismarck had put them at the centre of world affairs. A naval, military, economic, and occasional colonial power that had shaken the European balance of power to its core, Germany now lay beaten and crippled as French and English scavengers picked the bones at Versailles. In truth, the German spirit had already been broken. The sickening, rotting, maddening anger at the very core of the German heart expressed itself in so many ways in these fateful years. From failed communist revolts, to attempted Nazi putsches, from the illogical belief in Dolchstoß, the stab in the back myth, to the sadistic compulsion to print money even as hyperinflation raged, this anger was everywhere. In every aspect of life, Germans sought to break down the accepted way of things to form something, anything, new. In trying to avoid a repeated destruction they engaged their most destructive tendencies.

From this obsessive desire for the new came the Bauhaus movement. An artistic and creative drive to try new forms, new pedagogies, new ideas and new techniques. The earliest works of Bauhaus are almost methodical in their abstractness, showing a consuming desire to avoid the usual, the pre-existing or the functional. One notable sculpture is an abstract relief design carved into the wood of what used to be a propeller, the machines of the great war turned into the products of new art. Master Itten studied old masters on a geometric level, the paintings stripped down into mathematical formulae or their images viewed through a prism of raw emotional resonance. Everything about the school was rebuilt through this mindset, even their timetables were redesigned to look unlike those of the past.

The geometric abstraction soon merged with the burgeoning constructivist movement and Bauhaus had its motif. Angular designs and bold colours brought with them a new modernism contrasting sharply with the annihilated buildings and muddy quagmire of the Western Front. The naturalism and curves of previous art was to be wiped away, Bauhaus experimented with a linear functionality building back up to the useful and practical from these new ideas and transformed basics. The school collaborated on a project to build a timber house in line with their ideas. Dominated by mesmeric patterns of geometric shapes and filled with functional if abstract furnishings such as the famous rotating bookcase, it was to be a triumph not just of design but of a communal and collective spirit as Masters and Students alike contributed their time and worked as equals to building the structure from scratch.

The desire to create a movement that could change how people thought about the world was now in full flow but the almost deliberately uneconomic minds of the Bauhaus masters were running into conflict with the ever collapsing German state. As hyperinflation ran wild and society broke down even the concept of money seemed to be under threat from the rampant destructive energy of this perfect storm. For a time the masters at Bauhaus helped design banknotes with ever more ludicrous numbers on them. The notes now sit comfortable amongst the more outrageously surrealist works produced by the school. With their funding withdrawn Bauhaus moved to the growing city of Dessau with new backers, responding to threatening economic times by shutting their productive and successful pottery workshop.

Dessau was to be the Bauhaus movement's crowning triumph, with their new funds affording them a prime campus location with the freedom to do as they wished. The result was to be an idealised vision of architectural modernity inspired by the school's founder and director at the time Walter Gropius. Sweeping away Gothic and traditionalists design principles, the Bauhaus Dessau's straight lines, sharp edges and clean design tried to create the functional and modern out of the design practices of their school. Designed with students as well as masters, the building is grippingly modern. This was the working space rebuilt from new foundations, and new ideals and was a towering achievement.

Elsewhere on the campus the master's houses were designed with new standards of living in mind. Simplicity, clean lines, and functionality were key as the Bauhaus sought to bring its design gifts to work on how people ate, slept and entertained. Light, tubular steel chairs, re-positionable lights, and sofas that could be transformed for more or less people were the order of the day. They believed with an almost religious fervour that the geometric designs of the future would sweep away the heavy, solemn furniture of the past.

These were growth years as Germany and the world looked to recover, and the Bauhaus turned their attention to even loftier ideals. Herbert Bayer attempted to create a universal phonetic alphabet and font to unite languages and people. Other masters focused on the idea of a complete art, one uniting all mediums. A theatre owner commissioned work for an automated theatre where the Bauhaus' artistic ideals of the stage could be played out. They already held their own entertainments and bizarre parties where students would have to attend in outfits according to a design theme. The Bauhaus branched out into clothes, and wallpaper, bringing their ideas of design into people lives and homes. The heady days were not to continue and the automated theatre was never to be built.

The aesthetic and functional movements within the school came into conflict with new director Hannes Mayer pushing the school to make a profit on its design radicalism. Some idealistic masters left, including Bayer with his unsuccessful universal font. But worse was to come. Just as the world thought it was beginning to recover it crashed again, first on Wall Street and then everywhere. Extremism was reborn with an even greater fury and the Bauhaus was a target.

