The Dark Knight Trilogy (Christopher Nolan, 2005-2012)

[domino harvey]

I guess there's no profundity in Greek mythology

[James Mills]

knives: as usual, we are seemingly on entirely different wavelengths so let's save each other's time (and other members' patiences) and just agree to disagree.

Which is an other way of saying you have no where to defend your position with and don't wish to concede the point. All I ask is how is the film any more 'realist' than your average action movie and what about your examples breaks with the internal logic of the movie's universe.

No, it's another way of me saying that I don't feel like repeating myself anymore:

It's a world that we are made to believe is like our own. Its dialect is of a realist film's and so are its conflicts, and every other scheme or plan is somewhat logical (the character's motivations, their reactions to other character's motivations, etc.).

I can at least entertain arguments in support of the glib defining of "these contraptions can do everything" for the Hong Kong mumbo, but Joker's "plan" is just ridiculous and, as I said earlier, purposely meant to be forgotten or not recognized as plausible for the audience. At least the Hong Kong scene tries to explain how it's possible, therefore not denying the fact that it even exists. I don't see how anyone can give a director a pass on trying to duck the logical reasoning behind something happening.

And for better measure: the Joker launches full out assault to not capture Harvey Dent. In that whole scene, one SWAT truck goes into the river, a garbage truck gets smashed, the Batmobile destroyed, and the Joker's big rig gets upended. And a helicopter gets torn out of the sky. The only vehicle to remain relatively unscathed is the one carrying Dent, which is by the way being driven by supposed-to-be-dead Gordon.

And then, he goes to jail so that he can eventually call his way out? What if they hadn't given him a call and he was in the same place they left him when they were freshly pissed off about Rachel blowing up?

If you don't think that's outside the realist portrayal of Gotham life and the film's world that Nolan seeks to establish from the get-go, this will be an unyielding dichotomy that I don't care to argue about.

[Drucker]

Honestly, looked like a big loud mess.

And TDK wasn't? I was being a bit too flippant a few posts up, but honestly, I have never understood why this series, and particularly TDK, has been intellectualized with the trappings of thematic profundity by so much of the critical establishment. Vigilantism has a moral price. Who do you save in a lifeboat scenario? Heavy stuff, bro.

Why can't these movies be enjoyed as entertainments and technical achievements? I often enjoy big loud messes.

I mean, this is totally subjective, but my absolute favorite moments of TDK were almost always marked with tranquility. The scene of Joker fleeing in the police car and most of the sound except a high-pitched part of the soundtrack drops out I still think is quite lovely. The chase with the trucks could be a lot worse (see highway scene in something like Matrix 2). The parts of that first trailer that seemed awesome were of Bruce talking to an injured Commissioner Gordon and what seems like the mental anguish of Batman having to return to save the city.

I'm not a big Nolan fan and didn't care for Inception. I also wouldn't defend these movies as anything more than popcorn movies with a brain. But there can often be a fine line...and throwing in everything but the kitchen sink in terms of explosions and chaos could certainly annoy me as far as the film is concerned (even the ending of Dark Knight...as implausible as it may be, and though it takes quite a while to reach, is about a psychological fear...and not...as the Joker says "a fistfight for Gotham's soul.") So I guess I really want to see the psychological more than the physical turmoil that Bane may subject Gothamites.

[knives]

stuff

To be honest I don't see how this affects the profoundness of the film. While I think Inception was more successful at being such your quibbles, which amount to not willing to work within the logic of the film, have nothing to do with being profound. In fact many profound movies are absolute messes. To give an example giallo's ability to transcend it's own silliness is it's greatest fortune and the plots to even the most coherent one of those make The Dark Knight look like an A to B plot. Frankly even if you were to go to one of it's failures of story telling logic (the dinner scene once more) it doesn't matter on a thematic and therefore profound level as those things are separate to a degree. To go even further Fischinger's work is just a bunch of lines and dots, but I'd argue to the death he makes those very things profound and have immense depth. Nolan is no Fischinger, but he is still capable of depth while still bringing forth good popcorn entertainment.

[Brian C]

Why bother, knives? He just said that if you disagree with him, he's not interested in hearing about it.

[James Mills]

stuff

stuff

"Which is an other way of saying you have no where to defend your position with and don't wish to concede the point."

