From Andrew Davies:
I think the first shot of Christopher Nolan's Memento could be best described as the film in miniature because of how the subject of the shot establishes several important elements of the film. The credits begin on a dark screen. The title "MEMENTO" is still there as the shot fades in, placing the title over the image of a hand holding a photograph. Placing the title over the image of the photograph links the word and the image, telling the audience this photograph is a memento of...something.
The photograph, which is that of a man dead on the floor, his blood on the wall and floor, establishes several important things about the film. The photograph first establishes the narrative structure of the film because as it is shaken, the picture fades instead of develops. This represents how the film begins at the end of the story and progresses, so to speak, to the beginning. The fading of the photograph also establishes the mental state of its main character, the man holding the photograph, Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce). Like the photograph, Leonard's memory fades. He has short term memory loss, caused by an intruder who raped and murdered his wife in a home break in. His mission through the film is to find "John G," the name he gives to the intruder. The photograph, in of itself, establishes one of the ways in which Leonard tries to keep track of people and places he will forget is to take photographs of them, writing captions underneath the picture.
Finally, the photograph sets up the first mystery of the film, which is who the dead man in the photograph is and who killed him. Even when we learn who the dead man is, Teddy (Joe Pantoliano), and that Leonard has killed him, we will spend the entire movie trying to figure out whom these two men really are and their relationship to each other. Teddy taunts Leonard by telling him that "you don't know who you are." Memento makes us reflect on the fragility of our own sense of identity and how like Leonard, we alter and distort our memories in order to justify our actions and to create meaning in our lives, regardless of who gets hurt. The fading of the photograph ultimately represents how Teddy will vanish from Leonard's memory as he possibly hunts another "John G" or maybe gives up his hunt entirely.
JE: This shot is so simple (it's also the background for the opening credits) and, as you say, it works in so many ways. To start with, it's a striking piece of graphic design, and a widescreen composition that's both bold and subtle. Of course, your eye immediately goes to the red (blood) in the photograph, but you also notice right away that there's a hand holding it. Which means someone is looking at it... from roughly the same position that we are. And then there's that little bit of indecipherable writing on the hand. What is going on in this picture? We're left to wonder throughout the duration of the shot, and the more we learn, the more the mystery deepens.
The first time the hand shakes the Polaroid picture, we might feel a little confused: Did that photo just fade a little? After the second shake, we realize that the exposed film is "undeveloping" -- that we're seeing time run backwards. What's particularly great about this is that no explanation is offered. (One of the major criticisms of Nolan screenplays is that they over-explain everything in dialog or narration rather than presenting things in such a way that gives the audience the satisfaction of piecing things together for themselves.) Of course, this becomes explicit when we see the picture go back into the camera and the bullet shell go back into the gun.
Unfortunately, the explanations of Leonard's "condition" or "handicap" are forthcoming all too soon. Nolan has never quite learned to trust his audience without lecturing (or hasn't developed the skill of communicating information and ideas indirectly), but at least we get the pleasure of not understanding for a little while, and the pieces don't all quite fall together until the end. I think that's why "Memento" remains my favorite Nolan puzzle-picture.
36 Comments
If Lenny didn't know about his handicap he wouldn't know he was on a mission either, so the Nolans needed the one simple contrivance for their plot to make any sense at all. And Lenny's expositions become humorous after a while, as we realize he's explaining his condition to people who've heard it one, two, three times before.
Very good point. His rote, repeated explanations are funny. I just wish the movie had waited longer before giving us the first one. I think it would have been more fun if we'd been kept guessing and had more of an opportunity to puzzle it out for ourselves.
Jim, have you seen Nolan's debut 'Following'? (made on a shoestring budget with friends, shooting bits and pieces for about a year)
A great 'puzzle' movie (perhaps his best, though I also like Memento a lot) and certainly the one where he (over)explains the least
Yes, I like "Following" quite a bit, and wrote about it here last year: http://j.mp/c5B3Sw
It's interesting paradox how Nolan is seen, understandably, as explaining too much while at the same time his films still provoke discussion about the secrets within them. One can argue the over explaination of certain things in "Memento" puts us as the audience in a false sense of security, that security being broken when by the time the film reaches its end/beginning, we're left to ponder things we hadn't thought about before.
I find the question of whether the Joe Pantoliano character, Teddy, is telling the truth to Lenny at the end or simply lying really fascinating and like the end of "Inception" it acts as a rorschach test for the audience.
