Inspired by a lesson I taught my students regarding theme. I bet them that you could write on any work from Shakespeare to--they had to name the movie. At least it was one I liked.
The theme of Christopher Nolan’s 2008 film The Dark Knight is purportedly “escalation.” This follows in line with the use of thematic storytelling set out in the previous film, Batman Begins. This 2005 film rejuvenated the Batman franchise by never straying from its central concept of fear. In The Dark Knight, the introduction of the pure and noble character Harvey Dent, who shows at once how Batman inspires people and how bad things can become when that inspiration fails, is a symbol of this escalation. The Batman watches the reactions to his actions, and his attempts to inspire the good inspire the bad to become a “better class of criminal.” The Joker, present in every scene, whether it is physically or as a lingering threat, is the personification of the bad becoming worse. But in Batman and the Joker, and in all the supporting characters, it is irony that truly defines The Dark Knight.
As the film begins, Batman is still in the early stages of his career, still working on being a symbol of hope. He has seen his actions start to have an effect. Criminals are far more concerned for their safety and Lieutenant Gordon of the Major Crimes Unit has “malfunctioning equipment” to alert the populace when Batman is on the job. The spectre can be conjured. But, he doesn’t always inspire in the manner he would prefer. Batman is a fascist. He uses control, he has stepped outside the law—it is corrupt and his symbolism gives him a purity—to battle crime using whatever strong-arm methods he likes. He now has a host of imitators, couch-potatoes in hockey pads using shotguns, whose guerrilla attacks on the underworld he abhors. He apprehends them as readily as he does the criminals. Batman would have people rise up to follow him, but not with his same style of vigilantism. He wants to be the symbol outside the law that would have the people of Gotham adhere to the law. He seeks complete control of his world and lashes out violently when he loses his control.
Harvey Dent is the perfect follower of Batman’s ideal: the hero who operates within legal boundaries. As a result, he shows signs early on of being something more than Batman could ever hope to be. He is not a symbol, he is open. He also plays a fatally risky game because, unlike the Batman, Harvey is unable to hide behind a mask when threatened, or when those he cherishes are threatened. This is his eventual breaking point.
The Joker receives considerable focus in the film. The plot is driven by his actions—he dictates each new turn. At the end of Batman Begins, escalation is first alluded to as his methodology—leaving a Joker playing card at the scene of a crime—is introduced. James Gordon tells Batman that when the cops start using bullet-proof vests, the criminals get armour-piercing rounds; when a superhero shows up, super villains are bound to as well. Early in The Dark Knight, the police, Batman and the mob give Joker no more credit as a threat than they would any other small time hood. By the climax of the film, he has the entire population of Gotham City cowering in fear of his madness. Composer Hans Zimmer has given the character a musical cue, simple and frightening: whenever the Joker is about to strike, a single note begins to rise, like the buzzing of a fly that makes a sane man crazy, reaching its crescendo as the Joker strikes. The chaos that the Joker brings shows just how bad things can get, how much worse things have become since Batman first appeared in Gotham.
The Joker is also the greatest source of irony in the film. Besides being a clown that kills, he interacts with the other characters pleasantly, conversationally, at all times above the trivialities of life and death he brings to all who encounter him. He is amiable, only showing true rancour a few times, such as when he films the false Batman, telling the imposter to “Look at me!” before the Joker murders him. Most of the time, he thinks everything is just there for his own entertainment. He is an “agent of chaos,” he tells us, and in this chaos we find his only consistency. At first he is a greedy robber—killing off his co-conspirators in a sadistic elimination game—then he wants to kill the Batman. He later reneges on both, lighting his half of the mob’s money on fire—while still piled with their half—and he tells Batman he never wanted to kill the Caped Crusader. All he wants to do is “introduce a little anarchy.” His varied origin confessions and his constantly-shifting motivations convince the audience that seeking to understand the Joker, to place him in a stereotypical “Hollywood bad-guy” role, is like Batman’s attempts to control Gotham: it is trying to carry water in your hands.
The pinnacle of irony is when Batman finally thinks he’s defeated the Joker at the end of the film. He knocks the villain from a building and the Joker howls with glee as he plunges to his death. Batman uses his grappling line to rescue a man of whom the world would be much better off free. The catch of being Batman with a rule of never killing his foes means that he must be plagued by those foes over and over again. He and the Joker have their last tet-a-tet of the film, and Batman learns once again that he has lost control; he has been robbed of his victory, he has failed to wrestle control of his city, its crown, from this opponent. For this film is a tragedy, not a typical Hollywood superhero film. In the 1989 film Batman, a much campier version by 2008 standards—just as it was much darker than the 1966 film—the Joker is set to escape when the Batman, not plagued by morals in this incarnation, fires his line and affixes it to the Joker’s leg, tying him to a gargoyle. The Joker falls howling to his death. In The Dark Knight the Joker is saved by the very device that killed him in Batman.
