Batman: The Dark Knight
Out of context: Reply #28
- Started
- Last post
- 47 Responses
- kuzzAAAAM0
Hi kelpie,
I think, as far as the "joker" has been dark for ages, yes this is true, he's always been a psychopath.
But you have to remember that Heath's joker is a semi-original creation - his mouth is like that cos he got a Glasgow smile - whilst the previous joker fell into a vat of acid. In the comics the clown makeup is PERMANENT. In the new version, however, it is implied that EVERYTHING about the joker's face, he has done to himself. This is not how any of the comics portray him. The result is a much more twisted lunatic, borrowing, i would say, from movies like Saw:
This is where the "traditional" Joker and Nolan's re-interpretation of the joker differ. This crucial difference sets the tone of dementia which is borrowed heavily from such films as Saw.
This is accentuated in the "implied" horror of his antics. Again we must look to the difference between interpretation of the Jokers pschoticness in previous verions and the modern joker. For one, in Jack Nicholson's time (resolutely a "dark" imagining of the character) his tricks and antics involved poisoning the city's water supply and massacring crowds at a parade. It was blunt, obvious, and "evil".
This joker, however, is different. He is more interested in the psychology of horror. He uses examples of psycho-sadistic games that the nutter in Saw was so fond of. For example that scene in Saw where that woman has a bomb on her face and the only way to deactivate it is to rip open her boyfriends stomach to get out the key. We see everal examples of this including the two boat crews who have the detonator to bomb each other up, as well as the chick and dude strapped to chair ready to explode both knowing one will die etc.
Second of all, the VISUALS of the cold blue flourescent lighting etc, video taping and the lingering on the pain is an influence on a whole slew of modern gore-fests. Stylistically/aesthetically etc.
It is what a modern audience expects in a truly diabolical villain.
Also, there are several reasons why i preferred the first film. Crucially i was totally engrossed in the whole "making of a hero" story. The various aspects of Batman that led him from being a vulnerable child to a beast of a super-hero was thrilling. Mainly this. But as they're both basically action films, it's all a much of a muchness.
Thanks kelpie, i enjoy disagreeing with you on cinematic literaryness. I hope we have more of these
- SAW was shite and already VERY derivative of past films. Why do people think it was so ground breaking?ETM