It's not so much that Nolan over-explains plot (though "TDK" suffers from having its themes repeatedly over-elucidated by various characters' speeches). Seems to me that he puts a lot of effort into creating rules for his movie-worlds and he feels they need to be explained. This is something that, I think, may appeal more to gamers and fantasy role-players than it does to cinephiles like me. He does find ways of withholding "twist" information until the end, which can give audiences a satisfying feeling that the last piece of the puzzle has been dropped into place.
Re: thematic discussions in The Dark Knight...
I think the characters talk - very formally, true - about what's important to them, but I don't think that any of their words are meant to tell us what the movie is "about."
Bruce has a couple brief conversations with Alfred about how far he should be willing to go to defeat The Joker, because that's the dilemma they're in. Alfred's advice, "Burn the forest down," is depressing, coming from the moral centre of the franchise, immediately after Rachel's death. If this is elucidating anything it's that "it's impossible to fight bad men without getting your own hands dirty," but it's questionable whether that's the message of the movie, considering Batman manages to overcome with relatively clean hands.*
There's a brief dinner-table scene between Harvey Dent, Bruce Wayne and Rachel where Dent - the D.A. - reveals an admiration for Batman and an ambiguous view of the law when he praises the Romans who "suspend[ed] Democracy" and "appoint[ed] one man." He defends himself with the incredibly romantic statement, "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." There's some Polanskian fatalism going on here (not uncommon in Nolan's films), since many of us already know Dent's future, where he appoints himself prosecutor of his own brand of justice. I think this is the point of the scene. I don't think we're meant to take "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain" very seriously.
It's established early on that The Joker modifies what he says depending on who he's with when his scar stories change (his first scar story, which antagonizes his "father," is told to a group of thugs; his second, antagonizing his "wife," is told to Rachel). When he tells the cop about killing the cop's friends with a knife, he's obviously trying to get the cop to attack him, and the accuracy of what he's saying isn't important. So, later on, when he goes through his spiel (which lasts about three minutes) about how he's an "agent of chaos," I think we can easily interpret this as an attempt by The Joker to tempt Harvey into giving in to his more chaotic emotions, rather than an attempt by Nolan to tell the audience how to perceive The Joker...otherwise, we're supposed to take what the character says about himself as more important than what he actually does, and I don't think that's something Nolan's ever asked of his audience.
I've seen The Dark Knight about seven times now and I think it's "about," strength versus weakness (physical and emotional) and the question of a higher human morality that exists above man's laws:
The Joker loses because, although he's a brilliant planner, his plans are based on a highly cynical worldview that stems from self-pity (we never know what plagues him, but I think there are some hints - his scar stories, he dresses in purple, wears make-up, tells Batman that he "completes him" and at one point even dresses in drag). He relinquishes control of the outcome twice (chicken game, ferries), both times assuming the results will fit his worldview, and both times proven wrong.
Before he even becomes Two-Face, Harvey Dent is an inconsistent, arbitrary figure: Gotham's White Knight, paragon of the Law, our hope in saving the world through "the system," but who abuses and disregards the system at the drop of a hat in order to achieve his goals. He's a fascist, but a good fascist - until his outlook tips into depression and self-pity.
Batman is the most ambiguous figure. He is a better fascist, one with the experience to deal with emotional pain without losing rationality or control, and with the strength to achieve his goals. The law, conventional morality, are insignificant next to him. He is the ultimate authority. He is not a man, he is God.
But is he a truly positive figure? He's not necessarily doing what he's doing because it's "right," instead, because of an early traumatic experience, it's his obsession to forestall all death, anybody's, even a killer's. In the end, he's still human.
So Batman is sick. But there are no characters in Batman Begins or The Dark Knight that give us hope in our ability to deal with iniquity through the law alone...of course not, these are superhero movies (even Captain America defies authority). But without law, and without God, what is there?
...
...
a Dark Knight.
So yeah, I don't think the dialogue over-elucidates anything.
* - I don't think he kills Harvey so much as he saves Gordon's son, and, in Lucius' position, would anybody not use that cell phone machine to stop The Joker? Even if it is - in theory - "wrong"?