In a deliberate attempt to de politicise the school Mies Von De Rohe became director but he was unable to stem the criticism and, following an unsuccessful move to Berlin, the school was forced to close under unrelenting political pressure from the Nazi party. Despite being denounced as “degenerate” and “un-German” art, the movement the Bauhaus created could not be stopped and its influence pushed well into the future. However for Germany a different kind of modernism was coming. The Nazis were also invigorated with the sense of creative destruction but their aims were much more sinister. The new tools and aesthetics of modernity, the autobahn, the Volkswagen, the Panzer and the gas chamber were their signatures as they attempted to break society down and rebuild it from the ground up. Where once the Bauhaus had attempted to use modernity to bring new design into functional use and merge art with life, the Nazis used the same forces of modernity to mass produce murder and push their death cult into the everyday lives of Germany’s citizens and victims.

At the Barbican's exhibition on Bauhaus there is a large section on the design and construction of the Bauhaus Dessau. The limitless hope that pours forth from the note books, publications, and design models which portray the new modern living is in complete ignorance of what was to come. It is enough to break the stoniest heart. 

My Top 50 Films of the 00s

So, after criticising various top 50 lists for films in the 00's I was challenged (I think, I may have ended up challenging myself, the details are somewhat unclear) to make my own list. There's only one rule which is that I must have actually watched the film so there are a few obvious omissions but the rest is all just my opinion, man.

For a straight list without explanations please go here.

50 Black Snake Moan

A real oddity, a film about the southern United States that doesn't mock or belittle them. Powerful, different and interesting.

49 The Prestige

Its the sheer inventiveness of Nolan's fourth film that elevates it into this list. Hugh Jackman unleashing his showman side is a joy to behold and the various twists are outstanding.

48 Stardust

Fairy tales seem to have made a comeback in the noughties and this is a very good example with all the magic, horror, and fun you'd expect.

47 Nine Queens

The 00s saw a huge revival in South and Latin American film making and this Argentinian heist film is one of my favourites. A complex multi handed tale revolving around a set of highly collectable stamps. Received the obligatory American remake in 2004's Criminal starring John C. Reilly.

46 High Fidelity

One of my favourite romantic comedies, a clever adaptation, and a career best performance from John Cusack. Witty, guy centric, with a distinct charm.

45 A Scanner Darkly

Elevated by the use of rotoscope into a bewildering, trippy insight into a dystopian world riddled with drug abuse and government surveillance.

44 School of Rock

When Linklater isn't blowing your mind in A Scanner Darkly he's directing the best 'comedian with a bunch of child actors' film you've ever seen. One of my most watched films of the decade.

43 District 9

Sci Fi didn't have a great decade but body horror and allegories for apartheid combine to brilliant effect in a consistently surprising début film.

42 Ping Pong

The best sports film ever made.

41 Almost Famous

One of the most personal and heartfelt films to come out of Hollywood in the 00s. Its hard not to be swept along by its relentlessly optimistic tone.

40 Stranger Than Fiction

Will Ferrell is actually watchable in this very post modern take on the rom com. The narration device works really well but there is enough of a plot elsewhere to stop it becoming a one joke comedy.

39 My Summer of Love

Paddy Considine has starred in a string of critically adored British films this decade, most of which I can barely stomach. For my money this is the best as he portrays an increasingly obsessive preacher, in a one of the few British films to escape this decade's obsession with the This Is England style social realism aesthetic.

38 Thank You for Smoking

Before he was Harvey Dent, Aaron Eckhart was the smooth, likeable moral vacuum at the heart of Jason Reitman's film about the tobacco industry. It works by taking its shot at everyone, defending the indefensible just like its main character.

37 The Fog of War

A man talking for an hour and a half. It'd have to be an interesting man to make this list and it turns out former US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara is just such a man. One of the simplest and best documentaries I've ever seen.

36 American Splendour

Paul Giamatti does downtrodden better than anyone on film and Harvey Pekar does downtrodden better than anyone in comics. It was always going to work.

35 Lost in Translation

It may not be everyone's cup of tea but I adore the storytelling through body language in this film.

34 Persepolis

Animated politics, it was bound to be on the list. I was fascinated with the sections in Iran which inventively portray a child's take on the revolution.

