Teaching Film 06: The Dark Knight
Superhero Movies…
I have cranky, overserious, grumpy opinions about superhero movies as a phenomenon — but I really try hard not to dump on things my students love, because I really hated that tendency in adults when I was a kid. And there are a couple I have really liked. The Dark Knight is one: it’s a Christopher Nolan movie, so it looks and sounds amazing, and it takes a thoughtful look at the problems in and of superhero stories while still revelling in the thrill-offerings of the genre.
The Dark Knight
Superheroes are and always were problematic figures — they’re strong men who rule by might, secretly, above the law. Thank goodness they’re on our side, right?
The Dark Knight engages with that idea and wrestles with it deftly. It interrogates power and coercion in general — in government overreach, vigilantism, terrorism, the social contract, the Hobbes/Rousseau debate, and how violence snowballs. It’s a clever (and fun and exciting) superhero movie that leaves us with uncertainty and dangling questions.
The First Film of the Course
I often begin the grade 11 film studies course with this movie. The first film shown is important, and I want students to know what we’re going to be doing, without the challenges posed by 100-year-old movies. The Dark Knight is perfectly suited to introduce a ton of filmic concepts and examples, and reliably keep the attention of (most) students.
We have the “I’m gonna pause it a lot, we’re studying this thing” talk; we discuss etiquette for viewing; then we turn off the lights and get to it.
Play
The Dark Knight begins with a wonderfully constructed daytime bank robbery — completely compelling and engaging, chock-full of information in its ten or so minutes. There are large-screen-worthy shots of buildings, stunts, violence, betrayal, and shock, all posed in a sort of bleak joke-structure with a punchline that introduces our man, the Joker. After this scene, we pause.
Pause
Already? Yeah, but this is the last big pause for a while. It is here that I introduce some of the big concepts we’ll study. The conversation can sprawl if you have a talkative class — or the kids might push back at you, urging you to please get on with the movie. How I run the chat depends on that energy. But I always hit on a couple of things here, as they pay off while watching.
Suspension of Disbelief and Taste
Suspension of disbelief is a participatory agreement between the audience and the art, and knowing that is empowering. Sometimes it is important to surrender your critical mind — or at least your suspicious mind. This film is a good place to look at when this is possible and when it isn’t, as TDK is both realistic (nobody flies like Superman, there’s no big magic), but it’s also bonkers ridiculous. Kids like to know, in my experience, that it is up to them whether to believe in something or not.
The big “suspension of disbelief” aspect of the bank robbery scene, of course, is the BUS — which backs up hard enough to go through a bank wall and kill a man, from a busy road in the afternoon, and nobody notices; then it pulls out and gently “sneaks” into traffic. It is not believable, but it still works.
The rest of the movie will be filled with unbelievable things. It can be interesting to talk about which things are “too far” for us and make it impossible to surrender to it. Where our lines lie can teach us plenty about what we value in a movie. And knowing those things helps students develop their taste and sense of ownership of that taste.
Director’s Trademarks
Not all directors have easily spotted trademarks, but when they do, they are fun to note and watch for. Christopher Nolan has plenty — the first being that his titles and credits happen at the end of the film, and their absence is not really noticeable until then. I might guide the class to IMDb, where one can find these director trademarks listed along with other information. I might ask the kids if they’ve seen any of his other films, and invite them to look for similarities.
This pause is the time to look at these trademarks, because they’ve just seen a bunch of them, and Nolan is a director who can be identified through his style. Nolan likes big, powerful shots of buildings in cities, especially buildings that are mirrored.
He likes flying through the air — characters or the camera, usually both. He likes patterns — the first scene’s script is laid out like a joke (the bank robbers chat, kill, chat, kill, until, ta-da, we meet the Joker, who makes a joke.)
He likes long lines, and framing his characters in them.
He likes big, beautiful vehicles, and complicated and vivid action/violence. And he always puts his title and credits after the movie is done.
These things are easy to point out throughout the screening, not requiring a pause for each iteration — kids wind up hollering out or pointing to “Lines!” Knowing the trademarks give the students a second reason to watch intently, which activates their analytical skills.
Presenting this information here sets it up so they want to see more of the film, so they’re leaning in. If you wait until the film is done, it’ll be less impactful. And if you do all this talking before the film, they’re probably not listening — they’re waiting for you to stop talking. The information you’re giving them is quick and usable, and they’re already making connections with it, which feels good. You must respect the pause and the vibe in the room; if they start groaning “Come on,” you have to respect that. You might not like it, but it isn’t rudeness — it’s enthusiasm for the film you’re presenting. Stay positive and “in” the moment, and move on quickly. You’re just planting seeds.
When they get to the end of the film, and the title appears — as you told them it would — they’ll get this great “Ohhh! I know that!” feeling, which is among the greatest feelings in school.
Play
We get a quick update on Batman’s career. We meet his pal Commissioner Gordon; we meet the cops who don’t want to catch him; and then pretty quickly we meet our first real problem: pretend Batmen, who emulate the real one’s efforts without the accompanying skill, money, etc. If anyone can be a vigilante, why not everybody?
ALSO, if wearing a mask strikes fear into people you want to fear you, why wouldn’t the bad guys also do it? (The Watchmen show takes this much further, to great effect.)