And trying to use Fischinger as an example is kind of a joke considering his intentions probably really were for philosophical profundity (so being, you know, an "abstract filmmaker" and all, he obviously doesn't care about narratives in the first place, let alone their structural connections).

If we're repudiating all my arguments to "stuff" or the blanketed argument that "the dark knight isn't profound because its efforts are more interested in tricking audiences to accept the plot rather than to reep some understated profundity", then I'll just repudiate your "stuff" to the blanketed argument that "films do not need to have narrative connections to be profound." I mean, yeah, I agree, but it doesn't really pertain to what I'm saying. Intent is key here.

Why bother, knives? He just said that if you disagree with him, he's not interested in hearing about it.

No, that's not what I said at all. I said if we're too different to accept each other's stances even when both sides are fully articulated, there's no point in going on about it.

[matrixschmatrix]

stuff

"Which is an other way of saying you have no where to defend your position with and don't wish to concede the point."

And trying to use Fischinger as an example is kind of a joke considering his intentions probably really were for philosophical profundity (so being, you know, an "abstract filmmaker" and all, he obviously doesn't care about narratives in the first place, let alone their structural connections).

If we're repudiating all my arguments to "stuff" or the blanketed argument that "the dark knight isn't profound because its efforts are more interested in tricking audiences to accept the plot rather than to reep some understated profundity, then I'll just repudiate your "stuff" to the blanketed argument that "films do not need to have narrative connections to be profound." I mean, yeah, I agree, but it doesn't really pertain to what I'm saying. Intent is key here.

So... your argument is that because Nolan skipped over or handwaved away plot points, he was therefore not attempting to be profound? How does that follow?

[Mr Sausage]

...there's no point in going on about it.

Agree totally. Now, can you please do me the favour of leaving it there and no longer worrying this issue?

[flyonthewall2983]

he is still capable of depth while still bringing forth good popcorn entertainment.

And this is the singular quality I find most interesting and admirable in his work, to try and bring a more cerebral context to a genre of film-making that's often (and rightly) maligned by the intelligentsia.

I liked the trailer more the 2nd time I saw it, mostly because the impending sense of chaos and catastrophe facing Gotham and Bruce Wayne personally was more evident to me.

[Matt]

I saw the "prologue" in front of MI4 today. It was a blast, but I hard a very hard time understanding anything Bane said (and I wasn't the only one). I hope someone close to Nolan has the balls to tell him before they lock sound that his lead villain is incomprehensible through that mask.

[J Adams]

Yes, everyone agreed that Bane was incomprehensible, but maybe that's a good thing. MI4 was awesome BTW and will likely be a better movie than DKR. I'm really tired of "dark", pseudo-"profound" comic book shite.

[Roger Ryan]

...I mean, this is totally subjective, but my absolute favorite moments of TDK were almost always marked with tranquility. The scene of Joker fleeing in the police car and most of the sound except a high-pitched part of the soundtrack drops out I still think is quite lovely...

You've hit upon the thing that I think Nolan does quite well as a director and that is to maintain a certain tone that suggests the everyday becoming completely unhinged. INCEPTION is a striking work not because of its supposedly profound intentions or intricate plotting (that does, indeed, become far-fetched), but because the concept suits Nolan's strengths. The disquieting uncertainty that pervades the film is handled masterfully as is its evocation of the dream state as having a fairly ordinary appearance, but mixed with equal parts superhuman physical prowess and vulnerability. The loose plot threads here are not a distraction because they actually work in maintaining the film's tone. I find the world of Nolan's Batman to be a similar dream-like combination of superhuman physical prowess and vulnerability. While other comic book based films may attempt "dark" (although most seem content with middling menace and lots of in-jokes so we know not to take it very seriously), only BATMAN BEGINS and THE DARK KNIGHT get under my skin in an unsettling way. I don't think they're perfect, but I think Nolan has attempted to do something more with the genre.

As for THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, I think it's completely unfair to judge it entirely by the trailer. I can't imagine it being significantly inferior to TDK, nor do I think it will be much better...but that's fine with me.

