A Brilliant New American Gothic

Rating: 10/10 (20 July 2008)

"The Dark Knight" is a quintessential American masterpiece. It is the new American Gothic. For those that are unfamiliar with this name, "American Gothic" is the famous 1930s painting by Grant Wood symbolizing America at the time with a bald farmer holding a pitch fork with a stern wife in front of an American Gothic farm house. Mr. Nolan's "The Dark Knight" is just as impressive a symbolic work, because it holds a mirror up to the darkness and hatred in people and the world, which is more complex than some real life leaders would like to pretend.
In one sense, comic books have always echoed parts of American culture and gave voice to issues that plague society under the guise of fictional characters in replicas of American cities fighting evil. Mr. Nolan's "The Dark Knight" takes the comic book guise and transforms it into a tragic and dramatic shroud. Through Mr. Nolan's lens, the characters in "The Dark Knight" are placed into impossible ethical dilemmas by a psychopath who delights in creating anarchy, and is literally sadistic and masochistic.
Method and madness have rarely been personified on film better than Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker. When the Joker burns a pyramid of money (his cut of mob funds), Mr. Nolan is demonstrating that the Joker cares not for possessions or riches as a means of self-appraising his success in life. The Joker measures the success of his life by the extent that he can twist the world on its head -- how often he can make good people do bad things, or his masterpiece, taking a heroic crusader for justice, and twist him into a nightmarish murderous psychopath.
Mr. Nolan's screenplay could not have been in better hands than Sir Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Christian Bale and Heath Ledger, who launch into their sculpted lines and characters with such grace and measured ferocity that there is no doubt that these men are 5 of the greatest actors of their age. Of course, one of whom, Mr. Ledger, I would have been delighted to know him better through a lifetime in film, but must suffice with the indelible memories of Ennis Del Mar and the Joker.
Tragic, complex, fearless and mesmerizing are the only words I could utter after seeing Mr. Nolan's masterpiece. Mr. Nolan's film comments on the human condition as good as, or better, than any film that has ever won the "Best Picture" Oscar from the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences. The Dark Knight's story is timeless and elegant with breathtaking visuals, and paced perfectly in dialogue and destruction.
Bravo!