33 Big Fish

Its sheer warmth is infectious. Ewan McGregor brings all his considerable charm to the table and delivers a fantastic tale of a life well lived.

32 A Single Man

Colin Firth cements his place as one of the great underrated actors as he portrays a gay university professor in 1962 struggling to cope with the death of his lover. Its an understated performance dripping in a subtle melancholy that doesn't so much tug at the heartstrings as attach them to a pack of wildhorses.

31 Little Miss Sunshine

Indie road trip movies starring dysfunctional familes are a dime a dozen but Little Miss Sunshine is one of the very best. Paul Dano and Steve Carrell are particularly superb in an astounding strong cast delivering a funny and touching script.

30 Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl

One of the best summer blockbusters to ever be made. Retroactively destructive sequels have tarnished its reputation but it remains a witty, entertaining film with sparkling action sequences. At least in the first film its sprawling, convoluted plot is an asset.

29 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Robert Downey Jr had the decade of his career in many ways and this film is just one reason why. Probably too self referential for many but I like its digs at formula film making and the sparky interplay between the two leads is exemplary.

28 Baader Meinhof Complex

The story of the Baader Meinhof group is so interesting that this German film has to do little other than present the facts to be flat out brilliant.

27 Dodgeball

The Frat Pack dominated American comedy throughout the 00's and Dodgeball captures them at their best. The characters are familiar and the jokes are mostly incredibly stupid but there's enough charm and belly laughs to make those facts virtues.

26 Juno

Uniformly outstanding performances, two future stars on the cusp of greatness and an indie look that would come to be standard; its easy to see why Juno was such a success and why there was an inevitable but unwarranted backlash.

25 Cloverfield

Not as influential as I had expected it to be but Cloverfield's visual style is breathtaking. Not only a tightly paced reinvention of the monster movie but a rollercoaster of thrills and danger. Its real strength is capturing the aesthetic of the 00's, the decade where user generated content became king is the perfect time for an action movie filmed by its participants.

24 Slumdog Millionaire

The story is enough for me to love Slumdog Millionaire, the fact the film is also finely directed and well acted only seals the deal.

23 The Lives of Others

Subtle, slow, deeply affecting and poignant. The Lives of Others is the kind of film that makes you want to sit on your own and think for a few hours afterwards.

22 In Bruges

Colin Farrell resurrects his career in a film about a hundred times funnier and sadder than I was expecting. At times silly, offensive or redemptive, In Bruges is predictably divisive but is clearly the work of a true original.

21 Spider-Man 2

For my money, the only really good comic book film that manages to combine real drama and solid action with the essential silliness of the original comic book. Dr. Octopus is both a complex human being and a swaggering super villain, Spider-man is a wisecracking kid with absurd powers and a teenager struggling to become a man. A film of great scope that doesn't forget to be fun.

20 Moulin Rouge

Pretty much single handedly resurrected the live action musical which is enough of a feat by itself. Built for the big screen it has suffered slightly since but for sheer vision and humour, it slips into the top 20.

19 Donnie Darko

The teen movie to end all teen movies, but that doesn't mean its not insightful, complex and rewarding. Made a star out of Jake Gyllenhaal for good reason, and even if Richard Kelly never manages to follow it up, it remains a work to be immensely proud of.

18 Lilo and Stitch

While Disney's hand drawn animations have struggled throughout the 00's but Lilo and Stitch is an underrated gem. Impossibly cute but also genuinely funny and touching, Lilo and Stitch is the gold standard to which all children's films should aspire.

17 The Reader

I have rarely cried in cinemas but The Reader broke me with a few red dots on the side of a cassette tape. For that reason alone it goes into my top 20.

16 Mystic River

I've not always been the biggest fan of Clint Eastwood's directorial career but to me Mystic River is a staggering high. It may be depressing, dark and dripping with violent intent but that doesn't mean it can't be watchable, gripping entertainment too. I don't like Sean Penn often, but when he's good, as in Mystic River, he's really very good indeed. Also, has my favourite trailer of the decade.

15 Memento

Christopher Nolan is a huge talent and now one of my favourite film makers, but this is the film where he came to my, and most people's, attention. Taking the 90's obsession with disjointed chronology and taking it to its logical conclusion he creates a crime drama interesting enough to hold the audience even without the stunning storytelling device. Unique, and brilliant, you can ask little else of a film.

