Your source for film reviews, news, new and popular cinema, classic films, art house films, silent films, film noir, action movies, obscure films, documentaries, horror films, cult films, anime and animated films, Criterion films--if it's a movie you'll find it all here. I made this blog for those who believe that film is a legitimate art form and seek others to share their passion for cinema with. I update this page daily with fresh film reviews and essays.
Director Katsuhiro Otomo's 1988 anime Akira takes place in the year 2012 in Neo Tokyo following an event similar to the atomic bombs America dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A boy named Akira is the subject of secret government experiments that give him access to superhuman powers. Things get out of control when the government does the experiment on a biker named Tetsuo who becomes obsessed with his best friend's motorcycle and who has been picked on all his life for being short.
This anime, like a lot of sci fi anime reference Japanese culture after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a way of signaling the death of one age and the birth of a new age. Looking at this anime and others like Ghost in The Shell, the influence of Ridley Scott's 1982 film Blade Runner is obvious in the fusion of industrial-looking tech combined with social and environmental issues like crime, poverty, overcrowding and lots of consumer products marketed on just about every square inch of available space. These elements together describe an aesthetic known as cyberpunk. Watching Akira, it is easy to see how much Blade Runner influenced the artwork and, in a lot of ways, Akira takes it a step further. Watching it, even after 30 years since it was made, it can easily take a couple of nights just to take in everything. And, unlike most anime where only the main characters in the foreground move, everything and I do mean EVERYTHING moves in Akira. Otomo is a gear-head and his obsession with detail, particularly machines, verges on the insane. Up to the time it came out, the only animation you could find this kind of motion was Disney. But Disney was for kids in those days but Akira was aimed at adults. This, if anything else, explains the cultural perceptions that American film audiences and Japanese film audiences have about animated movies. If you have heard of anime or if all you know about it is Dragonball Z or Pokemon, seeing Akira for the 1st time is going to be somewhat of a shock to what you are used to seeing, especially the level of graphic violence including blood.
I still have my VHS copy of this film and recently, I upgraded to blu ray. This film looks incredible. The colors are popping and saturated but they don't bleed over the details. The opening scenes at night are absolutely crazy. The rainbows chasing the motorbikes, the motorbikes themselves, the clothes, the cityscape, everything looks better on blu ray.
Despite the look of this film, the dialogue is bad. Otomo shows his weaknesses in the writing department but I'm not sure how much this has to do by it being translated out of Japanese to English.
I read someplace that they were thinking about turning it into a live action movie but I don't think it'll work because the story itself is rather convoluted. Plus, I don't think that every good anime translates to live action. Look at what happened to Ghost in the Shell. I believe, too, that the sophistication of live action effects in recent years has not only equaled but has exceeded what you could only show in an animated movie. If they did make a live action Akira, I would like it to be Japanese. These films have a way of being Westernized with White actors like Ghost in the Shell was and Robert Rodriguez's upcoming action film Alita: The Battle Angel. If it is produced into a live action movie, though, I'll still go to see it.
Finishing up this review, I'm glad to say that even after all these years, as far as animation has come, Akira still looks good. I think what makes this film age well is the fact that what you see on the screen is completely organic and hand-drawn by real people. This type of anime or animation period is gone now. I even read that Hayao Miyazaki's next animated film will be all CGI. That'll be interesting.
I want to share my thoughts on 21 Grams, the 2003 American drama directed by Alexandro Inarritu Gonzales starring Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Benicio del Toro, and Charlotte Gainsbourg. First, though, I’d like to thank you for watching this video and I’d appreciate if you’d hit the like button at the end and subscribe to my channel for more videos.
Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu's 2003 drama 21 Grams is the 2nd film to Gonzales’ and co-writer Guillermo Arriaga’s “Trilogy of Death” series preceded by 2001s Amores Perros and followed by 2006s Babel starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. The title of this film comes from an American Scientist named Duncan MacDougall. In 1907 MacDougall wanted to prove that we lose 21 grams at the time of death and that this 21 grams is the soul leaving the body. He weighed 6 bodies at the moment of death and only 1 lost 21 grams, 21.3 to be exact. Needless to say, his test was discounted by the scientific community. In this film, 21 Grams is a metaphor for all the things that have to happen for 2 people to come together; 21 Grams is about how we are all connected; it’s about water and the many chances that we get to live; 21 Grams is about learning to accept the bad things that happen to all of us. Most of all, 21 Grams it’s about learning to see life as a blessing and not as a guarantee.