Practical Philosophy
The whole film asks this question: if something works well, why doesn’t everybody do it? This describes so much of human history, especially regarding control and coercion, and always winds up begging the question “Should the first person to do it have done it?” Putting genies back in bottles and/or what we should do with genie-bottle-rubbers may turn out to be one of the main concerns of our time. What duty do we have to each other? What is our social contract?
The plot of The Dark Knight moves quickly, and I’ve had students who’ve been confused by it. It helps to explain what “jurisdiction” is (one can only prosecute justice within borders); it helps that the term comes up in Bonnie and Clyde (as they race across state lines) and in The Matrix (where it is pleasantly described as “juris-my-diction.”
Batman’s being able to act globally regarding justice is a great way into the questions of vigilanteism and the legal system, but don’t worry about getting all that covered — it comes up over and over.
Where you and your class decide to discuss this is your call — the only next spot with a key pause is 30 minutes in, and involves pointing out a sound.
Pause — What’s That Sound?
The Joker does his first “Do you want to know where I got these scars?” monologue with the African American mob boss who’s put a hit out on Joker. Don’t interrupt the scene — it’s fantastic and tense — but afterwards, do pause (the time is about 31:45). Rewind to 30:00, where the supposedly dead Joker pops up, and ask the class to listen for a faint, high sound during his “scars” story. It cycles in and out, and begins ascending with the repeated question “Why so serious?”
Ask them to think about what that ascending whine might do to us, unconsciously, and then let them know it will be used again and again in the film. Recommend they listen for it. (It’ll happen at 50:45 when Joker is messing with Rachel; again at 1:33:00 when Joker is messing with his guard; you’ll recognize it.)
Note: I believe the sound might be the Shepherd tone described in this article and its attached Vox explainer — it seems to ascend endlessly to me — but neither of the sources mentions its use in this context of building tension in TDK. So maybe I’m wrong. You tell me.
Play — Intertextuality
Movies telling the same stories over and over (Superman, Batman, Star Wars) wind up critiquing or interacting with each other, and this intertextuality is a big feature of modern storytelling. Ledger’s Joker is remarkable in part because he plays the character against the two-dimensional Jack Nicholson performance (so bad)), and darker and sadder than any previous interpretations. Ledger’s legendary entrance into the mob meeting — the one with the “pencil trick” — begins with a muted, quiet, and sarcastic “Ha ha hee hee ho ho”; his famous makeup is smudged and sweaty, but it lets us see the far-scarier scars underneath. His goth-eyeliner and depressed (although confident) delivery add great weight to a character we normally see as very camped out.
Invite students to engage with this: who else has played Alfred? Who else has played Q? How is this Batman different or the same as the icon? How else does The Dark Knight play with intertextuality?
Gossip and Movie Star Stuff
The extra-textual context for TDK is also a good hook: Heath Ledger, a fabulous up-and-coming serious actor died right afterwards, and much hay was made by connecting his method-acting of the Joker and the darkness of his lonely death (overdose of medications), though they were months apart. He received an Oscar for his performance, post-mortem, even though superhero movies really are not taken seriously by the Academy. All worth a chat.
Colour Palette
This film is DARK, for the most part — mostly blue and black and silver, dingy greens and purples. Ask students to point out when other colour schemes show up: the hospital scene is in daytime, and the colour scheme almost reverses itself — especially when Joker is walking in a nurse’s outfit setting off explosions. Normally this character is green and purple, but in TDK I think the Joker’s true colour might be “fire” — which stands out in the darkness perfectly.
Symmetry
Any director who adores straight lines as much as Nolan must, I suspect, also love symmetry. Nolan waits for big payoff moments to line things up like Kubrick would, as in the truck flip that is the climax to the Big Car Chase.
Power Onscreen
There are MANY analytical videos about The Dark Knight — some good, some bad. The Nerdwriter pieces (intertextuality, posted above) are reliable. And I always show this video after viewing the film — it’s a thoughtful and well-explained look at how shots, angles, and movements convey important narrative information, through a dissection of the interrogation scene.
Post 9/11 Batman
One of the remarkable things about TDK when it came out was is its reflection of America back to itself after 9/11. Citizens crave a return to normal, and only extra-judicial measures wielded by vigilantes can save Gotham. I do not know how these ideas feel to younger people, but it’s worth explaining that the current surveillance state had a starting point. Should Apple or Google blow up their spying abilities? Afterusing them? It is essentially the same question the whole movie asks: does fighting evil force you to become evil? If it does, is that a good bargain?
The end of the film is bleak, with Batman taking on a different symbolic function for the greater good (I’m not sure it makes any sense, but tonally it works), essentially martyring himself. Is that a good bargain?
And an added wrinkle is that the ferry conundrum set up by the Joker is not solved by any superhero or judicial officer, it is solved by citizens — in fact, an incarcerated citizen. This is another great discussion starters: who are actual heroes? And when do we get the opportunities to show heroism?
The final image of the film — Batman riding into the night on his big-wheel motorcycle — is brilliant. He escapes into the night, a shadowy cloak, driving away. A light flickers through his cape, as Gordon names what Batman is (the movie’s title), and the screen goes black.
And then the title is revealed, and in the darkened classroom a few of the kids are going “Ohhh! I know that!” because they remember what you said earlier and are having the great feeling.
Have fun with this. The rest of the course will be the only known antidote for the superhero phenomenon: watching a bunch of movies about the human experience.
Thanks for reading. If you like this, please share it.
jep