Let us consider these two Jokers for a moment. Both threaten the city with claims of doing good, in a manner of speaking, for it. Heath Ledger’s Joker says “This city deserves a better class of criminal, and I’m going to give it to them.” Each uses the airwaves to send his message, to involve the public in the feud with Batman. And both have their origins in a reaction, of sorts, to Batman. Batman, in trying to do good, has created his own arch-foe, a disease that eats at the city he has intended to save. He suffers for this, and in The Dark Knight he is not the only victim the Joker claims, body and soul.
Of those the Joker murders, no one affects the plot, the protagonist or the principal supporting characters more than Rachel Dawes. When it is revealed that Harvey and Rachel are to be murdered, we fear the worst for Dent, for Batman chooses to save Rachel. But the Joker has anticipated this, and he intentionally sends the hero to the wrong victim. Harvey Dent is Two-Face in the comics, and he has also appeared as a villain in 1995’s Batman Forever, so the audience expects his tragic irony, they know it is imminent. But we are shocked to see Batman burst in on Dent, and appalled to watch Rachel die, quickly and brutally, in a fashion rarely displayed in the superhero genre. Rachel’s death is completely unexpected, and the audience has been duped. Her death ensures the permanency of Batman, and the breaking of Harvey Dent.
Harvey Dent begins as the White Knight to Batman’s Dark Knight. Harvey’s character is established early on as the sort of person Batman has longed to see: a regular citizen who has followed the Batman’s lead and is making a difference. Dent is publicly the Batman’s most vocal supporter, and he causes Bruce Wayne—prior to Rachel’s death—to toy with the idea of giving up his alter-ego now that Gotham has a hero who operates within the confines of the law. Dent is the “best of us” Batman tells Gordon. It’s tempting to view these three characters—Batman, Gordon and Dent—as a sort of unholy trinity. Gordon is the authority figure, the man of the old world, the god that needs remembering. The Batman is the spirit, the symbol seeking to unite Gordon’s people. Dent is the saviour, full of Batman’s spirit, reminding the people of their covenant with Gordon, with law and order; he even sacrifices himself for the cause. But the Dent that rises from the dead, Two-Face, is more defined by Janus than by Jesus. Harvey’s irony is simple: he doesn’t represent balance or equality, he is a victim of chance, and so becomes a prophet of it. His dedication to chance is as chaotic as the anarchy the Joker encourages Harvey to introduce. Harvey was once a pillar of Justice, who stands blindfolded, holding her scales. But his mind is as ravaged as his body, and in him is not the balance of good and evil, of right and wrong, of justice. In him is only chance. It’s also retribution, an eye for an eye. Evil is met with vengeance. Chance is fair, justice is not. Batman, fighting for justice above the law, watches with horror as this pure knight of the law gives himself over to chaos.
The Joker and Two-Face are defined by their scars, which they bear for all to see. Batman hides behind a mask to keep Bruce Wayne safe and to channel a symbolic totem. In The Dark Knight, those who expose their faces are evil, and he who hides his heroic. The Joker spends the first scene of the film in a mask, revealing his true face at the end, to our horror. Here is a man scarier revealed than hidden. He alludes to various possible origins for his facial scars, but we never learn which story is true, if any. Harvey embraces a nickname he was given while working with Internal Affairs: Two-Face. He refuses any medication so that the physical pain he feels runs parallel to his mental anguish; he is balance. As a symbol, Batman functions perfectly. Were Bruce Wayne to expose himself as the Batman—he almost does until thwarted by the truly heroic Harvey—he would be more at risk than the exposed villains. The Joker calls for Batman to remove his mask, to stand as exposed as the clown. Batman mocks the Joker at the end of the film for seeking proof that everyone is as crazy as himself—perhaps the closest thing we get to a motivation for the Joker that resonates. Earlier, Batman had unmasked the Scarecrow, not allowing a villain to remain hidden; interestingly, he leaves the mask on the false Batman sitting next to the Scarecrow. It is the Joker who chooses to unmask the doomed imposter. Gordon, the one other hero to survive the film, hides behind a false death, and wears a mask as they attempt to lure the Joker into a trap. To make himself a hero, Gordon must stand masked beside Batman. Harvey chooses not to unmask Batman, appreciating that he shares two sides with the hero now; this is balance. In the end, it is Batman’s mask that saves Harvey and defeats the Joker’s ultimate plan. Batman can hide Harvey’s crimes behind his own mask, he can take them on, he can be the Dark Knight Gotham needs to rescue it; the rescue comes in hiding the truth.
Escalation is the point that The Dark Knight conveys. It is meant, on certain levels, as a cautionary tale for those who would use their power to make the world suit them. There are repercussions to Batman’s fascism. However, the action hinges on the unpredictable characters, and so it is irony that dominates this film. In The Dark Knight, clowns are evil, masked men are good, servants of justice leave balance to chance, and those who work for the established order must embrace chaos to defeat it. The irony is, “You either die a hero or you see yourself live long enough to become the villain.” To win against one’s foes, one must become them.
Works Cited
Batman Begins. Dir. Christopher Nolan. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2005.
The Dark Knight. Dir. Christopher Nolan. Warner Bros. Pictures, 2008.
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