Life, death, and rebirth
Everything in nature has an opposite: 2 legs, 2 arms, 2 eyes. There’s light and darkness, hot and cold, weak and strong, male/female, left and right.
In 21 Grams, life and death complement each other.
For instance, Mary goes to a fertility doctor to have the child of her dying husband; when Michael dies his heart gives Paul a 2nd chance to live; Paul is dying in the hospital when Cristina learns that she is pregnant with his child; and Michael and his daughters are run over and killed by Jack whose birthday happens to be on that same day.
Life creates death and death creates life as Socrates put it, in question and answer form, from Plato’s book Phaedo:
Question: “Is not death opposed to life?”
Answer: “Yes.”
Question: “And they are generated one from the other?”
Answer: “Yes.”
Question: ”What is generated from life?”
Answer: “Death.” Question: “And what from death?”
Answer: “I can only say in answer -- life.”
Question: “Then the living, whether things or persons, Cebes, are generated from the dead?”
Answer: “That is clear,” he replied.
Water
We’ve all heard the saying: “cleanliness is next to godliness,” right? Nothing feels better than having a clean fresh home, clean clothes, a clean car--but none of these are possible without good clean water. But let’s think of water and clean in another sense. In the Bible, water is used to symbolize death and rebirth in the rite of baptism--death in that the person baptized has all of his or her prior sins erased (or washed) and starts over with a clean slate. This is described as being “born again,” not in the literal sense, but in that the individual has been awakened to a higher realm of consciousness. This is why water, in this sense, is an important thematic element in 21 Grams.
Let’s start with the characters’ names and how they relate to the film’s plot. Jordan--Jack’s last name--is the river in the Bible that Joshua crosses in leading the Israelites to the Promised Land; the connotation of Jack’s last name also coincides with his character arc. Jack’s “Promised Land” is him receiving a higher level of awareness:
He starts out believing that God favors him because he got out of prison, stopped drinking alcohol, and turned his life over to Jesus Christ. Religious icons such as crosses fill his truck and home for protection. He and his family attend church regularly; he is even working with a troubled teenager named Nick. But when Jack kills Cristina’s family by running over them in his truck, he undergoes a spiritual shakeup. How could something bad happen to him when he was doing everything right? How could God allow him to get in his truck and kill a man and 2 little girls? Killing Cristina’s family and losing everything humbles Jack and teaches him that doing all the right things (including being a Christian) does not exclude him from all the ups and downs of life.
Likewise, the death of Christina’s husband and 2 daughters catches her completely off-guard. Prior to giving birth to her 1st daughter, Cristina had kicked her quit using drugs and had become the perfect wife and mother. But losing Michael and her 2 daughters so suddenly is too much for her and she goes back to her drug habit. She then decides to kill Jack instead of moving on with her life and pressures Paul, who has her husband’s heart, to help her. Paul goes back to smoking which ruins his new heart. When all of the dust has settled by the end of the movie, Cristina finds out that she is pregnant with Paul’s baby and winds up in the same position she was in before, when she faced the decision to either stop using drugs or to keep using them and risk losing Paul’s unborn child.
Finally, Paul gets a 2nd chance at life by receiving Michael’s heart. But after meeting Cristina and her pressuring him to kill Jack, Paul goes back to his old smoking habit which makes his new heart go bad. His failing heart is the swimming pool he sits by at the motel; notice that the swimming pool is empty and full of garbage; his decision to help Cristina kill Jack has poisoned Michael’s good heart. Paul doesn’t go through with killing Jack but by this time, Michael’s heart is too far gone to be brought back.
When we hurt others we hurt ourselves
We don’t get away with anything. When we hurt others, everything in the universe aligns itself to keep us from being happy. Some call this God, others call it karma. There are invisible laws within us that punish us when we go against them, rising up like judge, jury, and executioner to torment us.
In 21 Grams, for instance, Paul returns to smoking when he goes in with Cristina to kill Jack. In doing this, he not only hurts himself, he also hurts Michael who continues to live on through the heart his death has given to Paul; likewise, Cristina’s drug habit not only threatens her health but also the life of her unborn child; also, after Jack completes his prison sentence for killing Cristina’s family, he abandons his own family to wallow in guilt by himself in a motel where he goes back to drinking and smoking cigarettes.
