Dave Kehr Dark Knight discussion
I want to link to the discussion of the film in the Dave Kehr blog, which has comments by Kent Jones and others and a lot of stuff about morality and the possible political allegory.
It's here:
http://www.davekehr.com/?p=59
Another issue they take up is the concrete one of whether or not Nolan can handle action scenes. I think there are good action scenes in The Dark Knight, such as the chase. But I agree with Ben when he says that in Batman Begins the fight editing cuts away from every action so that you can't follow the fight properly. Julian says that this is true in The Dark Knight too. If so that is bad. I think I mentioned that David Edelstein in New York Magazine says this about The Dark Knight.
One person argues that cutting away from violence during a (violent) fight is a product of trying to avoid at all costs an R rating. Interesting theory. I wish I lived in Hollywood and knew people who knew about that.
One comment I like a lot in thie discussion: http://www.davekehr.com/?p=59#comment-5170
Johann, I don't feel you are engaging with the ideas in the film or considering the politics. I wish I could quote this whole entry by dmohr but it's too long. I'm not saying I agree, it's just typical of the direction of a lot of the comments and an interpretation I'd want to come to terms with if I were really going into depth on the film. Here's part:
Quote:
The Dark Knight is a movie for people who are exhausted by the difficulties of maintaining democracy, and would be okay with fascism taking its place and “setting things straight.” In that sense, it does indeed reflect our post-9/11 Dubya golden era. The constant foisting of fear and oppression, going hand in hand with vigilante justice (and even the indirect justification of the Patriot Act, via Wayne’s telephone-spying system) made me wonder if Dick Cheney had co-written the screenplay. What if Nolan’s next chapter of the Batman saga will have Bale and Caine and Freeman waterboarding the villains to extract some info, or making them pile into a naked pyramid of prisoners smeared with feces, with Freeman shaking his head and sighing, “okay, I really disagree with this approach - but we’ll just do it this one time”? And with any luck, the PG-13 rating will hold intact. Now that’s entertainment.
I like that in the discussion they bring in Pauline Kael's condemnation of Dirty Harry.
The B director with a heart of gold
Don Siegel was a hellva nice man and brilliantly perceptive for a director. He stood up to pompus actors when other directors let them walk over them. The most famous case occurred with a western starring Richard Widmark, who fired the director and hired Siegel with only one week's worth of shooting left. Siegel refused to take credit and hence the DGA's first use of "Alan Smithee" to signify when a star or studio has "butchered" a film against the director's wishes.
I met the Cambridge scholar once. He was very down to earth and would be fascinated by those insightful words spoken about his work. Clint Eastwood once said about his close friend that he learned everything he knew about filmmaking from Don Siegel.
Siegel once spoke with envy to Jean Luc Godard: "You have all the freedom" to which Godard replied, "Yes, but you have all the money!"