I hope the Joker is unreliable, because he's crazy and much of what he says makes little sense except, as you say, as a form of manipulation. When he says "you complete me," or that he is an "agent of chaos," do you think he's saying how he really feels, and the audience should know that he's deluding himself, or that he's trying to plant these ideas in other characters' (and our) minds whether he believes (or we believe) they're true or not? You're right about Harvey Dent -- he had the "Two-Face" nickname long ago, though we don't know much about how he earned it. That's rather awkwardly set up early in the film, and then made literal. As for Lucius, I'm with you: I just don't buy his indignation and resignation. It's the old ticking time-bomb scenario (one that only happens in the movies), and under the circumstances you'd have to be morally insane NOT to violate privacy in order to save lives. Finally, what do you make of the Big Speech at the end, the one Gordon gives to his son -- mostly off-screen, so that it is quite deliberately a voiceover delivered directly to the audience? My problem with the movie, of course, is that I don't think the ways these questions are dramatized are very compelling -- or that the questions themselves (and their answers, if there are any) are very intriguing.
The Prestige may be Nolan's best film (I haven't seen them all, so I can't rightly judge, but it's certainly better than Batman Begins and Inception), and it is notable for its lack of direct exposition.
Hints about what's going on are dropped throughout, of course, as in all really good twist movies, but it's entirely possible to be in the dark right up to the very moment of the big reveal. At least, I did that. Perhaps that just means I'm stupid.
The rules are not explained at any point; we never find out just how Tesla's machine works, or whether the man in the box or the one at the back of the theater is the "real" Angier. It's also not quite clear which Borden is which, though I'd very much like to go back through and see if I can figure it out.
The movie does explain how the machine works, it does it indirectly. Listen to the droning music and you'll realize that the droning part is actually a portal. The Prestige contains portals, Tesla found a way to summon a portal at will(the machine), one that simply portals YOU back into the same time/space. The music on the surface seems like a one-way portal into the future, signaling that what these men are doing belongs in the future. But the fact that the machine exists is proof that the music-portal is a 2-way, where Tesla invoked how to build the machine from the future into this time.
And being how the laws of physics are intertwined with our emotions, we as humans won't allow a second version of the same person. Hence why even twins, actually especially twins, have opposite personalities. There cannot be 2 of the same thing. The laws of physics drove Angier to kill his twin and Borden to ideologically oppose his, satisfying the equation of the universe.
I'm not kidding here, it's all in the movie.
I believe you. I just generally find movies that create all these more-or-less arbitrary fantasy "rules" rather silly and pointless.
Could you explain further what you mean by "rules" in relation to Batman Begins, The Prestige and The Dark Knight? You've complained before that The Prestige and The Dark Knight violate their own photo-realistic universes, so I'm hard-pressed to understand what you mean by "rules" in regard to those movies (you couldn't possibly have come to the same conclusions as Bob).
I was responding to Bob's explanation of the "portal" in "The Prestige." It's not actual physics; it's a fantasy premise (and the movie's Tesla is fictionalized), but we don't know how broadly the movie has combined magic and fantasy until the end. Where that gets us thematically, I'm not sure.
True, well you said elsewhere that "[Nolan] puts a lot of effort into creating rules for his movie-worlds and he feels they need to be explained."
About The Prestige, I don't know if the sci-fi element is important thematically, other than to show how far Angier was willing to go.
The Joker's goals are to dismantle Batman's image (first by having him unmasked, then by having him kill) and to prove that people are bad deep down inside, because that's what he is. Because those are sort of odd motivations for a terrorist (think of him as an artist), I guess you could say he is crazy. Everything he does or says goes toward accomplishing these goals. When he tells Batman he "completes him," he's trying to drag Batman down, but also, I think, overcompensating with humour to hide his anger that Batman can exist - Batman just dealt a blow to Joker's worldview by refusing to give in to the desire to kill him.
Harvey's double nature (single, or singular really) isn't only set up with that exchange between him and Gordon, as I detailed above. It's there in everything Harvey says and does. I can understand how the name set-up could be construed as awkward, but superhero movies usually have a dramatic moment where the Hero/Villain's Name is unveiled, and here the name actually has a human connotation, unlike, say, "The Green Goblin."
I like Lucius' indignation and then easy compliance. It seems immoral, violating privacy, it messes with his self-image ("Spying on 30 million people isn't part of my job description") but still of course he must do it. We must remember that until this moment in the franchise - his first and only scene with Batman - Lucius has remained a relatively inactive character. He invents things, but he doesn't use them! Here he's faced with something Batman's invented and told to use it.