14 Motorcycle Diaries

One of the best of the South American bubble follows a youthful Che Guevara as his political views are formed on a round trip of the continent. Its fascinating to watch a burgeoning young mind getting its first experience of the world and it demonstrates the quality of South American film that this biopic needs no gimmicks to tell a good story.

13 Gosford Park

Robert Altman resurrected the careers of half the British acting community in this outstanding ensemble drama. As usual it takes an American director to really show the truth of the British class system and he does so beautifully. Would have been higher without Stephen Fry's misjudged late cameo.

12 Children of Men

The beautiful, impeccably detailed and quintessentially British set design are reason enough for me to love this film but Clive Owen acting his full range from angry stoic to defiant stoic to sad stoic pushes this film up to 12. Few films can match the imagination of the action set pieces and the final sequence in Bexhill remains one of my favourite ever filmed.

11 Requiem for a Dream

A fast tracked descent into madness with all the visual tricks that a young and still ragged Darren Aronofsky could muster. Its ultra fast drug taking montages and innovative camera work have become standard because of their sheer brilliance. Its exhilarating visual kinetics emphasises the depressing spiral of the characters in the most powerful assault on the senses to come out of the 00s.

10 Dark Knight

A very grown up comic book film that has more in common with a Michael Mann crime epic than Spider-man or X Men. Its complex themes, dark tones, and charismatic villains make it endlessly rewatchable, while the three leads are exceptional. Its flabby final third keeps it at number 10 but I expect it will always be regarded as the pinnacle of the 00 comic book revival.

9 (500) Days of Summer

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Its not a rom com, its a film about love, what it is, what it means and what it isn't. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is, as usual, astoundingly good as a frustrated architect and hopeless sop learning the hard way about emotions.

8 Brick

An idea so simple it must be genius. Take the conceits, characters and plot of a Film Noir and set it in an American High School. The result is funny, clever, and brilliant. Joseph Gordon-Levitt pitches his shambling but smooth talking performance perfectly to capture the mood of both the schoolyard and the PI's office.

7 No Country for Old Men

There are so many brilliant elements to this film that its impossible to list them in this space. Just a fantastic film about great characters caught up in a perfect plot.

6 Waltz with Bashir

I've never seen an animated film quite like this. Here the animation is used to demonstrate and amplify the insanity of war and the unreliability of memories. Manages to take the documentary in staggering new directions and retain the horrendous nature of events without driving the audience away or overwhelming them with a monotony of horror. Has more insight and artistry etched into every frame than some film makers manage in their careers.

5 Zodiac

The Director's Cut shows this tale of obsession as it should be. One of the few films about serial killers to completely avoid romanticising the murderer or generating cheap thrills out of real deaths. The film's sprawling length and timespan capture all the frustration and anger suffered by those hunting a serial killer who taunts his opponents. A film that demands a lot of its audience but is worthy of the effort.

4 Downfall

Perhaps the only film to have attempted to capture why Hitler inspired such fanatical loyalty from so many people and, in doing so, portrays the horror of WW2 and Hitler's lunacy better than has ever been achieved. Bruno Ganz produces a staggering portrayal of the angry, increasingly impotent and violent leader struggling to cling to any tenuous hope he can find. A brilliant film, aided by its rigid structure and lack of visual flair.

3 The Incredibles

Perhaps my favourite animated film of all time. It takes the conventions and set ups of a million comic book tales and takes them into uncharted territories with brazen confidence and flat out quality writing. A kids films where the main focus is on the strains middle age puts on a marriage, and where the supervillain feeds on the frustration of an emasculated male; this is a constantly surprising animation that stands easily alongside any of the live action films of the decade. The incredible amount of thought put into every sequence just shines off the screen and feeds into every aspect of the film.

2 City of God

A sprawling epic that contains some of my favourite scenes of any decade. The cast of semi-professional actors manage to deliver natural, heartfelt performances that draw you into an unfamiliar world. The film functions as tragic study of socio-economic cycles of violence and retribution, and as a thrill ride through favela culture unmatched by any other film.

