Of Nolan, logic and the Joker

OK, after about an hour of having delusions of grandeur about my inaugural post, I am back, with my back on mother earth. Following my thoughts and typing them out as organically as possible is the best way to get started, much better than attempting to compose something fittingly grandiose for a milestone (another delusion) that starting a private blog is.

Christopher Nolan is my GOD! No other way to put it: I hope the bluntness of this statement indicates my all-consuming respect for him. I discovered him wrong end first, so to say. The first movie I saw of his was 'The Dark Knight'. Now, I had seen it in a cinema hall. Blame it on my difficulty in understanding the accents completely or the hyper-complex plot, I didn't grasp the full import of the film. Like most others, I was overawed by Heath Ledger's Joker, the action scenes and the gadgets. But something told me there was more, inconceivably more in the movie to go barking mad about.

The reason for this afterthought, actually came much later, when I saw another movie of his called 'The Prestige'. Much like his trademark narrative style, my process of discovering my GOD too was non-linear. I saw 'The Prestige' just before my semester exams. The month that followed seemed achingly slow and at long last the vacations arrived and I could finally lay my hands on the DVD of 'The Dark Knight'. 'The Prestige' deserves a post by itself; on watching it I realised that no ordinary mortal could have made it. And, by corollary, nothing made by him could be remotely ordinary.

It was with this in mind that I sat down to watch 'The Dark Knight' with the luxury of subtitles. It took me three complete viewings to completely appreciate what I had seen. It is not just a movie, it is the truth. The truth about what human beings are and what they are capable of becoming under extreme situations. It plays maddeningly upon the eternal paradox, the fight between good and evil, and like most paradoxes, only attains a solution by smashing its own rigid logic to smithereens. It thus reaffirms the fact that human beings are multi dimensional, multi layered creatures and any attempt to straitjacket them into two-dimensional, mathematical logic (read: morality and propriety) only results in anarchy. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction, for fiction is, for the most part, aided by logic. Logic can only give you so much control, it can only make you "as good as the world allows you to be", paraphrasing the Joker. And when that control is lost, anarchy reigns.

The Joker is as anarchic as they come. In fact, he is so extreme, he is hardly human. He is elemental, like an"unstoppable force" of nature. He has no explicable beginning and, for all practical purposes, no end. The reasons for his scars differ with every retelling. He has no form of identification. Needless to say he is without remorse and above fear. He doesn't feel pain. So much so, he doesn't even wince or grimace or scream or bleed when he is thrashed around like a rag doll by Batman. He doesn't fight back physically then. Not with Batman. Rather, he tries to forge a kinship with him, something that rattles Batman completely, because he knows it in his bones, it's true. It is, as if Batman is looking at his own reflection in a mirror damaged beyond repair. He cannot believe it, but is forced to acknowledge that it is true, because when he looks into the mirror, he is alone. Him and his hideous reflection. For, Batman's place in society is the same as that of the Joker, that of an outlaw, as the Joker points out.

The Joker shows no emotion either apart from an all-consuming desire for anarchy. It is to the credit of the writers, Christopher & Jonathan Nolan and David Goyer, and also the late Heath Ledger that they made such an emotionless character appear so arresting on screen. He is a kind of a perverse Howard Roark, Ayn Rand's hero of objective idealism. In the scene where he, quite literally, burns a mountain of cash without a second thought, we realise his true nature. In a sense, that elevates him above a mere character, above human beings, above all the trappings of mankind. You begin to wonder: is he a character or a representation of all that is primal and absolute and un-human? You rub your eyes in disbelief at the things he does. You wonder where the hell he comes from. And you get the most chilling answer possible, in the form of this piece of dialogue: you see, this is how crazy Batman has made Gotham city, says the Joker pointing a camera to his own scarred, pasty face. And it is thus that the writers introduce the theme of escalation, another one of life's truths.

Escalation is best demonstrated by the arms' race between rival nations, a one-upmanship between two entities attempting, inexorably, to outdo each other, all the while intensifying the competition further, raising it to a higher notch. It's like the Red Queen Effect: you have to run to stay at the same place. The Joker is an answer to Batman, to everything Batman stands for. Batman is self-appointed,wears a hood, fights criminals savagely with a disregard for the law. BUT he doesn't kill. The Joker, likewise, wears make-up, is invited by nobody, feral, anarchic and goes a step further: he has a disregard for simply anything, including human life.
To say anything about Heath Ledger as the Joker now is redundant, but such is the effect of his performance, it does evoke a response, without exception. If I hadn't known that it was Heath Ledger who was playing him, I would have thought he played himself. When I see the Joker, I don't see Heath Ledger, I see just the Joker.

Perhaps, the most striking quality of Christopher Nolan is his astuteness. His exactness. He knows exactly how audiences react to something they see on screen. He knows exactly what goes on in the mind of the audience as it watches a movie. He knows exactly when and, in what measure, the audience would laugh, cry, be bored, be scared, fall asleep, be thrilled, be shocked, overwhelmed, be confused or just plain dismissive. In short, no one knows the mind of his audience better than Christopher Nolan. It is this assured knowledge that allows him to tell complex stories in his masterful non-linear narrative, fully confident of the audience's intelligence. Such is his mastery over his craft and the medium, that a first-timer watching one of his movies will grasp each and every detail, only when Nolan wants it, not a second sooner or later. And that, I believe, is a rarity.

'The Dark Knight' carries all of his hallmarks: a complex plot narrated succinctly, surgical editing, perfect superimposition of voice-overs with visuals, exploration of the grey area between good and evil, characters weighed down by guilt, yet guided by an unfailing sense of duty. In addition, it has all the trappings of a superhero blockbuster: hi-tech gadgets, intense action, ferocious car & bike chases, huge explosions, all backed by a thunderously grand, operatic, ominous score by Hans Zimmer. What is more amazing is to know that very little of it is CGI; most of the stunts are actually performed and most of the action is real. Wally Pfister's camera work, eschewing any flashy movement, is perfect, objectively capturing Gotham in all its shadows and the Joker in his rabid glee. Nolan steers clear of any sensational material like gore or foul language or substance abuse. For practical purposes, the MPAA rating of PG-13 seemed appropriate. But what we see is a grim, deeply unsettling, urgent film that travels into the blackness of the human spirit. All the more so because of its topicality and immediacy.

And if the trailers of his latest, 'Inception' are anything to go by, then God has delivered, yet again.