About the closing dialogue...
James Gordon Jr.: Why's he running, Dad?
Lt. James Gordon: Because we have to chase him.
James Gordon Jr.: He didn't do anything wrong.
Lt. James Gordon: Because he's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we'll hunt him because he can take it. Because he's not a hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. A dark knight.
I dunno, I think it sounds cool. Of course you could say "It doesn't sound cool," but then I would say "It does sound cool" again, and we would be here forever. But I don't think it's over-elucidating...that would be more like:
James Gordon Jr.: Why's he running, Dad?
Lt. James Gordon: Because he's taking the blame for Harvey's crimes in order to preserve Harvey's image as the White Knight of Gotham and therefore to allow people to believe that they have it in themselves to face evil, and don't need a symbolic God-figure to do it for them (heh, heh).
James Gordon Jr.: He...didn't...do anything wrong...
Lt. James Gordon: No...weren't you listening just now? He did everything right, but he's not good enough a symbol for Gotham right now. They need to believe in a man, not a SuperMan. It's about being satisfied with our own human limitations, and working within those limitations to make the world that everybody wants: a peaceful world, without drug-dealers or mass-murderers. But the thing is, that's the real fantasy, and we really are at the mercy of the SuperMen who have the strength to make hard decisions for all the little people and drive motorcycles through shopping malls. Like Batman. I really like Batman. Now go to bed, the movie's over.
(As I'm writing this, I'm realizing in what depth Nolan is examining the superhero movie.)
PS. I already know you don't think the movie is dramatized compellingly, but your original comment dealt with the exposition, so I focused on that. I am compelled by the way one scene/sequence leads into the next, the performances, the grandeur, the use of ingrained pop culture characters to say something relatively pessimistic, the cinematography, and the action, which I understand.
The Joker is hypocritical because he's basically a hipster revolting against impersonal, oppressive American Capitalism.
I know. I shudder whenever I see him on some 23-year-old dude's t-shirt.
You should shudder twice when you realize what the MOVIE is self-consciously doing in terms of consumerism/capitalism.
Here's a hint:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrkZ2yh2r2U
How many times has this soundtrack been repackaged and resold? With remixes no less? Why are the names of the tracks so explicit in contrast to Batman Begins'? Why has TDK made so much money?
http://i55.tinypic.com/e5jzx0.jpg
The Joker's telling theater goers in America to wake up, whilst the movie is selling you the same chic product Joker's protesting. Money is the only language American speaks, at least right now.
"or hasn't developed the skill of communicating information and ideas indirectly"
OH THE RAGE!
I actually hate The Dark Knight, mainly because I love Batman Begins. BB is about a lot of things and most of them are communicated indirectly. I find the entirety of TDK already exists inside BB. One of the main things BB deals with is class warfare between the rich and the poor(there's a reason the movie starts with a white boy stealing a Native Indian arrowhead). It's hardly said verbally but class warfare is ever present throughout most of the film. The film seems to be aimed at America's underclass, African-Americans(AMERICAN blacks specifically). While TDK is aimed at middle class teen white males. There are more of those in America than African Americans, and so TDK has become the more popular film. In my opinion, TDK = Fight Club and BB = something along the lines of The Battle Of Algiers.
Batman Begins is aimed at poor black people, eh? Care to elaborate?
There are black people scattered all throughout Batman Begins, who all exude an interesting aura that plays on you subconsciously. Paying attention to them you'll realize that they're all AMERICAN black(except for just one) that have faces of Africans(strong jaws, etc.).
The movie is FOR these people who, because of the oppressiveness of America on black people, can only amount to secretaries(Jessica) and low Asylum workers(http://i53.tinypic.com/9a8q5v.png). And how Asian's get to be chemical engineers(http://i51.tinypic.com/nn4e51.png) and be friends with white people(http://i53.tinypic.com/ndlwm8.png). The only time we see a black person be friends with whites is when they're innocent kids:
http://i53.tinypic.com/2vlvasw.png
This is also supposed to draw attention to the mayor and Lucius Fox's deceptive demeanor.
America's black people are who would understand the rage Batman embodies, and so they would understand this movie's filmmaking more than anyone. Notice the main minorities in TDK are closer to white: Ramirez; Lau. That's because the movie is now playing to the middleclass.
These filmmaking choices highlight how the audience is fundamentally racist, not for malicious purposes but most likely to gear you towards people who are more like you, so that we are on common grounds.