[Mr. Ned]

I don't know, as an ex-Batman fan boy that trailer looks pretty good. Bane was the big baddie in the comic books when I first started buying Detective Comics and Batman as a young'n and Nolan appears to have trimmed away the 'comical' (Bane's trio of cronies, each with a particular schtick; Bird, Zombie and Trogg ...all named after rock bands from the '60s if you didn't catch it) aspects of his character and accentuated the more intriguing elements of his backstory (a revolutionary background; institutionalized as a youngster; guinea pig to a failed military experiment; self-educated, self-trained, and an intellectual mastermind). I managed to see a leak of the prologue online last week and, yes, while his voice is sometimes impossible to understand, I like the direction Nolan took with Bane's mask and voice; he sounds like a sinister robotic love-child of Darth Vader and Sean Connery. That said, the football stadium scene looked horrible; just a gigantic mess, complete with a plug of Hines Ward mugging it up like he's in a television commercial.

It appears Nolan has continued his not-so-subtle permeation of modern cultural affairs (the collapse of Western civilization, for example) into his aesthetic, much like he did in Inception. I'm cool with that, though I'm sure it will be much closer to the surface here given Batman's comic book parameters replete with mythic grandeur. The Dark Knight and Inception were brainy by Hollywood standards, but I think it's unfair to condemn either film based on whether that profundity is shallow, coherent, etc.; those films were hailed as "genius" and the "best films ever" because the popular movie audience was being treated to themes and ideas found in other kinds of films not often seen by the conventional viewing public. While both films have issues, be it plotholes or more glaring glossing-overs, Nolan managed to supply some criticism to the genres he was working within, as well as some other touches, enough for me to accept some of the more silly aspects. I think that trend will continue in TDKR, and while I doubt it will arouse the flickers of consciousness in the idiotic viewer public Nolan might idealistically pine for, it will provide summer blockbuster entertainment that is the rare combination of brains and brawn. I just hope Nolan has discovered how to effectively film action sequences this time around...

[stroszeck]

I find it funny how Nolan, who unlike all the other hacks directing Hollywood big-budget action pictures actually tries to inject intellect into his movies, gets ripped to shreds on this and other movie forums by many self proclaimed cinephiles. Would they prefer he do Tintin/Polar Express/Avatar type CGI extravaganzas with little heart and made just to sell toys and dog chow?

[knives]

To be fair I doubt Tintin was only made to see toys. Accuse The Beard of what you want but the guy tends to suffer from too much heart rather than too little.

[Grand Illusion]

I find it funny how Nolan, who unlike all the other hacks directing Hollywood big-budget action pictures actually tries to inject intellect into his movies,

Should we award points for effort?

The problem for me is that other directors do intellect much better. And other directors do big-budget action much better. So Nolan is the guy making poorly-directed action sequences while shoehorning in scenes of gross exposition. If we're talking contemporary (North) American directors, I'd first watch a Spielberg film for my action and a Cronenberg film for my intellectualizing, rather than watch Nolan try to mash the two together while being sub-par at both.

[ShellOilJunior]

Nolan's films are becoming increasingly over-produced (TDKR's budget is a quarter of billion dollars! Clint Eastwood could make a good film with TDKR's snack table budget), always laden with gimmicks and plot heavy. Outside of Ledger's Joker he hasn't given his actors much to work with--- see Ellen Page in Inception.

...but Hollywood is giving him a blank check these days and he'll continue to make films that are "awesome but not great" (I think credit goes to Jim Emerson on that phrase).

[matrixschmatrix]

Nolan's films are becoming increasingly over-produced (TDKR's budget is a quarter of billion dollars! Clint Eastwood could make a good film with TDKR's snack table budget), always laden with gimmicks and plot heavy. Outside of Ledger's Joker he hasn't given his actors much to work with--- see Ellen Page in Inception.

...but Hollywood is giving him a blank check these days and he'll continue to make films that are "awesome but not great" (I think credit goes to Jim Emerson on that phrase).

Why should anyone care how much was spent on a movie, honestly. How is spending a lot or a little relevant to anyone but the investors?

[Drucker]

Nolan's films are becoming increasingly over-produced (TDKR's budget is a quarter of billion dollars! Clint Eastwood could make a good film with TDKR's snack table budget), always laden with gimmicks and plot heavy. Outside of Ledger's Joker he hasn't given his actors much to work with--- see Ellen Page in Inception.