Sometimes bad things happen to good people
Life is not fair. Good people die young and bad people die of old age; fit people get cancer; selfish jerks win lotteries and good people die poor; abusers get the best girls and good guys get the cold shoulder; heroes don’t always ride off into the sunset and, contrary to popular belief, hard work doesn’t always pay off. The fact of the matter is that bad things happen to good people, too.
Likewise, in 21 Grams Jack does all the right things
He attends church
He has given up drinking alcohol
He works with a troubled teenager
He follows the Bible to the letter
And yet, he gets into his truck on a normal day, sober, feeling better about the future and getting a new job after getting fired and, out of nowhere, he ends up running over 3 people in his truck, panics, and leaves the scene of the incident!
Same thing with Cristina who also does all the right things by kicking drugs and becoming the ideal wife and mother. Yet, in a single moment, she loses everything!
Taking life for granted
Some things are just too unpleasant to think about. But death is always going to be a fact of life. From the day we are born our days are numbered. But somewhere along the way we forget how to live and settle for being alive. We learn to look forward to and place special value on birthdays, anniversaries, Valentines Days, and Christmases and we learn to take the smaller bits of our lives--the seconds, hours, days, and months--for granted like that old friend who you know will always be there. Then 1 day someone calls you out the blue to tell you your old friend is dead. Such is the case throughout 21 Grams:
When Michael, before being killed, tells his wife that he and their daughters will see her when they get home
When Michael calls Cristina who lets his last phone call go to her voice mail
When Cristina puts off buying the blue shoes her daughter wants
When Mary aborts Paul’s child and then--when he has only 1 month to live--tries to have his child through artificial insemination
When Jack kills a man and 2 little girls driving home to celebrate his birthday
We all put things off as if we can pause life like a television show and come back to it later. In the meantime we miss out on the small moments as if they are not important, as if they are a given, as if they somehow don’t count; they do!
conclusion
21 Grams begins and ends with Paul Rivers in a hospital bed connected to life support, counting each and every breath, marking time and empty space like seconds on a clock, not knowing which will be his last. But, in a sense, Paul is more alive on his deathbed than at any point in the film, even after getting a new life with Michael’s heart. I wonder, how we would live each and every moment of our lives if we realized that each one of those tiny moments had the potential to be our last.
In this video I will share my thoughts on Alita, Battle Angel which is slated for theaters in July 2018 co written by James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez and directed by Robert Rodriguez based on the 1990 manga Battle Angel Alita by Yukito Kishiro. Alita, Battle Angel takes place in a futuristic wasteland and follows a cyborg girl named Alita whose head is discovered among a pile of garbage beneath a floating utopia called Tiphares. Alita is adopted by a cyber doctor named Ido who gives her a new body but is unable to help her remember who she is. Her only connection with her past is a fighting style called Panzer Kunzt. Over the course of her journey to find out who and what she is she finds herself and, ultimately, love. This is the film Cameron intended to direct before Avatar. In a nutshell, think Mad Max meets The Bourne Identity.
Finally, at long long last, we'll finally get the movie that James Cameron made Avatar to prepare for, from the manga series by graphic artist Yukito Kishiro about a cyborg who has no memory of her past except for a deadly fighting style called Panzer Kunst. From seeing the film's trailer, I believe that Rodriguez will pull this off well.
One of the greatest films ever that Roger Ebert didn't like!
Blue Velvet by David Lynch: An analysis of the film
Blue Velvet is a 1986 murder mystery film by director David Lynch about a quiet suburban community whose dark secrets come to light with the discovery of a severed ear. The film stars Kyle McLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, Laura Dern, and Dennis Hopper. Blue Velvet received numerous accolades including a Best Director nomination for David Lynch and Best Director and Actor awards for Lynch and Dennis Hopper from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. In this video, I will explore some of the key ideas in Blue Velvet to the best of my ability. Thanks for watching this video and I’d appreciate it if you will like this video and subscribe to my channel for more videos like this one. I’ll begin with the Closet.
