Chasing the Frog. Sort of like Snopes, but for movie geeks.
Celluloid therapy
It is said that every generation has its own defining horror or fantasy film. Dracula was as one with the discovery of modern medicine; Frankenstein spoke to social fears of industrialization; and - skipping ahead a few generations - The Blair Witch Project was positively prescient in presaging the advent of personal video. YouTube, anyone?
The Dark Knight, the latest installment in the Batman oeuvre, has very much the same feeling about it. On artistic merit alone, it's an astonishing achievement. But it also very likely the first in what promises to be a protracted, national post-9/11 psychic purge. It is to the current generation what Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July and their ilk were to the previous one - a means of expressing collective angst, of working through the demons (pardon the pun) of how the experienced changed a nation.
That said, it is truly a wonderful film, made all the more spectacular when viewed in all its majestic, operatic glory on an IMAX screen. Warning: spoilers galore below.
There is already some chatter about the Joker - a virtuoso performance by the late Heath Ledger - as a metaphor for terrorism. However, to accept the proposition that he is a celluloid stand-in for Osama Bin Laden is to support a peculiarly American view of Al Qaeda.
First, a little scene setting. There are numerous shots throughout the film that vividly recall the images so many people found impossible to shake following the attacks on US target on September 11, 2001. For example:
- A judge's car gets blown up, and the explosion is followed by a rainstorm of bits of paper (in this case, the ubiquitous Joker's calling cards)
- A hospital gets blown up, and the very next scene is of firefighters hosing down a giant hole in the ground
- A slightly sanctimonious municipal official puts his personal life in jeopardy to save the city
- A prolonged scene in which the good burghers of Gotham flee the city en masse, after a warning from the villain about the impact on "the bridge and tunnel set"
- More imploding buildings, tumbling skyscrapers and bursting windows than you can count
However, the Joker's modus operandi is very different from that of the lunatics really responsible for 9/11. He's very clearly not motivated by anything other than a desire to - in the words of one particularly memorable scene - "watch it burn." He has no agenda other than destruction itself. Yes, he's keen to create chaos and anarchy, but that alone is his objective. There is nothing beyond that. He is not driven by money, nor power, nor control. Once he has managed to upset the apple cart, his job is done.
This differs markedly from the Islamic fanatics whose actions were responsible for the World Trade Centre's demolition, and the other targets hit before, on the same day and since. They have a very definite agenda - they want to see their particular brand of Islam dominate the world, and to do so, believe that they must destroy that which stands in their way.
Like it or hate it, this is an agenda with a very clear and articulated purpose. The Joker's is not. He wants to get inside Gothamites' heads, mess with them a little, and piss them off. Bin Laden, on the other hand, wants the world to be fearful of when the next hit might come so that people start making bad decisions (such as re-electing George W. Bush) in order to justify and support his continued struggle. Tellingly, the most lasting impact of the Joker's actions in this flick were to transform the glib and manicured Harvey Dent - the crusading District Attorney - from a polished attorney into a distorted monster. What we are left with is the very clear sense not that the US has changed but that it has - literally - lost face.
Typically, Americans are not very good at soul-searching. They tend to replace introspection with swagger, analysis with hubris. But then they flock to movies such as The Dark Knight, now tracking to be the most successful film of all time - and quite possibly the first superhero feature to bag major hardware at the Oscars. Perhaps they're trying to tell us something.
Moved by the season
Several years ago, in a fit of boredom - and hot on the heels of the bizarrely successful Passion of the Christ - my colleagues and I recast the epic Ten Commandments as a musical.
Herewith, for posterity, our all-star lineup:
- Moses - Tom Cruise
- Ramses - Vin Diesel
- Nefritiri - Jennifer Lopez
- Sephora (Moses' wife) - Penelope Cruz
- Joshua - Orlando Bloom
- Lilia - Uma Thurman
- Dathan - Steve Buscemi
- Seti (Ramses' father) - Sydney Poitier
- Bithia (Moses' adoptive mother) - Jessica Lange
- Miriam (Moses' real mother) - Barbra Streisand (just to see Babs cooing "Memories" as she floats baby Moses down the Nile in his reed basket)