1 There Will be Blood

There can be few more intense films ever produced. Daniel Day-Lewis dominates the screen from first minute to last; his luxuriant, coldly threatening, and deeply charming voice adding to a stalking, almost awkward physicality to produce one of the great screen characters. On first viewing it is almost impossible to look past Day-Lewis but on second viewing you begin to notice the trends of capitalism versus religion, the brilliance of Paul Dano as a charismatic preacher who stands in Day-Lewis' path, the powerful score, and the perfect evocation of an era and particularly American time period. Then there is the ending, possibly one of the greatest endings of any film and the perfect cap to an intensely satisfying, rewarding and intelligent film that deserves to be hailed alongside the greatest of all time.

Top 50 Films of the 00s - Simple List

50 Black Snake Moan
49 The Prestige
48 Stardust
47 Nine Queens
46 High Fidelity
45 A Scanner Darkly
44 School of Rock
43 District 9
42 Ping Pong
41 Almost Famous
40 Stranger Than Fiction
39 My Summer of Love
38 Thank You for Smoking
37 The Fog of War
36 American Splendour
35 Lost in Translation
34 Persepolis
33 Big Fish
32 A Single Man
31 Little Miss Sunshine
30 Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl
29 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
28 Baader Meinhof Complex
27 Dodgeball
26 Juno
25 Cloverfield
24 Slumdog Millionaire
23 The Lives of Others
22 In Bruges
21 Spider-Man 2
20 Moulin Rouge
19 Donnie Darko
18 Lilo and Stitch
17 The Reader
16 Mystic River
15 Memento
14 Motorcycle Diaries
13 Gosford Park
12 Children of Men
11 Requiem for a Dream
10 Dark Knight
9 (500) Days of Summer
8 Brick
7 No Country for Old Men
6 Waltz with Bashir
5 Zodiac
4 Downfall
3 The Incredibles
2 City of God
1 There Will be Blood

A Decade On

I felt sick for weeks after 9/11. A creeping sickness, as if something was rotting inside me. It may have been fear or revulsion, maybe a confused bodily reaction to the sudden and brutal restructuring of the world. I can still recall the uneasiness which permeated from my mind into my physical state. A decade later, I am not sure if the sickness ever left me.

That day is etched into my mind, I carry the snapshot memories in me and can recall them at a moment’s notice. Being told by a friend as I stood at the school gates, being part of the crowd in Dixons watching something unknown and terrible unfold, the endlessly replayed footage, the monotony of horror and the relief that came from finally turning off the television. The ceaseless rolling coverage of pain and suffering beamed directly into our homes magnified and intensified the event out of all knowable proportions. With every passing minute, every new second of footage, and every stilted, shocked recap America was humiliated. Humiliated at 24 frames per second. Humiliated but not humbled, not broken and not beaten. One thought was immediately obvious even as I stood with strangers and staff in that becalmed Dixons; that someone would have to pay. America would need vengeance and someone would have to be found, blamed, bombed and defeated. What I did not predict was the brutal, reductionist manner by which America would attempt to get its catharsis, and what I could never have foreseen is that a decade later it would still be seeking closure, bestriding the world searching for the one speck of solace that will make everything as it were.

Amongst the shattered concrete and gypsum that lay where the twin towers had stood, America and, by proxy, the world lost something it would not recognise the value of until it had disappeared. America’s identity; torn asunder by a few terrorists and their own airplanes. In its place was an aesthetic of terrorism that was to infiltrate, then dominate America’s culture emperors, Hollywood. Disaster didn’t look like it was meant to, it was filthy and messy, paper floated down from on high, the haunting, ceaseless beeping of emergency distress signals echoed through otherwise silent streets and the dust, the terrible, choking, all consuming dust filled the air. It rushed in clouds down New York’s streets, propelled by the collapsing Towers and plunging what was once vibrant and busy, into a monotonous, grey pall. Firemen emerged as new heroes of a new age. Men used to running into burning buildings had their unwanted Everest, not just a burning building now but a burning symbol, an edifice of America’s creation and someone else’s destruction. Whilst their president hid underground, their fireman marched into the heart of the disaster doing whatever they could, rescuing whoever they could in the forlorn hope that it would somehow be enough to undo what had been done to their city, their country.

