The Dark Knight

In early 2008, The Dark Knight was well anticipated for its summer release when it encountered unexpected tragedy.  On January 22, 2008, Heath Ledger died of an accidental overdose of a sleeping medication.  Days before his death, I remember seeing teaser posters going up in the local theater, with Ledger’s Joker hazed and writing Why So Serious? in blood in the foreground.  The weekend after Ledger’s death, those posters were gone.  The premature end to a great, young actor was too serious for the film community to keep such an ironic image in the public eye.  To further the sad irony, The Dark Knight deals with elements of chaos and tragedy that Ledger’s Joker unleashes across Gotham.

In The Dark Knight, Batman has become a well known vigilante, but not everyone agrees that what he is doing is good.  While some criminals are running scared, others are larger than ever, seeming to act out of defiance.  This leads some to believe that the Batman should be arrested.  But with the arrival of a new kind of criminal, who doesn’t have any motive other than just to throw Gotham into pure chaos, Batman is necessary.  Meanwhile, Bruce’s love interest, Rachel (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is now dating Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), Gotham’s District Attorney.  It’s only a matter of time before they become The Joker’s targets.

It takes an amazing amount of discipline to portray chaos in a manner that doesn’t leave the audience confused.  In the film, Nolan has scene after scene of Gotham being thrown into The Joker’s insane plots to deal with and control.  There’s an attempted assassination during a memorial service.  Two ferries, one full of civilians, another full of prisoners, with the ability and choice to blow the other ferry up, or they will both be destroyed at midnight.  Most nerve wracking, in my opinion, is the threat that The Joker will blow up a hospital (we can only guess which one) if a certain man is not dead in an hour.  This puts all of Gotham in a frenzy to evacuate all the hospitals and protect a man that many citizens are trying to kill.  With The Joker hatching new schemes and Batman, Gordon (Gary Oldman) and the rest of Gotham scrambling to keep up, there is never a dull moment in this film.

The Dark Knight was nominated for an astounding eight Academy Awards, mostly for technical aspects, but only won two Oscars.  Heath Ledger posthumously won the award for best supporting actor with his daring and twisted portrayal of The Joker, and rightly so.  Every scene he is in, he controls it and mesmerized the audience.  His demeanor is so unsettling and raw that we are drawn in out of curiosity and cannot look away out of fear.  Some of his moments are hilarious in his own menacing way.  I love him visiting Harvey in a nurse’s uniform, complete with a red wig.  Others are horrific and surprising.  The magic pencil trick is a moment that shocks us and before we can even process what just happened, the scene is moving on with no remorse.  The Joker is a role that could mess with anyone’s head, and Ledger pushed boundaries with his character to points where his audience was in awe, disbelief and admiration.  He is an actor that is dearly missed.

Out of the trilogy, I hold The Dark Knight far above the other two films, and believe it is one of the biggest Oscar snubs in the past decade.  In fact, I suspect the Academy began picking ten Best Picture nominees after 2008 because of the great error in not nominating this film.  The story moves fast and keeps the viewer on the edge of their seats.  The sounds and visuals are amazing and immersive. And Nolan’s direction is only surpassed by Ledger’s acting.  Though other films based on comic books have been good, none were great until The Dark Knight.

“You have nothing, nothing to threaten me with.  Nothing to do with all your strength.”

Brokeback Mountain

Around February 2006 my parents and I were just idly talking about movies and Brokeback Mountain casually entered the conversation, to which they immediately advised me, “You shouldn’t see that movie.”  I had seen it just the week before, I told them.  There was a moment where they looked at me like I had just come home from either a war zone or a whore house, as if with one film all my innocence had shattered and a piece of my soul chipped away.  I don’t think my parents are homophobic, but they sure got the wrong idea about Brokeback Mountain.

The story centers on Enus Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gylenhaal), two young men who work as sheepherders on Brokeback Mountain for a summer.  To sum them up in one word, they’re cowboys.  Enus is very quiet and more reserved than wannabe rodeo star, Jack, but Jack is better at and has a real need for communication.  Their work is hard and lonesome, so once the two finally break enough ice to talk, the summer passes too quickly.

Alright, everyone wants to know about the dreaded tent scene.  The best way I can describe it is that the scene depicts sex as a natural urge.  Prior to the scene, there are no advances or flirtations between the two and whatever attraction there is, they don’t even realize it or just write it off as friendship.  The event happens in the middle of the night, both men about half asleep and completely consensual.  They realize what happened in the morning and are immediately uncomfortable, “You know I ain’t queer.”

When the summer ends, Enus gets married and Jack plays the rodeo game a while before settling down.  Jack marries Lureen(Anne Hathaway) who’s family is rich while Enus and Alma (Michelle Williams) are struggling and live above a laundromat.  It’s years before Enus receives Jack’s first postcard proposing a fishing trip to Brokeback.  Enus drops everything, including a few jobs, to go on trips with Jack.

The first time Alma sees Jack, Enus is kissing him.  He’s obviously more excited and passionate about seeing Jack than he ever could be with Alma.  What does a Wyoming girl in the late sixties think when she sees her husband kissing another man?  Is it jealousy, fear, disgust?  Or is it worse?

At Brokeback, Jack proposes his great idea; he wants to run a ranch with Enus.  Work together.  Live together.  And they could be real successful doing so, no problem.  But Enus realizes the social implications that would have.  People would see them differently and talk about them.  He remembers what happened to two ranchers living together when he was just a boy.  They were murdered and mutilated as the killers saw fit.  Enus’s father made sure his boys saw the full extent of what can happen.

So the extent of their relationship stays a secret, but rules their lives.  It’s heartbreaking to watch.

Brokeback isn’t an easy ride, but it sure is beautiful.  Director Ang Lee has a wonderful gift bringing the natural scenery to its grandeur on the screen.  The mountains, the clear lakes, the sprawling plains are just breathtaking.  For someone who’s never been west of the Mississippi, it’s mind blowing to imagine such beauty and such silent repression in the same place.

The immature and the homophobes will still make their jokes, no doubt about that, but I imagine Brokeback Mountain to become a classic and upheld for its modest, quiet push for America’s current gay rights movement.  The film’s tagline sums it all up, “Love Is A Force of Nature.”