The Dark Knight of the Sowell
On Sunday, Nina and I finally caught The Dark Knight Rises. We both enjoyed it*, but with a nearly three-hour running time, I felt sort of numb afterwards, finding newfound respect for the terse minimalist Jack Webb police procedural-like feel of the half-hour Adam West Batman series from the 1960s.
OK, just kidding. But still, two hours and 44 minutes is way too long for anything that wasn’t directed by David Lean.
Speaking of which, at the Corner, Michael Walsh, linking to Andrew Klavan’s review in the Wall Street Journal, sees a Dr. Zhivago-esque subtext to the movie, which is obsessed with the dangers of revolution:
[I]f insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, what are we to make of every murderous Regressive movement from the French Revolution to the October Revolution to Mao and Pol Pot? All of them began in resentment and ended in oceans of blood. In fact, one of the worst things about being a Regressive is having to ride the tiger that eventually eats all of them. In Dr. Zhivago, the idealistic Pasha becomes the feared zealot Strelnikov who in turn becomes another of Stalin’s statistics. In this Batman installment, Bane’s raging Id and his secret controller’s lust for revenge are both defeated by heroes who understand where the truth lies.
In a spoiler-filled round-up at Big Hollywood, Ben Shapiro dubs The Dark Knight Rises, “Magnificent … And Most Conservative Film Ever.”
Most conservative film ever? Well…
Actually, Shapiro may be onto something, that’s certainly how I felt upon leaving the theater. (And I deliberately tried to avoid as many reviews as possible so as not to ruin the plot for me). Though who knows how much of that was intended by the filmmakers? It wouldn’t be the first time where two diverse audience segments are each watching their own movie.
But for those who are looking for conservative themes buried in the film, I’d also add (as with Shapiro’s review, don’t click these links if you haven’t seen the film yet) these two links, which dovetail remarkably well with the subtext of the film’s twist ending.
* OK, other than its blatant violation of the Scott Evil rule when the baddie has the drop on the good guy, as Kyle Smith notes.
The common thread with the left for 225 years is everyone in any position of power wants to be the boss and tell everyone what to do, and the ones in ultimate power will do anything to keep it that way, but always in the name of working for the people.
I still like Billy Wilder and James Cagney’s “One, Two, Three” as the ultimate conservative movie, but mainly because the left hates to have their most cherished ideas ridiculed. However, given where movements like OWS will end up if allowed to go unchecked, Nolan’s analogy is good for the casual political follower to keep in mind.
The movie stunk. I was past caring about sub-text. Just give me some text. Possibly the most boring portrayal of Catwoman in any medium ever together with the most boring possible villain for a guy noted for clever, bizarre, artfully psychotic and not brute-strength type foes.
I felt that both “The Lord of the Rings” and “Star Wars Episodes 1-2″ were also conservative in viewpoint. How could you witness the debacle of the Imperial Senate in it’s last days, and not picture our own disfunctional, greedy political class? How could you cast your eyes on Gollum’s physical representation of humanity without seeing Harry Reid?
Unfortunately, everyone involved in making those movies were die-hard pinkos, and didn’t see it that way at all.
“Two hours and 44 minutes is way too long for anything that wasn’t directed by David Lean..”
Au contraire! I could spend all day watching Sir Peter Jackson’s renditions of the Tolkien saga!
There are rumors he will expand the two-part HOBBIT Tale to include elements from Tolkien’s lesser -known works of the deeper history of Middle-Earth, such as the “Silmarillion” and the ” Book of Lost Tales”
Elbereth grant it be so!
The original Comics Bane written by Denny O’Neil was not part of Rhas Al Ghul’s supervillain plan to destroy civilization to save Gaia (and no, I’m not making that up, that was Rhas Al Ghul and his goal from his first comics appearance). He was the anti-Batman. When his poet-regime-opponent father dies in exile, Bane is sentenced to the worst prison — as a six year old carrying a teddy bear. He leaves it twenty years later ruling the place, a sort of Conan the Barbarian quote. His goal in the original comic book was to his brains to defeat Batman. He quickly deduces who Batman is and runs him ragged using attrition to wear him down so he can personally and physically beat him. But he does not count on the replacement Batman being basically, a single minded crusader (quite literally) who fights him like a medieval knight. [Bane even has a cast of characters who help like Batman has Alfred, Lucius Fox, and Commissioner Gordon. Like Batman's helpers, they all like and respect their guy and figure they're doing the correct thing. They are not bwahahaha! type villains. Just to drive the Batman-Bane duality home.]
There was no political content one way or another. To the villain or original story. Nolan backed off the whole point of Bane: he BEATS Batman but not the guy Batman mentored, who he knew nothing about. Batman is defeated because of his pride and refusal to ask for help among his superfriends, his “triumph” is that the one guy he bothered to help in the superhero business saves his city from basically a Capone-like rule. Which is all Bane is interested in: money. I understand why Nolan changed the comic book story but Bane was a lousy villain because he was purpose built to serve Denny O’Neil’s story and not Nolan’s. The whole Nightfall arc would have been a great Batman movie (and politics free) but would have required the guts to make Batman at the end of the movie not Bruce Wayne, but Jean Paul Valley. A kind hearted neophyte and ruthless medieval knight, in the same person. And an actor who can match Bale intensity for intensity on the screen.
Group think? How readily we name ourselves and accept the names given by people who neither know nor want to know us as individuals. Self appointed priests who name us and tell us how to save our souls.
How willingly we accept mental, social, physical categorisation from people who neither know us nor care to know us except as tools for their ambitions? Conservative, republican, liberal, democrat, black, white, intellectual, astro-turf, racist, sexist, whatever. What do they mean and Who decides what they mean and to whom they apply?
Capitalist and Socialist? Each member of these clubs, self-appointed and self-propagating, want what they want. If other people are the means to get what they want, so be it.
Intelligent people decide on cost-benefit ratio – what’s in it for me. On that basis, “capitalist right-wing/conservative” behaviour HAS – in constrast to “socialist/communist/left-wing” behaviours – Delivered. The greatest good to the greatest number. World-wide.
“Right – wingers/capitalists/conservatives” have been bankrolling the “left-wingers/socialists/communists” in Europe and America significantly since the end of World War II(defense of the West, against old “ally” the Soviet Union metamorphised into the enemy, aand social benefits for Americans capable but do not work to produce).
Being intelligent left wingers etc have praised Americans – which remember includes those hated right-wingers – for so doing. Declaring the behaviour as a Good, so keep it coming. During which these Europeans provided their citizens cradle to grave benefits the paymasters Americans, could only dream of.
Now Americans have decided they want that “Dream From the Father” for themselves. Except they left it too late. The bank, the treasury, has spent all the money on foreign entanglements in Europe and foreign “aid” to dictators, many homicidal and criminal, honoured members of the UN and internal social benefits. Many for Congressmen, Judges and Presidents of the USA and the clerks of government/bureaucracy..
Having dismissed advice from wise and experience forefathers to avoid foreign entanglements Americans must awaken and realise the “Dream From the Father” is now only a dream.
My all-time favorite conservative movie is “The Incredibles.” Honorable mention to “The Band Wagon” and “Funny Face,” two romantic musical comedies starring Fred Astaire. I hope that makes them sound tempting enough to watch ASAP…