A new wave of patriotism swept an already patriotic nation. America’s new heroes, their firemen, raised a flag over ground zero in an abject copy of glories past and America followed suit. Flags emerged everywhere, “United We Stand” they bellowed, affirming to themselves as much as the rest of the world, and their leader emerged from his cave brandishing a new rhetoric dividing the world into those on America’s side, and the terrorists. In the days following the event it was a useful ideal, and prompted small acts of bravery or goodwill that defined America’s reaction. Lines of people queued up to give blood, traders on the stock exchange deliberately bought and bought high to stave off a terrorism induced crash. A nation tried to rebuild is self confidence and shake itself free of its worry and confusion. A new found seriousness led to the cancellation of sporting events and the quiet dropping of celebrity gossip pages but it could not and did not last. Sports returned emblazoned in flags and draped with patriotic figures from the armed forces and emergency services. America questioned itself, Newsweek pondered aloud “Why do they hate us?” But its answers were symptomatic of a country that didn’t know what it stood for anymore; maybe it was America’s freedom, maybe its democracy, maybe its religion. America didn’t know what it stood for so it stood for everything. The situation lent itself to sweeping statements and grand affirmations of a new age from philosophers and reporters alike. Even the most prosaic of tabloid hack became conversant in the Clash of Civilisations theory as the world tried to define a new epoch. The attacks were transmogrified into an assault on the entire history of liberal democracy by a culture ill suited to anything but violence and authoritarianism. Fukuyama was brought to account for proclaiming the End of History, as if his complacency had allowed the new threat to arise. While its people reeled from the assault on its own territory, America’s leaders plotted. This opportunity was not to be missed and a new world order was to be unleashed. A world order built on an incorrigible faith in the converting power of democracy and an absurdist, cowboy lexicon that allowed no linguistic quarter to the nuanced, the fearful or the unconvinced.

America declared war on an abstract noun, a bravura moment for a nation that had lost previous encounters with Crime and Drugs, but the War on Terror would be different, it had an immediate, defined and palpably conquerable enemy, the first of an expected many. On September 11th itself, Bush had promised there would be “no distinction between terrorists and those that harboured them”. He was true to his word and in this black and white world Afghanistan’s Taliban regime was to find itself an enemy not just of America but of the West in the form of NATO. As would become typical of American foreign policy, the War in Afghanistan lacked definition and purpose. The War on Terror was to be a war without end, and as such it could not have goals or ambitions, only targets. Afghanistan became its first target and the War on Terror would consume it whole, deleting its diplomatic history with America and revising its bloody, poisonous past. America would become the War on Terror. What it wanted, what it needed was what America wanted and needed. It became more important that freedom, democracy, religion or any of the other proposed complaints of America’s enemies. Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance were once criminals, warlords, and murderers but became friends and allies as the battle for liberty and democracy took immediate comfort in the arms of some of its fiercest abusers.

Whilst abroad the War on Terror was wrathful and angry, at home it was fearful and scared. America had been attacked by people living within its own borders; its own infrastructure had been turned against itself. America could not understand the reasons for its attack so it could not distinguish between future attackers and true patriots. Everywhere it looked it saw more people plotting, more people waiting for an opportunity to strike. They may have been patriotic times but America could no longer trust itself and the War on Terror wanted to feed on this paranoia. Patriotic times would get their Patriot Act. Not a law, but an attack on its own people. Fear was encouraged, conversations were taped, neighbours referred neighbours to the FBI, and the War on Terror feasted on the rotting bonds of community that had once held a nation together. Suspicion breeds suspicion, paranoia breeds paranoia, new alarms were raised and dismissed, terror levels were heightened, and silence became foreboding. The lack of attacks became proof that it was working, not that it was unnecessary, and the feeding continued. The War on Terror was so hungry, it had fed on Afghanistan, it was feeding on America but now it needed to feed on people.

The War on Terror needed victims. Not just any people, the War on Terror needed victims on which it could enact its retribution, it needed to make people suffer, and it needed its enemies to be worth less than the American citizens that were killed. It needed victims it could humiliate, interrogate, rendition and torture. The combatants who were captured in this new kind of war were not to be termed soldiers and were not granted a soldier’s rights. Instead, a new definition was created, allowing the normal rules of war to be subverted and outright ignored. The War on Terror’s victims became trapped in a quantum superposition, inmates but not prisoners, combatants but not soldiers, held in a jail without a trial or a sentence, they were to be forgotten. Existing but not existing, in America but not in America, humans but without rights, they were Schrödinger’s prisoners trapped in a legalistic maze that had somehow robbed them of their self evident truths. Guantanamo Bay became America’s iron hand in its velvet glove, the images of wire fences, and orange boiler suits were the ever present threat to its enemies. Stories of waterboarding, stress positions and sleep deprivation were the tacit warning to all that America had succumbed to its anger. With policies like these the war could not be about freedom and encouraging democracy anymore, the sheer level of force brought to bear against a country with no ability to retaliate meant it could not be viewed as a simple man hunt, rather this was the first skirmish of a new age of global war. The West bringing the full power of its military might to enforce their long held belief that democracy was the end stage of civilisation, the inevitable product of the evolution of the state. Where once this belief was held on paper and expected to take its course, now it would be forced by arms and conflict. The people would be made to be free, they would be bombed for peace, and democracy was to be enforced. The War on Terror’s latest victim was the humble oxymoron, an innocent victim abused beyond all recognition in the service of other goals.

