The Dark Knight: Batman, The Joker and the Fight for Gotham at the Toss of a Coin

by Christopher Barr

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter.”

 – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The Dark Knight is an outstanding film that expands upon the possibilities of what a super-hero movie can become.  Using an obvious influence from Michael Mann’s 1995 masterpiece Heat and the gritty realism from comic book artist Frank Miller’s take on the character, director Christopher Nolan created a mature superhero film by shedding all the silliness and fantasy usually present in these types of movies.  He created a super-hero movie for adults by dressing his interpretation of the character and surrounding world in realism.

The Dark Knight is about personal and social identity; How do I see me, how does the world see me and how do I want the world to see me?  It’s also about the capricious nature of evil and good, and the fact it is not actually black and white.  The film is a meditation on how evil gets on you and you cannot get it off, how under the right circumstances the law abiding citizen can become horrific.  It explores the concepts of how right and wrong can be far more difficult to navigate than how one would expect.   

In the film, Batman is still growing into his role of the cape crusader but he is also beginning to realize the consequences of being Batman.  We see this in the beginning of the film when Batman interrupts a crime going down in a parking lot.  When he crashes through a wall and over two cars with his Tumbler, he soon sees the criminals but also a group of copycats sporting, basement bargain Batman suits.  These wannabes only want to help out but they are doing more harm than good.  Here we see that desire to help isn’t the same as actually helping to solve a problem in the world.  Desire is a great starting point but then must be grounded and thought through.

Bruce Wayne is dealing with the late night jumping from the roof tops of buildings by sleeping his days away.  He’s bruised and cut all over his body but is determined to forge on because it’s the right thing to do.  This project is a way he is able to prove himself, the Batman is a manifestation that was birthed out of his inaction when his parents were both murdered, an inaction that was clearly not his felt because he was a child but never the less, the guilt of not doing anything lingers through his veins.  This is a dark chapter of his young life that holds sway in his adult decision making.   Mental trauma remains and wallpapers itself over all future action or inaction, depending on how one confronts or retreats from stress.

“I believe whatever doesn’t kill you, simply makes you stranger.”

-  The Joker

When the Joker arrives in Gotham, Batman soon sees that he’s dealing with a whole new type of villainy.  The Joker is a tornado, he is a deadly virus, he is everlasting, unchangeable and more troubling, he is unpredictable.  We see this when he talks about how he got the scars on his face, giving him a somewhat grotesque permanent smile.   He tells different stories as to how he got the scars which is a clever way the filmmakers want to avoid the audience pinning down his motives.  The Joker is also a form of symbolic evil that permeates society, that non-negotiable element that sharks possess, a malice that is not interested in the status of a person, that is not interested in who society deems deserving.  The Joker is a malevolent force that Alfred describes to Bruce while discussing the lack of definable motivation normally identifiable in autocratic people; “Some men aren’t looking for anything logical like money.  They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with.  Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

Terrorism and what must be done to combat it underlines this film.  There is a force in this world that wants to change people into their image, in order for their victims to believe in what they believe in.  Ideologies are weapons as well as curses; they motivate people to perform horrific acts to justify what it is they believe in.  They force their fantasy onto the world and kill anyone or anything that doesn’t claim it to be true and real.  This sickness is part of the darkness, hidden in the shadows and colored on the Joker’s face in The Dark Knight.  Anarchy is the enemy of structure which is why the Joker’s primary goal in The Dark Knight is to introduce chaos to the order of society.  ‘The League of Shadows’ in Batman Begins had a more definable reason behind their motives in destroying Gotham.  They felt that balance was needed to be restored in the wake of bureaucratic corruption running unchecked for the most part in Gotham.  The Joker it seems just wants to watch it all burn to the ground, which makes him ever more mysterious and volatile.

The Joker is present so Batman can exist and vice-versa.  He is responsible for Batman’s elevated strength during times of weakness.  The Joker is aware of their symbiotic relationship even when he declares that they will be pitted together forever.  The conflict with Batman is he does not quite see that relationship (or denies its existence), he sees himself as nothing like the Joker.  Batman sees himself as a symbol for good defending against all the evil in the world.  The Joker, albeit a madman, is smart and self-aware.  This makes him psychopathic as oppose to crazy, he knows what he is doing but he does it anyway.  He trashes ‘norms’ and steps on symbolic rituals followed by the majority of the populace. 

How does one combat madness, how does society not only combat it outside its borders but how does it combat it within?  Swimming with sharks is never advisable but those that are good at doing it have a rare understanding of the creature.  They appreciate it by trying to understand its chaos and the Joker is such an animal.  Batman needs to understand his own chaos in order to understand the Joker’s, and that’s the point of their on-going, ever-lasting, relationship, or as the Joker says in the interrogation scene; “You complete..meeee.”

The Joker and Batman have a ying and yang relationship.  Mainly this focus is on Batman, a man struggling with his morality as he edges into the gray dividing the black and white idealism of what’s right and what’s wrong.  An armageddonist, the Joker pleads with Batman that if he wants to beat him, he’ll have to break his one rule.  That rule being murder, Batman will have to kill in order to do what’s right.  Batman, thankfully, resists this advice and beats the Joker with his mind and his technology rather than giving in to lunacy like the frustrated Harvey Dent later does.

I BELIEVE IN HARVEY DENT

Harvey Dent’s coin toss and his gamble with fate, takes him down a darker path of vengeance.  He buys into the Joker’s madness in order to justify his murderous actions in the aftermath of his girlfriend, Rachel Dawes’ murder by the Joker.  Harvey’s face is brutally mutilated from fire as Batman saves him from blowing up in a warehouse.  After being hospitalized, Harvey swears revenge against those within the corrupt police department and district attorney’s office that provided the stepping stones that resulted in Rachel’s death.  Harvey’s face was badly burned on its left side giving him a sinister evil feature.  Like the coin he tosses to help him decide a particular outcome, Harvey “Two-Face” Dent has become that very coin.  But the coin was a lie, a rationalization or blame-shifter so Harvey can do as he pleases without psychological consequences.   

The films climax resulted from Harvey Dent going on a killing spree to avenge Rachel’s death.  After an attempt at keeping everything fair by flipping his coin to decide the fate of Commissioner Gordon’s family, himself and Batman, Harvey falls to his death.  Batman virtuously decides to take the blame for Harvey’s misdeeds in order to keep Harvey’s “White Knight” legacy in good standing with the people of Gotham.  

“You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” – Harvey Dent

The problem with this course of action is Gordon and Batman lied about what happened to Harvey.  They did this for the benefit of the people of Gotham but is this a noble lie?  Why not tell the truth about what happened to Harvey?  People in society are being so pampered from reality that they have become sheltered from the storm like infants.  People understandably keep certain realities from their children subsequently allowing them to develop the basics of language and the fundamentals of processing their thoughts, before they are burdened with the complexities of wars and politics.  But adults do not deserve this leeway, they need reality to function healthy in the world, not lies to keep them quiet and shopping until they die.

Telling the truth is far more beneficial to society and the person trying to navigate through it.  At the end of The Dark Knight they made it out to be a righteous thing that Batman takes the fall and is therefore hunted down like the bad guy, if that allows people to sleep at night.  Maybe Gotham needs a revolution, maybe it needs to wake-up and see the criminality for what it is, maybe Gotham wouldn't need Batman to do their dirty work if they all just woke the hell up, maybe then he wouldn’t have to be a silent guardian, a watchful protector, a dark knight.

“I’m whatever Gotham needs me to be.”

- Batman

WHY SO SERIOUS?