Is The Dark Night the best movie of all time?

Rating: 10/10 (24 July 2008)

Is The Dark Night the best movie of all time? On IMDb.com, a popular movie database with over 300,000 members ranging from occasional moviegoers to film producers and financiers, The Dark Night has vaulted over The Godfather and The Shawshank Redemption as the #1 movie of all time. The rankings, an accumulation of user votes that are generally more favourable to the great modern movies than those of the Silver Screen era, have, in the past, been prone to such invasions  The Return of the King debuted at #3 before settling into its current position at #14  but in the 10 years that I have used to the site to build up my vast wealth of movie trivia knowledge, I have never seen a film as universally well received as The Dark Knight. Consider the demographic breakdown of the votes: As expected, males under 30 love the movie, with the under-18 male crowd giving the movie an average ranking of 9.7 out of 10. A more unexpected result is 8.0 out of 10 average score among females over 45, an astounding number for a Batman movie.
So is The Dark Knight potentially the greatest film ever made and can a question like that be asked and answered less than a week after the film made its debut? Most of us have a favourite movie. The question is, when does a person realize that their favourite movie is their favourite movie? For me, I knew right away. I watched Lawrence of Arabia for the first time, after ordering the video during the infamous days of Columbia House, and instantly fell in love. I have never seen, then or since, a movie of such visual depth, and the main characters in the film were aged, experienced politicians and monarchs, wise to the world and aware of the complexities of life. When they spoke, they revealed an understanding that few men achieve, none more so than Prince Feisal, who tells us that, "Young men make wars, and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage, and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution.". The story of the World War I Arab revolt in the dessert is of important historical significance, and even if the film is a largely fictional representation, Lawrence of Arabia is a vital piece of art.
I digress, back to The Batman. Reading through various blogs, I find the Internet buzzing. Film critics have almost universally proclaimed the movie to be a highly entertaining piece of Crime Fiction, but they hold their cards close to their chests. No self-respecting critic, after years of studying 1000s of films, will anoint last weekend's Hollywood blockbuster as the new King of Cinema. Even The Godfather, easily the favourite film of the Baby Boomer generation, hasn't achieved that status and is still climbing to the top 36 years after its release. The Godfather is a masterpiece for many of the same reasons I listed for Lawrence of Arabia, and its dark cinematography and reflective dialogue give us a riveting glimpse into a world gone mad. Is the Dark Knight the same kind of seminal work? Stripping away most of the silliness of comic book style movies, keeping only the unfathomably useful gadgets of the Batman, and the circus style flashiness of the villains, The Joker and Two Face, The Dark Night explores the tension of a city under siege from the point of view of the main protagonists. Much like The Godfather and Lawrence of Arabia, the Dickensian aspect of the story is largely ignored. Innocent bystanders aren't of interest here (the one exception being a remarkably tense sequence on two passenger ferries trying to leave the city), they are just the money on the table in a life or death poker game between Heath Ledger's manic Joker and Christian Bale's reluctant Batman. The movie is a visual spectacle, but the distinct feature of this 'comic book' movie is its willingness to throw out good and evil as character descriptions, making the film a study in criminal behavior and the moral decisions crime fighters must make for the good of the society as a whole. Harvey Dent, destined to become Two Face, and Bruce Wayne, The Batman, must ask themselves what they are willing to do to stop The Joker, whose terrorist plots threaten to destroy what little innocence the 'good' citizens of Gotham cling to, resulting in Dent and Wayne making questionable moves that don't always gain the support of those around them, as when Batman decides to monitor the cell phone activity of the entire city, The Batman's own interpretation of The Patriot Act.
I wondered earlier what makes a person decide on their favourite movie. I suspect a lot of people will now say The Dark Knight, but I think its impact will remain shrouded for at least a decade, when George Bush is long removed from the White House and the days of terrorist hysteria have hopefully subsided in our society. Only then will The Dark Knight's allegorical undertones have a full impact on viewers. For now, I think this film is a masterpiece of noir cinema, potentially a brilliant metaphor for our times.