As America reshaped its world into two defined camps, friends and enemies, the dividing line between the two became murkier and murkier. While the mass murderers and war criminals of Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance had become clearly marked friends, NATO members France and Germany would slide towards the enemies camp as the War on Terror’s attention turned to its next target. America was thirsty for more vengeance and eager to expand its narrative of Western liberal democracy staring down the terrors of the world’s most notorious nations. The rhetoric became ever more bald and divisive. The Axis of Evil was termed, implying a bond of brotherhood existed between three states who had at one time or another fallen under America’s gaze but survived. Suddenly whole parts of the world were embroiled in an imagined international conspiracy to attack America fuelled by a pathological hatred of all that America was and all that it stood for. America’s self confidence had dissolved, where once it had known that it was loved, now it knew it was hated. Worse this new Axis had access to devastating weapons, America imagined these weapons only existed for one purpose, missiles, bombs, and vials primed and aimed at her heart. While America had been hurt by planes, now it feared nuclear bombs and anthrax. The War on Terror knew what it must do, they had to be disarmed. The Weapon of Mass Destruction was added to the new lexicon of war mongering. It may have been a pretence, an excuse or a reason, maybe all three to different actors in the White House theatre but its power to possess the debate was as awesome as its destructive threat. The cowboy and his posse convened at the ranch and cooked up a new meal for the War on Terror. The time for settling old scores had come to pass. Lines were drawn, resolutions requested, gained or denied, speeches were made and protests were marched but there could be no stopping the War on Terror gaining its new front. It was hungry, having only partially digested its last meal it needed the sustenance of another fallen regime, more images of American superiority, and the satisfaction of completing a job half done a decade before. Iraq and the Bushes; the new love that dare not speak its name. While the War on Terror prepared its feast, some convinced themselves that only good could come of it. The suffering of That Day would be turned to hope, it would derive meaning and no longer be simply cold blooded slaughter, troops would be welcomed into Iraq, democracy would flower and the Middle East would recognise what should become its natural state. With hindsight it is hard to know if they were lying or genuinely mistaken but whatever was found in Iraq there were neither WMD, nor any peace. Only the next quagmire in which American military might would lose its lustre.

Saddam’s information minister reminded the world that it was not only the West that could abuse language with his increasingly desperate and hysterical statements lending an element of farce to what was becoming a tragedy. When the statues fell and Baghdad was looted no one was quite sure what would happen next, it seemed not even the War on Terror knew what it wanted anymore. WMDs had been not so quietly dropped, the mission was declared accomplished and Regime Change became the new hip phrase. In the void where a plan was once assuredly place, a new manhunt was rustled up. Men who had tortured, maimed, gassed and killed were reduced to hiding in holes as America’s enforcers roamed the Wild East, lasso in hand. Finally the Ace of Aces was caught, examined, and presented to a whooping audience. Paul Bremer could not resist lowering the moment to the tone of the times. “Ladies and Gentlemen, we got ‘im,” he remarked, verbally dumping the outlaw on the floor of his saloon. They were the words of an America asserting itself once again. They had conquered the West and now they would conquer the Middle East, this was the swaggering arrogance they had missed since That Day. One of America’s longest standing bad guys had been usurped, hounded, captured and humiliated. Now he would be thrown to the Iraqis to do with as they pleased. America; the righter of wrongs, the superman it had come to believe itself to be. But then the turn happened, the conquered refused to accept the facts. They had been defeated, routed, reduced but still they came with new weapons, not the WMD as was so feared but the IED. The bomb that could be anything and anywhere, the bomb that made even the most humble car, and the quietest street untrustworthy. A device that, in its simplicity, destroyed the relationship between occupier and occupied. America was fearful again. It had not meant to be this way. America was to be loved, feared and respected in that order. These new weapons made a mockery of their massive military spending and state of the art equipment, but what really hurt was that again America was bogged down, trapped under the weight of its commitments. This America was no superman; it saw itself reflected in a new Batman. A violent, fearful character determined to use the power of its own fear against its enemies, driven by spite and discontent to try and make a better world but spurned by those it thought would support it.