Here's one of the film's tricks: Batman is not some poor black person, even if he maybe feels that way inside. It's understandable when some underclass black person is angry, and so becomes a vigilante who kills, steals, and murders. It is completely outrageous on the other hand when someone with money does these things just 'cause he feels that way. Batman on one level is a metaphor for what happens when rich people feel poor, they attack the poor, which is exactly what Batman is doing. At the end of the day the people he punches, whatever his rational, are poor people who had little to do with their position of being poor. The richest one is Falcone, who is still a low life criminal. Batman is not attacking the real criminals, the people who really killed his parents: the co-owners of Wayne Enterprises, who have sucked the money out of Gotham.
Well, Bruce goes after the corporate guys too when he replaces the money-minded Rutger Hauer with the moral Morgan Freeman. And it's clear in both movies that the mob is in league with the law and the corrupt corporations (although it's interesting that Lau is almost allowed to get away with the money before The Joker takes care of him).
I dunno. I've always looked at Batman Begins from a human angle, focusing on his trauma and his search for father figures (one early match cut between Caine and Neeson makes that quite clear). But I suppose you could say that Alfred, a butler, represents bourgeoisie conventions, while R'as represents...what? He's obviously rich, and yet he attacks both the rich and the poor. What do you make of that?
I will say that everything that happens in Batman Begins is the result of unsatisfactory economic conditions. The Waynes' murder, and therefore Batman, is a result of the depression, which was apparently caused by R'as, who was trying to debilitate a city which had reached the pinnacle of decadence (we don't see much decadence in BB...except for the Waynes...). You're right that in any event it's the poor who suffer. But I don't know if the black angle is...emphasised.
I think I will watch Batman Begins again.
The "black angle" is actually one of the major points of the whole film. And here's one of the things the movie skirts: Lucius is a bad guy, or more accurately, apathetic to Gotham's destruction(as most old people don't have this new-age sense of global responsibility). There are a couple sly elements(Lucius' uber-smart sarcasm; Rutgar's apparent clueless-ness) that hints that maybe Rutgar was a good guy who Bruce has kicked out for a destructive Lucius. There are several hints that tell you the reason Lucius was able to come up with the Antidote for the toxin so quickly was because he already made one for the League of Shadows(fighting the war from both sides kinda thing). And the mutual understanding between Alfred and him actually means Alfred is a bad guy too.
"I will say that everything that happens in Batman Begins is the result of unsatisfactory economic conditions."
The movie postulates that Bruce's parents were killed by their fellow elite(possibly by Alfred) because they were obstructing the rich's greed. Once they were out of the picture they proceeded to suck the money out of Gotham, collapsing the middleclass(notice after Bruce returns we basically only see really rich people and really poor people).
The movie is definitely a "human" film, so much so that you can deduce politics' origins. Bruce becoming a weirdo was inevitable. He is three generations of delinquent/weird/idealist. His great grand father fought to free slaves; his father tried to help the poor; Bruce is an only child. This man was bound to be some kind of lunatic. His father was there to pull him out of the metaphoric black well the first time, but without his father(fatherless child) he now actually dives into the cave further and sets up camp. Only now:
http://i55.tinypic.com/35bfn1f.jpg
does he realize he wasn't supposed to do that.
It was so liberating and transcendent to leave society, but his mind has been in a cave too long now.
Hah, I think that's Bane in your screenshot.
I think you're a fascinating person and I want to hear more of your opinions, but I don't think I agree with you on BB. I'll watch it again, though, and tell you what I think.
I'm not the only one who spotted this stuff:
http://www.mstrmnd.com/log/71
It doesn't matter who the screenshot is of in the movie, understand the visuals, understand what the Trailer is trying to tell you. Nolan's trailers, especially for the batman movies, are very important. They bring to the surface certain underlying elements.