The closet
The closet in Dorothy’s apartment symbolizes the social and moral restrictions we impose on ourselves and restrictions that are imposed on us externally. From the closet looking out, Jeff is able to safely and privately act out his fantasies through Frank who gets off on deviant sex with Dorothy. The closet also represents the outsider’s perspective. To Jeff, Dorothy—from his side of the closet door—looks like a victim; this is how a woman being beaten by a man is perceived in his world. But when Jeff comes out of the closet and into Dorothy’s world, he learns that the world he sees from the closet isn’t black and white. That Dorothy is not a victim but that she is a willing participant. And this is also what turns Jeff on about her. Sandy is also limited by her subjective views of her world. To her, Jeff seems as normal and ordinary as the town of Lumberton until he comes out of the closet when Dorothy brings their secret relationship to the light.
Dorothy making Jeff strip out of his clothes is also symbolic. His clothes, or outward appearance, is his image and how he wants to be seen by Sandy and others in the community. Dorothy getting him to strip out of his clothes is getting him to reveal who he really is, not only to society but to himself as well. In the perfect and narrow world of Lumberton, Jeff is restricted; but in Dorothy’s apartment where there are no taboos, he is free to be himself. Watching the sadistic things Frank does to Dorothy, he is actually, through Frank, acting out some of his own fantasies which is why he submits to Dorothy’s request to hit her. Their relationship is all about her getting him to come out of the closet, so to speak.
Lumberton
Lumberton’s squeaky-clean appearance is a mask for drugs, murder, crooked cops, and perverts like Frank and Dorothy. And taking off the city’s mask also exposes Jeff’s secrets as well. But in order for Jeff to expose Lumberton’s secrets he has to let go of all of his inhibitions and the mores of the community he grew up in. Sandy represents this community and also why Jeff can’t reveal his secrets to her but can with Dorothy. This is also why he must go up to Dorothy’s apartment alone; if Sandy had gone up with him he wouldn’t have revealed himself as he does with Dorothy. He would have remained hidden and locked up within himself by the informal norms of his community. This point is demonstrated when Sandy sees Jeff and Dorothy together. He is ashamed and denies Dorothy’s claim that they are lovers.
Voyeurism
Voyeurism is watching and getting off from seeing others experience pleasure or pain. In Blue Velvet, Jeffery plays the role of a detective trying to solve a murder mystery, a mystery which is also tied to discovering things about himself. When Dorothy orders him to strip out of his clothes she is really telling him to let go of his inhibitions. This is why fear is such an important element of the film. What keeps us from expressing ourselves is what we think of other people’s opinions. This is why Jeff feels free to express himself in the privacy and safety of Dorothy’s apartment. This element of privacy and safety is also reinforced by the fact that Jeff sees her at night, night being a metaphor for not only mystery but also for secrecy which is why she calls him her ‘secret lover.’
Besides privacy, Dorothy helps Jeff come out of the closet by giving him 2 things, and those 2 things are the proper environment and consent. The 1st is her place which, in this film, seems like a totally different world than Lumberton and its restrictive norms. In her apartment it’s ok for Jeff to admit to things that are taboo in society. The second condition Dorothy provides for Jeff is consent by giving him permission to hit her. The commentary Blue Velvet makes is that we are only as good or as bad as the laws and norms allows us to be. This commentary is also the premise of 2 previous analyses I covered in the film Full Metal Jacket and the 1st episode of Mad Men.
The 2nd half of Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 film ‘Full Metal Jacket’ follows a group of soldiers who are liberated by the battlefield of the Vietnam War and revel in killing. In the 1st episode of Mad Men, bad behavior on the part of White men is proper behavior in the confines of the striptease bar.
These are some of my thoughts on David Lynch’s 1986 film Blue Velvet.
In this video, I will analyze Akira Kurosawa’s 1962 film Sanjuro through the writings of Sun Tzu and his book ‘The Art of War’. Thanks for watching this video and please subscribe and leave a like at the end.
Sanjuro is told in 2 parts with the main character acting as both a teacher and as a student. In the beginning, Sanjuro acts as teacher to 9 young Samurais. The 1st lesson he teaches them is to not judge a book by its cover. The young samurais are fed up with government corruption and take a petition to weed out wrongdoing to their chamberlain. But when this chamberlain who happens to be ugly rejects their petition, they go to the superintendent whose good looks makes him seem truthful. He instructs all of them to wait for him at a local shrine. Luckily, Sanjuro happens to be sleeping at the shrine and overhears them. He warns the young men that the superintendent is setting a trap to kill them all. At first, they don’t believe him because his socks are full of holes and he looks like a beggar. He tells them to take a peek out the window and when they do they see men with swords surrounding the place. Sanjuro gets them out of this jam by trickery and decides to help them rescue the chamberlain, his wife, and daughter who have been kidnapped by the superintendent.
