31st
The Dark Knight succeeds moreso on the ‘balance’ between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ than upon the previous Batman premise of ‘good beating evil’. This is in spite of its general bias to the one side on a moral ground, as it also realises within its own art that the power shift which the benevolant protagonist constantly strives for would upset its own entertainment value. Therefore the Joker has the potential to become as much of an antihero as Batman has the potential to become a hero.
In between is Two-Face/Harvey Dent, whose two sides demonstrate binary ‘good’ and ‘evil’ division, with the intention to show that not so much lies between. More than anything, The Dark Knight encourages the idea that the ‘law’ (corrupt, elitist, misinformed) and Heath Ledger and co’s ‘anarchy’ (irrational, narcissistic, unpredictable) exist within a schizophrenic state where both work towards the same goals in provoking and dealing with the mob bosses who really control general everyday crime. Batman, and originally, Harvey Dent, exist outside this division, trying to work away from and move against Gotham’s downward spiral; yet The Dark Knight also questions what it is to work against the norm and what it is to be a revolutionary. It drives Dent mad when he becomes emotionally crippled by the Joker’s antics, after Batman saw Dent’s previous example of righteousness as a reason to hang up the mask. Batman himself questions his motivations and realises that it lies within the disenfranchisement between ‘the people’ and ‘crime [and the powers therewith - the police, mob bosses, the media]’ and that in order to repair this division, he will be ‘exactly what the people want me to be’.
Yet the fact still exists that within the creation of the film, this task (existing as a sole warrior for good) is always a futile one as, in order to create entertainment, irrational (and ingeniously acted) villainy is as much a seller as an emotionally complex protagonist. The fact that The Dark Knight has both held within an intricate balance (and battle) makes it such a brilliant ‘blockbuster’ film.
