'The Dark Knight': Year One

What is the difference between art and entertainment?

There is, obviously, some overlap: Not all art entertains (though some does); not all entertainment is art (though some is). At bottom, it seems, the difference is one of intent – the artist seeks to connect us with larger meanings, larger truths about the world, about ourselves. The primary focus of art is therefore to illuminate, with any entertainment had in the process merely a bonus.

The goal of the entertainer, on the other hand, is perhaps less sublime, though no less worthy – to distract, to tickle, to stimulate the fancy. Entertainment is at bottom diversion, and I say this without a trace of disdain – often it is the quality and quantity of our diversions which makes the difference between a joyful life and a merely bearable one.

One year ago this weekend, a beating black heart pulsed in summer’s midst: The Dark Knight. It was big-budget, comic book based franchise movie, made for popcorn eaters seeking suitable summer diversion. And It delivered beyond the filmmakers wildest expectations – the masses were so entertained that they lifted it up into the box office stratosphere in grateful recompense.

And yet…

There was something different about The Dark Knight, something which separated it from its innumerable costume-wearing, crime-fighting brethren. Something weighty, a gravity which distorted its appearance in interesting ways. For instance, more of the story of The Dark Knight takes place during the day than in any previous Batman film. And yet no comic book movie was ever so black and bleak; it seems to take place in an unending polar night, not some sunny Chicago day.

Even common film tropes are distorted by this gravity, and bend backwards in on themselves: Lieutenant James Gordon is shot and killed…only to later reappear, his ‘death’ having been an elaborate head-fake for the benefit the film’s villains…and us. Lots of movies have this type of false death. The difference? We believe Gordon’s death; the film unfolds in such a manner as to make clear that no one is safe, a suspicion confirmed when, only a short while later, Bruce Wayne’s childhood friend, and love interest to both Wayne and Harvey Dent, is blown to bits in front of our eyes. This combination of reassurance and disaster, of sigh-of-relief then sucker punch, makes clear – there are no rules in this film.

Which, of course, is exactly how the Joker would want it. The only sensible way to live in this world, the Joker tells a demoralized and disfigured Harvey Dent, is without rules. Why would this movie, his movie, be any different?

In that same scene, the Joker puts a loaded gun into Harvey’s hand, then puts his own head to the barrel as he confesses to Dent “I’m an agent of chaos.” It was in that moment that I realized what Chris Nolan was up to: This isn’t the Joker – it’s the Devil.

Heath Ledger’s villain is not the macabre clown who battled Batman on the pages of the D.C. comics for most of the 20th century. He is the serpent from the Old Testament who has battled God for most of eternity. The genius of The Dark Knight is to give this eternal adversary a form well suited for our post 9-11 world – the man who blows up buildings and wages war on civilization itself.

Satan as Osama – that is Heath Ledger’s Joker, and the heart of The Dark Knight. By entangling our most ancient and mythic tormentor with our most recent real life villain, The Dark Knight simultaneously plays on our most primal and frightening suspicions: 1) That anyone can become a villain (wasn’t Lucifer the light-bearing angel most favored by God? Wasn’t Dent the most virtuous of public servants?), and 2) that the veneer of civilization is paper thin, and no match for even one man with bullets and gasoline and the will to use them.

By daring to step into those pooling shadows, The Dark Knight attains something higher than mere diversion. Dare I say it?

Art.