The 2nd aspect of the film’s plot involves Sanjuro becoming a student to a wise soft-spoken woman who teaches him how to conquer his enemies—and even make those enemies allies— without drawing his sword.
The Art of War chapter 3, Attack by stratagem using the sheathed sword:
Sun Tzu:
“In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them. Hence, to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.”
The Art of War Chapter 9, The Army on the March
To smoke out the chamberlain’s supporters who remain anonymous, the superintendent comes up with a plan to use the chamberlain’s empty palanquin as bait. The samurais will take the bait by believing they are rescuing their chamberlain and be caught. As planned, the samurai see the empty palanquins and prepare to rescue their chamberlain. Again, Sanjuro is with them and they ignore his warning. He warns them again. They tell him to be quiet and at this precise moment a large number of guards arrive on horseback to assist the superintendent. Sun Tzu:
“If his place of encampment is easy of access, he is tendering a bait.”
The guards are friends of the superintendent and came to escort the palanquins through the woods. Sun Tzu:
“He who exercises no forethought but makes light of his opponents is sure to be captured by them.”
The Art of War CHAPTER 2, WAGING WAR
Early in the film, Sanjuro and the young Samurais rescue the chamberlain’s daughter and wife and take 1 of Muroto’s guards as a hostage. When the guard refuses to tell them where the superintendent is hiding the chamberlain, Sanjuro orders the samurais to kill the guard. The chamberlain’s wife, however, tells Sanjuro that he mustn’t kill the guard. Sun Tzu:
“Bring war material with you from home, but forage on the enemy.”
They detain the guard in a closet at Izaki’s house. After being saved again by Sanjuro, the young samurais return to the house and find the guard out of the closet, eating, drinking sake, and wearing Izaki’s best kimono. The old woman let him out the closet, fed him, and gave him Izaki’s kimono. The guard could have easily escaped before the Samurais returned but he stayed their prisoner because the old lady was kind to him and trusted him. Prior to being captured, the guard had heard stories about how cruel the young samurais were and found those stories to be false. After telling the samurais this, the guard finishes his food, his sake, and returns to the closet. Sun Tzu:
“Captured soldiers should be kindly treated and kept. This is called, using the conquered foe to augment one's own strength.”
Also:
“Therefore the skillful leader subdues the enemy's troops without any fighting; he captures their cities without laying siege to them; he overthrows their kingdom without lengthy operations in the field.”
The Art of War Chapter 4, Tactical Dispositions
The daughter of the kidnapped chamberlain, escapes when the guards send her out to bring them more sake. Sanjuro tells the samurais to let the girl take sake to the guards and get them nice and drunk. This will make it much easier to rescue the girl and her mother. Sun Tzu:
“To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.”
The Art of War Chapter 5, Energy
Sanjuro’s outward appearance is as a peasant and a beggar whose social status and physical appearance cause the samurais to devalue his character and intelligence. Sun Tzu:
“Simulated disorder postulates perfect discipline, simulated fear postulates courage; simulated weakness postulates strength. Hiding order beneath the cloak of disorder is simply a question of subdivision; concealing courage under a show of timidity presupposes a fund of latent energy; masking strength with weakness is to be effected by tactical dispositions.”
The 1st weakness the samurais must overcome is the falsehood of outer appearances. They disbelieve their chamberlain who is ugly and trust the superintendent who is pleasant looking. Sanjuro reminds the samurais of the chamberlain’s warning: “The worst one is beyond your imagination,” referring to people like the superintendent whose outward appearance is deceptive.
The Art of War Chapter 6, Weak Points and Strong
Sanjuro tells the samurais that the superintendent plans to kill the chamberlain soon and that they should stir up public concern over the chamberlain’s whereabouts. But before the samurai can act on this advice, the superintendent posts a public notice detailing the chamberlain’s crimes which they are actually framing him for. The notice warns the public not to let the chamberlain’s supporters agitate them. By the superintendent remaining quiet, Sanjuro and the samurai can’t make a move without exposing themselves but Sanjuro comes up with a counter move—the superintendent doesn’t know their true numbers and that there are only 9 samurais-10 including himself. Sanjuro, acting as a double agent, warns Muroto that the chamberlain’s supporters number 130 men! Sun Tzu:
“Numerical weakness comes from having to prepare against possible attacks; numerical strength, from compelling our adversary to make these preparations against us.”