Batman Begins is a monster of a film whose tentacles stretch into the world by way of the trailers, posters, soundtrack, etc. One of the things the trailers reveal is that the Bat signal might be functioning as this movie's Space Odyssey-esque monolith. Except, instead of it being proof of aliens the batarang is solid, physical, undeniable proof of a once malicious lunatic, even if he plays a hero, even if his personality one day changes. The bat signal is design-by-mal-intent. The smoothness of it = design, the fact that it's shaped like a bat/devil = malice. This is supposed to hint to you why to opening shot is with bats when birds could've done the same job.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdcISkSKrbw
The batsignal seems to represent the film screen itself. This is supposed to hint to you that no matter how liberating the movie may feel, it is ultimately a negative anti-society film, tracking fringe male delinquents in their quests. The film is ultimately demon-shaped in its structure, and so only negativity can come from it. Which is why it deals in deception and "gotcha" type narrative. This somewhat proves the stuff I said about Alfred & Fox being bad guys. The opening shot, though, seems to be saying that year 2005 and up are the pertinent years for this message/film, somewhat excusing its negativity(making it ultimately positive?).
Like I said before, it would be somewhat a failure of a film if it was understood by all types of people, in my opinion it would be an insincere film if both the middleclass and underclass understood it. You have TDK, I have BB, confirming the chasm of communication between us.
I think the reason I don't get it is because it's not there, frankly. There's no evidence to suggest Lucius was working for the League of Shadows, and your interpretation of the batarang is so specifically yours' that one couldn't possibly call it definitive. That website was only barely comprehensible and it seemed to me like I could only understand it fully if I was steeped in conspiracy theories. I don't think it has anything to do with my "class" (how do you know anything about my class? All you know is I've seen TDK and I have access to the internet). Nevertheless I will watch BB again when I can.
What you just said is awesome in its purity/innocence. It sounds exactly like what I used to say, and a lot like Emerson's reaction towards Armond White. Trust me when I say everything I just said is 100% there. The things that I'm not sure about are things I haven't mentioned. BB says that it's ultimately a good thing that you do not see this stuff, as if you are the real hero instead of these ego maniacs who want to control others. That you are this guy:
http://i56.tinypic.com/s12edk.png
That you are not Gordon in the metaphorical background or the Mayor in the metaphorical foreground(which ultimately means he's also in the background{loser and leader are ultimately both isolated}) in that scene.
One of the things that makes BB such a great film is that on the surface it seems like such an innocuous lame summer superhero movie--it never really belabors its meaning, because it knows its profound meaning should not be diluted with such tactics. This causes people to either praise it for what it is like I do, or feel 100% sure that what they're seeing is nothing more than a silly batman movie, or what the dialogue tells them to feel.
I think in Memento the overexplaining serves an additional purpose in that it lulls us into accepting what is overtly explained as being the truth even though we are hearing it from someone with a faulty memory system. We should be doubting what we are told, but we don't, which gives the film a greater impact when reflecting on it later.
Bob-
I'm glad you think I'm awesomely innocent and pure, but if you really want to "wake me up," you could start by offering one piece of information to support your statements, like how Lucius is a double-agent, rather than relying on incredibly elaborate and specific interpretations of brief shots of secondary characters (that shot of the cop could be more easily interpreted as a storytelling shot to show the lackadaisical attitude of most of Gotham City's police, rather than...whatever you're trying to say it is. Still, I'm glad we're talking about this, it's not often at this blog that I'm arguing a Nolan movie isn't as rich as someone's saying it is. And I hope Jim looks at that screenshot of the cop: it's an old-school storytelling shot that creates atmosphere by saying a lot with a little, look at the faces of the policemen trailing off behind the subject - contradicts some of Jim's statements that Nolan always focuses on "one thing" without using richer, more multilayered compositions).
"but if you really want to "wake me up,""
But I'm not trying to. I don't really believe I can. The movie refuses for the most part to give hard evidence of what I'm saying, it feels it would dilute its effect for those who would understand it anyway. So we're stuck here because even though all movies take place at the same place(on a screen) they can still be colossally different from one another where I can't possibly explain this to you. Nolan knows I can't, and he knows it doesn't matter if I did.
"how the lackadaisical attitude of most of Gotham City's police,"
GLAD YOU CAUGHT THAT! This is touched up on more later in the film(Batman runs over a police car and make the police destroy themselves). But here's a novel thing: can it be both what I said and what you said? At the same time? Multi-leveled story-telling? There's TONS more going on in that scene that I'm not gonna go into right now. The laid back police element is the one, somewhat surface meaning. And underneath that there's what I said, and I can feel that underneath that there's one more thing that I can't quite verbalize.
