The Dark Knight - IMAX

Felt like I needed to see this on IMAX to see all the hullabaloo. Indeed, the cityscape shots on IMAX are incredible. When the opening shot comes up, the crowd literally gasped. I was one of them. The image was clearer, with more resolution, and more size/scope than any of us were used to. Good God, I thought, there is something to this IMAX crap...

Yet, when you get into the movie, it's just the movie. There are later cityscape shots on IMAX and shots with characters in large spaces with IMAX, but by that time the WOW factor was gone. We're just in the movie and I can't say I necessarily enjoyed the movie any more as a piece in IMAX than I did on 35mm.

The back and forth between IMAX and 35mm felt continuous and I suspect the layperson would barely notice. The IMAX, to me, worked well to expand the frame in the cityscape shots, but wasn't used to improve any scene work. I imagine Tati or Renoir could use it with more visual aplomb.

I saw the IMAX at the Bridge. It cost $15. I got a Ben and Jerry's ice cream before the film - my first ice cream from an ice cream shop in awhile. $3.29 for a small cup. I must be getting old because I thought ice cream cost $2. It won't be long before I'm lecturing to bored kids about how I used to get a Coke for a nickel.

On a second viewing, I was struck with the very obvious political reading of Batman. This was basically a Straussion-Neoconservative take on present American society, especially the end, which in the mythologizing of Harvey Dent and "rewarding the faith" of the people, is the "noble lie" Strauss suggests is needed for a healthy society.

Strauss worried about nihilism being the ultimate end result to Western Liberal society, a nihilism which arises out of egalitarian and relativism, when a society and people begins to view itself as no better or no worse than than other societies or other people.

Mix up Strauss and the Neoconservatives with the Islamic Terrorists, mildly temper it with critiques from traditional conservatives and leftist internationalists and you basically get our War on Terror...and The Dark Knight, which in the end, can be read as an apologia for the WOT and how it's been waged.

This film can be read as an explicit endorsement of Bush's WOT policies. First, we are just to provoke bad guys and we should expect their reaction - "bring it on." Second, when the bag guys fight back and get all crazy and even turn to worse guys, we should, in words of Michael Caine "endure," or in the words of GW "surge." Third, in order to win, we should absolutely be willing to cross moral and ethical lines to achieve the goal - wiretap, etc. Lastly, when some of our heroes resort to torture and intimidation and go waaaay overboard, we should lie about it and sweep it under the rug, in order to preserve the myth of goodness.

This is textbook - I don't see another possible political reading of the film - and could be observed and written by a college sophomore.

What strikes me, however, is the contrast between the obvious popularity of the Dark Knight and obvious unpopularity of Bush's WOT policies. Do people not care about the politics and ethos of movies? Are they merely entranced by Heath's depiction of the Joker/Terrorist?