The Dark Knight and Me: an Essay
If you haven’t seen The Dark Knight, there are two things I want you to know: first, that it is an absolute masterpiece, and second, that it resonates very deeply with me. Much of what I write will deal with why I identify so much with the movie, but let me take a moment to summarize the film. Bruce Wayne, played by Christian Bale, is one of the wealthiest men in the world. His parents, who built Wayne Enterprises, were intensely idealistic and spent their lives trying to improve Gotham City. Unfortunately, they were murdered in front of Bruce when he was very young, and in the first film in the Batman trilogy (directed by Christopher Nolan), we see the young Bruce go on a spiritual journey. That movie, titled Batman Begins, showed Bruce’s transformation from an angry and dejected young man, to his decision to become the Batman in order to continue his parent’s fight for justice.
In The Dark Knight, Batman’s attempts to do good are constantly foiled by The Joker, a sociopathic murderer played by Heath Ledger just before he died of a drug overdose; it is a haunting, brilliant, spine-tingling performance, perhaps the best I have ever seen in a movie. The Joker puts the Batman into situation after situation where the line between Good and Evil is blurry; for instance, Ledger’s character informs Gotham that if Batman does not remove his mask and reveal himself to the world, five people will die. The Batman does not want to reveal himself for reasons I will explore below, but he finally realizes, after people begin dying, that he cannot abide the suffering he is causing.