One thing that some film nerds I've heard complain about is how there's no visual depth in most of the shots, that there's always a lot of blur, unlike TDK(this leading them to say that TDK is filmically more sophisticated). I'll add that the camera is always very close to it's subject, almost cartoonishly. This is of huge, colossal importance. This is how the film hones in on its audience(inadvertently, but knowingly, confirming a gigantic difference in mindset between certain people, almost as if they're different species. Which itself alludes to fact that maybe different species{Bats/Tumbler} are not that different from us). The film collapsing the depth is not at all childish filmmaking, the film is catering to hyper-emotional people, people who wouldn't be writing reviews for movies, but more be in jail for passionate crimes right now. It does away with the depth to accommodate the ego-maniacal attitude that everything is ultimately black and white--everything is ultimately simple and flat. And that only the weak minded perceive depth, because they're not strong enough to collapse it. This instantly allows the film to stream straight into such a person's mind, where he has no control to stop it. It takes intellect(aka the subduing of emotion) to pick up on little pixel details that amount to depth. BB, on the immediate level, is not for such people. TDK on the other hand, being more for a comfortable, educated middleclass audience, does have that depth. It allows a world inside the screen, because that's what that type of mindset is looking for to begin with. For an even nerdier, anti-social, unemotional crowd you'll segue into David Fincher's Zodiac, where there's all the depth in the world, hence why it made little money. BB does not want this. It does not want to establish a world inside the screen that you can order on DVD and play at home. The movie collapsing depth and giving such close/precise proximity to the camera is meant to, not only seduce the egomaniacal mindset, but is also the movie faking itself into your mind. It assumes the precise distance and depth that your mind perceives when thinking thoughts. The movie is pretending to be your thoughts manifested on screen/projected from your mind, and your mind is buying it. This way one is never watching BB on a screen but always on the inner-side of your forehead. It is impossible to understand that BB is taking place on a screen because of those filmmaking tactics, it feels like it's taking place in your head the same way animation lodges in your head as if it was 3D. You wanna see real 3D(or 4D, 5D. What # dimension do you call your mind itself?) watch BB. That's the filmic point of the lack of depth that some critics instantly took as amateur.
So there's no evidence in the movie for what you're saying, but it's true because you thought it. That's a bold argument, I think I've made it myself.
The funny thing is I'm not certain that you're wrong, I like the sound of your interpretation, I just wanna see some evidence. If the movie doesn't even try to suggest that Lucius is working for the League of Shadows, then he's not working for the League of Shadows. You can interpret things any way you like, and clearly you have, but it's the making absolute statements about Nolan's intentions that irks me.
Of course I might just lack the necessary information about the Illuminati to understand what you're saying...(I'm writing in a sarcastic tone but I actually 1/8th believe it might be true. I'm uncertain by nature. Another difference between us.).
"I just wanna see some evidence. If the movie doesn't even try to suggest that Lucius is working for the League of Shadows,"
Dude, i said it does suggest it, just not in the hard cold factual way you're looking for. The movie treats emotion as a valid language for communication, the only thing it's such a subjective one that we're not all on the same page.
Although, if you want one of the moments that suggest it(almost solidify it in my opinion), look at the scene where Rutger questions Lucius about the Microwave Emitter, and remember how wretchedly sarcastic Lucius is. Notice their facial expressions(one of the main mediums of human language), look at the undertow of communication: that Lucius knows exactly what Rutger is talking about because HE'S the one who gave LOS the device, and notice how Rutger recognizes that and fires Lucius on the spot.
a movie is scripted, budgeted, players select. paid for with as much action shots that can be managed. then rleased for public approval which these days is measured by box office take on the first weekend.
i have been reading all these comments of people trying to interject race, and numerous other things.
i grew up in a different age and did not go to the movies to justify batman or why he is like he is. i think most of these people should get away from the games and the computers, and if they go to the movies stop plaiying physciatrist
Well Nolan clearly wants you to think about some things while you're watching his movies. I don't think I added anything that wasn't there with my interpretation of TDK. Unless you're problem is with Nolan for making a movie that tries to "justify Batman," in which case I would say, fine, there are plenty of other superhero movies that just wanna give the audience a good time.
LOL Nolan is actually telling us the same thing: to stop playing with your magic tricks or "perfecting my craft"(or whatever dead idea you are invested in) and be like Alfred Borden and go have a life. It's not a coincidence that the Borden that has the wife and child is the one who didn't feel the need to spy on Angier one last time. Nolan is saying that the only reason Emerson(sh!t's about to get personal!) is capable of understanding films at such a deep level is because he has no girlfriend!
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