...but Hollywood is giving him a blank check these days and he'll continue to make films that are "awesome but not great" (I think credit goes to Jim Emerson on that phrase).

Not trying to pick a fight, but is the director really to fault for Ellen Page's performance? I didn't think it was that much better/worse/different than other stuff she's been in quality-wise.

[flyonthewall2983]

Depends. If part of your movie's budget includes buying Will Smith a two-story mobile home for a trailer, it should come under some scrutiny. But the majority of Nolan's budget is always on screen. Plus I can't imagine Michael Caine requesting one of those behemoths in his contract.

[Roger Ryan]

Nolan's films are becoming increasingly over-produced (TDKR's budget is a quarter of billion dollars! Clint Eastwood could make a good film with TDKR's snack table budget), always laden with gimmicks and plot heavy. Outside of Ledger's Joker he hasn't given his actors much to work with--- see Ellen Page in Inception.

...but Hollywood is giving him a blank check these days and he'll continue to make films that are "awesome but not great" (I think credit goes to Jim Emerson on that phrase).

Not trying to pick a fight, but is the director really to fault for Ellen Page's performance? I didn't think it was that much better/worse/different than other stuff she's been in quality-wise.

I think "ShellOilJunior" means that Ellen Page's role in INCEPTION is underwritten...and I agree with that. One of the problems with the film is that it really doesn't have time to develop any of the characters beyond Cobb and Mala, but insists on trying to present the drama as an ensemble piece. Having said that, I don't agree that this problem plagues the Batman films which are more generous to the supporting characters.

[stroszeck]

Again, I think people are misinterpreting what I'm trying to say. When the average moviegoer walks into a multiplex and is bombarded by the latest Guy Ritchie Scatfest and other generic big action films which are watered down mindless entertainment, at least a Nolan film provides SOME measure of thought and sophistication, inelegant or not. I have a family myself, and going to the movies with them means I have to slog through a lot of shiite throughout the course of a year. Nolan films are a nice welcomed breath of fresh air because they at least strive to be something better. I would take Inception, The Dark Knight or even the Prestige over Game of Shadows or even Mission Impossible dreck. And why compare Cronenberg to Nolan? These guys are working in fairly different demographics. THe average moviegoer would NOT enjoy the majority of Cronenberg's works, IMO.

[Drucker]

I think "ShellOilJunior" means that Ellen Page's role in INCEPTION is underwritten...and I agree with that. One of the problems with the film is that it really doesn't have time to develop any of the characters beyond Cobb and Mala, but insists on trying to present the drama as an ensemble piece. Having said that, I don't agree that this problem plagues the Batman films which are more generous to the supporting characters.

Couldn't agree more. Not to further derail this thread to Inception and Nolan in general, but Inception was just too dense and too packed in for me. It was already a long movie, and I feel like that just left no room for breathing room and anything that wasn't advancing the plot. I know someone a few posts/pages back mentioned that with all the characters they are adding, they are somewhat afraid that could befall TDKR...but I'm not worried about that considering how well I thought back-stories and motives were handled in the first two movies.

The second time watching the trailer (and in a non-bootlegged format) I liked it a lot more.

[knives]

Again, I think people are misinterpreting what I'm trying to say. When the average moviegoer walks into a multiplex and is bombarded by the latest Guy Ritchie Scatfest and other generic big action films which are watered down mindless entertainment, at least a Nolan film provides SOME measure of thought and sophistication, inelegant or not. I have a family myself, and going to the movies with them means I have to slog through a lot of shiite throughout the course of a year. Nolan films are a nice welcomed breath of fresh air because they at least strive to be something better. I would take Inception, The Dark Knight or even the Prestige over Game of Shadows or even Mission Impossible dreck. And why compare Cronenberg to Nolan? These guys are working in fairly different demographics. THe average moviegoer would NOT enjoy the majority of Cronenberg's works, IMO.

I'd love to agree with you, but why the hate on the Mission: Impossible series and The Prestige? The later I feel is Nolan's best effort and as for the former it's always been a fabulous director's playground and tends to be very good.

[stroszeck]

I actually rather enjoy the Prestige, I don't know why you think I wrote anything negative about that. Also I just threw Mission Impossible in there, would it drive my point home if I replaced that title with "Transformers 3D" or "Twilight?" Cause if that's what it takes, then thats what I'll do