Stay the Course was the new logic, if America could just hold out long enough, just keep doing what it was doing then the world would recognise, then they’d see. But staying the course was tiring and debilitating, America was stuck, drenched in blood and unable to move forward or back. Stay the Course had been a choice, now it became an inevitability. What was America now? It was no longer the fireman leaping heroically into burning builders because it was too stretched to act, it had failed to be the world’s marshal by letting its biggest fish squirm off the hook, Iraq had rejected its role of as the bringer of peace and democracy and the world had rejected it as the moral torch in a murky world. The War on Terror had consumed all before it, people, countries, ideals and money but it had left nothing in its place. America was a lover spurned. Used, abused and discarded by a War that still wanted to be fed. Everywhere the West’s ideals were in tatters. From the feeble hearted opposition to Iraq, to complicity in extraordinary rendition and torture, the West was disrobed and revealed. It had sold its most precious possessions, its values and freedoms for the tiniest crumbs of comfort and security and was left with nothing to protect. Worse was to come.

Perhaps there should have been an air of inevitability, there was no other box left to tick, but instead the shock was palpable. America’s disastrous decade was to culminate in a home brewed economic collapse almost without equal. No buildings fell but companies came crashing down, hasty mergers were arranged which only served to pass on the mess and soon the debacle spread. Vast swathes of the world were plunged into full scale recession and mass unemployment. This would be how the world would truly end. Not in the fall of buildings and the wave of dust clouds but with repossessions, resignations and stock market boards covered in red. The West tried to stop the bleeding by jamming wounds with money, thrusting more and more in. The printed all they dared, they spent all they could afford but it was not enough, they desperately sought cash from outside. Their joy when it came was tempered by regret at whose kindness they had to appreciate. Communist Dollars dyed red from China, and petrodollars seeping with oil from the Middle East flooded into a market hungry for cash and starved of credit. America and the West were beholden to the nations they had mocked. Democracies went to autocracies with their begging bowls, the evolved state seeking help from those once deemed backward. The Civilisations were no longer clashing, they were banking.

America was lost and needed a new message and it was delivered. The message was Change, its power was awesome and its range was infinite. New dawns were declared and hopes were raised but no rain came. Instead the long desert days continued. America continued to bleed, continued to stagger and teeter toward a new precipice. The Tea Party tried to remodel America again. This time as a nation of winners, struck low by a generation of losers. In the midst of the continuing crisis America’s bête noire was shot twice and killed by a member of Navy Seal Team Six. “For God and Country” he had radioed his superiors as the villain of the piece slumped to the floor. America waited for the inevitable wave of catharsis, and waited and waited. Somehow it didn’t seem to matter as much as they’d hoped. America had long ago cast off its identity as avenger of wrongs, no longer did it desire to dispense globe spanning justice, now it just wanted to pay the bills. As the decade since That Day reached its conclusion America gazed into a financial abyss as its debt ceiling loomed, and while one crisis was averted, barely, it still cost their prized credit rating.

The War on Terror ate America from the inside out. As the 10th anniversary of That Day approaches, Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay stays open, and its detained non-soldiers stay outside the law. Imprisoned by a linguistic twist that shows all America has done to its ideals and values to feed its insatiable desire for vengeance, only to discover that there are greater demons out there. The war in Afghanistan has appeared to finally outlast the war in Iraq in their private contest. The Patriot act remains in law and has been extended by the man who would be Hope. A decade ago, America’s greatness was unquestioned, now even its credit is challenged. America and the West turned the world upside down, they made the worst kind of allies, restricted freedom at home, ran roughshod over basic human rights abroad, and bled themselves dry on wars in the Middle East all because of a single event and a subsequent idea. Maybe the sickness I felt on That Day was a precognition that whatever was to come would be worse than what had happened. The War on Terror has eaten so much, destroyed so much, and used so much. Its left us all sick, and all complicit, in an era that has been defined by Terror but not the terror imposed by others but the terror the West generated in itself.