The samurais discover that the chamberlain is being held next door to Izaki’s house. Sanjuro goes next door to Kurofuji’s mansion to tell Muroto that the chamberlain’s supporters are at Komyo temple. He happened to be on the 2nd floor in the temple and the supporters are using the temple as their hideout. Muroto and his guards leave but Sanjuro stays behind, claiming to be hungry. Once the mansion is empty, he goes out to the garden and gathers camellias to send down the stream to the samurais—this is the signal to come rescue the chamberlain! Muroto doubles back and catches Sanjuro red-handed. Then, more bad news: Takebayashi runs in to tell Muroto that Sanjuro lied about Komyo temple. Earlier, Sanjuro told Muroto he had witnessed the chamberlain’s supporters from the 2nd floor of the temple; the temple has no 2nd floor! Muroto is pissed! He has Sanjuro tied up and rushes off to bring back their army to help guard the mansion.
Takebayashi and Kukui are left with Sanjuro who laughs and warns them that the chamberlain’s supporters will storm the mansion and kill them if they don’t see any camellias coming down the stream. Takebayashi and Kukui doubt Sanjuro’s story until Takebayashi peeks over the wall and sees a samurai by the stream, waiting. The door behind the samurai is jam-packed with samurais (the door is small making them appear more than 9). The old man goes back and verifies Sanjuro’s story. Sanjuro offers them a deal: he’ll give them the signal for 50 pieces of gold. They agree and he tells them not to send red camellias downstream; red camellias mean attack. Instead, he instructs the old men to send white camellias downstream; white camellias mean stop. No camellias mean he’s in trouble! Kukui and Takebayashi dump as many white camellias as they can into the stream. In moments, Ikari and his fellow samurais storm the mansion, rescuing both Sanjuro and the chamberlain. (in this example, Sanjuro plays on the fears of Kukui and Takebayashi that an army will storm the mansion if they don’t get a signal). Sun Tzu:
“So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and to strike at what is weak.”
And also:
“Military tactics are like unto water; for water in its natural course runs away from high places and hastens downwards.”
The Art of War Chapter 7, Maneuvering
recap:
The superintendent deceives the samurais by 1) being physically attractive since beauty is generally associated with virtue; 2) making the samurais believe that he sympathizes with their petition after the chamberlain, who is very ugly (a characteristic generally associated with evil) turns down their petition to weed out corruption
Sanjuro’s appearance is also deceptive: he begs for food, has holey socks and wears raggedy clothes—in other words, his appearance stereotypes him as someone of little character, pride, organization, or intelligence. When the samurais offer him a bag of gold for saving their lives, he takes 1 gold piece and gives the bag of gold back to them. And when Muroto offers him a well-paying job, he turns it down even though he begs for food. Sun Tzu:
“In war, practice dissimulation, and you will succeed.”
In this video, I will analyze the Dark Knight, the 2008 film by Christopher Nolan based on the DC Comics' Batman co-created by Bob Kane and Milton Finger. Thanks for watching and I would appreciate if you would like the video and subscribe to my blog for more videos like this one.
Batman and Joker’s similarities
Fear
Bruce Wayne takes the form of his fear of bats and uses this fear against the mob in this film.
The Joker’s face paint, like Batman’s mask, inspires fear in those who see him. The Joker, Batman, and Dent—after half of his face is burned off—are feared because they operate outside of the rules. Batman is freed from moral and civil restrictions when his parents are murdered because of his fear of bats. Criminals fear him because he is not bound by any laws and will resort to any means to stop them even if this means violating the rights of those he protects (such as when he applies Fox’s sonar concept to every cell phone in Gotham). Harvey Dent admires Batman’s ruthlessness and supports him, even insinuating that Gotham do away with democracy—like the Romans did—and allow 1 man run the entire city.
The Joker, like Batman, is feared and describes himself as chaos. But unlike Batman, the Joker sees nothing redeemable in humanity and wants to destroy everyone, good and bad. The mob doesn’t fear Dent because they know that they have rights and that he is restricted by the rule of law.
Scapegoat
The government in this film is characterized as hypocritical and appears good only because of the sacrifices of Batman, a vigilante and outlaw who chooses to be a scapegoat in order to protect the idea that the system is not only good but that it actually works. The only thing keeping society from going to Hell is the belief that we, whom Dent represents, are better than the people we call criminals and put in jail who, like Batman, are also scapegoats in the film. This hypocrisy expresses itself when Dent, as DA, interrogates one of Joker’s henchmen after the assassination attempt on the mayor. Dent takes the man to an undisclosed location, flips a coin, and threatens to shoot him. Luckily, Batman catches the coin and stops Dent from undermining all of the work he did on the right side of the law. Batman could shoot this man and get away with it because he is already an outlaw and has already given up on the system; but Dent can’t because he is Gotham’s White Knight and last anchor of virtue in a system that is almost totally corrupt as witnessed by all of the corrupt cops in the film entangled with Maroni.
Gordon also uses Batman as a scapegoat, particularly in the scene where Joker is being interrogated. Gordon, who represents law and order and who is sworn to uphold the Constitution, leaves the interrogation room to allow Batman to play “bad cop” and physically abuse the Joker in a scene which, in real life, is clear-cut brutality and illegal. Batman, the scapegoat, does the dirty work. Also, when Gordon fakes his death and the cops stop by his home to tell his wife, she even lays all the blame on Batman and not the cops who bring her the bad news. Batman is also present to make sure that he takes the blame and not the cops. But throughout the film, those who use Batman as a scapegoat take all the glory for the work he does. At the end of the film, he takes the blame for all the people Harvey Dent murders.
The Dark Knight
Harvey Dent is called Gotham’s White Knight but when he gets half of his face burnt off, he becomes the Dark Knight. Deep down, Dent knows that his hands, as Gotham’s DA, are tied in fighting the mob because there are too many dirty cops mixed up with them. This is why he admires Batman’s methods and uses the analogy of the Romans suspending Democracy and allowing 1 man to run the city. The irony in this is that Batman admires him. In Dent, Batman sees a hero who can fight crime following the rules. This works in the short term but not over the long haul which is why Dent says “You either die a hero or live long enough to become a villain,” a statement foreshadowing his moral turnaround.
Chaos
The Joker tells Harvey Dent that people revert to the dark side when normalcy is thrown into chaos. Both he and Batman are who they are because of trauma. Batman operates outside the law which is why he wears a mask. The coin that Dent gives Rachel has identical sides which represents order and control. This is why Dent tells Rachel when giving her this coin that we make our own luck. And when she dies in the warehouse explosion, Batman finding this double sided coin at the site of Rachel’s death represents the end of the order and control holding Dent’s dark side in check. This is what the Joker means when he tells Dent in the hospital that he only wanted to show Dent, in killing Rachel, the futility of making plans. The coin with opposite sides represents conflict and how life, death, good and evil are determined by chance, random or unaccountable events disrupting the natural order.
The Joker also says that people are only as good as society allows them to be. Harvey Dent’s White Knight image is intact as long as he, as Gotham’s DA, operates within the rule of law. Dent proves the Joker’s point by abandoning the law and resorting to unethical and illegal means to find out who set Rachel up to be killed. In real life, this is also true as our behaviors and attitudes change as the laws and norms change. We operate within the context of what is and what is not politically correct. Behaviors and attitudes that are or not acceptable in 1 time or place change in another time and place. For example, the 2nd half of Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 film Full Metal Jacket shows how the soldier’s behaviors and attitudes are affected by the Vietnam war where soldiers openly say and do things that they can’t say and do in polite, politically correct society. Another example is the 1st episode of Mad Men. A young ad man named Pete Campbell openly harasses a woman in a striptease bar where this type of behavior is condoned and even encouraged. The stripper is a metaphor for Pete shedding the moral and civil restrictions of polite society.
Choice
Choice is a cyclical` theme throughout the movie. The more obvious examples involves the scene where the Joker gives Batman the choice to rescue Harvey Dent or Rachel; the other example is when the Joker gives the passengers on the ferries the choice to blow each other up. This theme of choice in this film is an analog of Harvey’s habit of basing his decisions on the flip of a coin. Chance is also analogous in this film with chaos and fear. When Rachel is killed and half of Dent’s face is burned off, he chooses to “flip” and be like Batman and the Joker for whom there are no rules. The hospital blowing up represents the death of Harvey Dent and the birth of two-face.
