A reflection on Christopher Nolan and The Dark Knight Rises

To follow on from my review of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises I intended to re-watch all of his films and write a mini-review on each of them in turn, but as I was making notes it dawned on me how similar a lot of the reviews would be because when you strip away the outer layers of any one of them, they all share a very similar theme: identity. They’re films about the psychology of its central characters, and what is the psychology behind each of us if not our own, personal identity?

Here’s the thing: prior to the concluding chapter in his Batman trilogy, Christopher Nolan had not made a bad film, and while The Dark Knight Rises can’t be passed off as simply ‘bad’, it was a disappointment, and I can’t stop racking my brains as to why. I’m a Batman fan at heart; he is the reason I read comics and the reason I’ve tried writing comics, but I’ve tried to look at Rises as objectively as possible because aside from being a Batman fan, I’ve become a Christopher Nolan fan. Rises, to me, doesn’t work on either level, and though I can understand why it fails as a Batman film, I’ve been trying to work out why it fails as a Christopher Nolan film.

To find the answer let’s look back at what attracted Nolan to the idea of making a Batman film in the first place. Prior to Batman Begins in 2005, Nolan was known for two notable films: Memento and Insomnia. It’s not without good reason that many consider Memento to be the better film: it’s certainly the more striking, the more memorable of the two, but that is not to say that Insomnia is without it’s merits. Indeed, both share that very same theme that is common across all Nolan films: an arguably simple premise that delves into the psychology of its protagonist. On the surface Insomnia has the same premise as any episode of CSI, a cop on the trail of a killer, but where it becomes something more original is that the cop has gone several days without sleep, causing him to second guess his every move and not only lose his grip on the case but on reality itself. If you look at this it’s clear to see why Nolan would be attracted to a project like Batman; like Memento and Insomnia it’s a character driven piece with psychological overtones, and like Memento and Insomnia it would be an adaptation of previously released work. Memento is an adaptation of a short story from Nolan’s brother, Jonathan; Insomnia is an American remake of a Swedish film and Batman takes it’s inspirations from the comics, most notably Frank Miller’s Year One and Jeph Loeb’s The Long Halloween.

The psychology behind Bruce Wayne becomes the backbone of Batman Begins, and though it’s the driving force of the character it’s a topic that was only ever touched upon in any detail before in Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever, ten years prior. This gave Nolan and co-writer David Goyer the chance to create something fresh and original in their interpretation of Batman; a very realistic, grown-up approach that was unheard of in any comic book film to date. Batman’s now a believable figure with believable ideals, but as psychologically interesting as Bruce Wayne’s mind is the film suffers when it tries to convey this to the audience. Cheap, somewhat laughable dialogue (‘Bats frighten me, it’s time my enemies shared my dread’) does nothing but remind us that all we’re watching is another fun, comic book blockbuster and we can leave our brains at the door.

It’s interesting to note that in the two projects he did in-between Batman films - The Prestige and Inception - Nolan fully embraced heavier angles of science-fiction and fantasy. His Batman films, however, remained routed in reality, with The Dark Knight dropping the comic book feel altogether in favor of a more stylized crime drama, Nolan citing Heat as a major influence. The result is a much more personal film that Begins; like Nolan’s best it’s a character piece at heart that never tries to be anything else. It’s a rare breed of blockbuster sequel that never goes bigger than it needs to, and never loses its way either. It stays remarkably true to the characters in the comics whilst at the same time delivers something fresh and original, with its real world sensibilities only ever aiding in it’s personal nature and never feeling like a hindrance. In short, it’s everything The Dark Knight Rises isn’t.

Before moving onto Rises, however, it’s worth talking about Inception. It was, if you’ll excuse the pun, Nolan’s dream project: the one he had an idea about for years but waited on until the technology was right.

Like Memento and The Prestige, Inception is a film that really requires its audience to think, but unlike the others the answers to all your questions aren’t right there in front of you just waiting to be uncovered. Ambiguity is the key to Inception, and what the audience takes out of it depends largely on what they wanted the film to be in the first place: it’s part psychological study of dreams and part action spectacle full of rotating corridors, morphed perspectives and mountain top espionage. Is the top still spinning at the end? Was it a dream or was it reality? Perhaps the more important question is does it matter? Psychology study or mindless action, on another level Inception is simply another character piece, and though the top might still be spinning at the end what’s important is Cobb has walked away from it. It topples or it doesn’t; either way his story is complete.

So what is the problem with The Dark Knight Rises? At first glance it’s all there: it’s a blockbuster, it’s character driven and like the best trilogy conclusions it references it’s past in order to move forward. It’s because of this, however, that Rises doesn’t quite work: its characters are underdeveloped and it’s hard to buy as a blockbuster due to its overtly realistic nature. With a plot that draws all of its suspense from a nuclear weapon guaranteed to explode, suddenly every action taken that doesn’t immediately add towards the finding of the weapon feels like a waste of time. It’s a film that suffers from what made the franchise so strong and engaging in the first place.

And a character driven story though it may be, Rises simply has too many characters than it knows what to do with. Here Alfred is given a couple of key scenes before being written out of the film entirely whilst Commissioner Gordon spends much of the first act in a hospital bed. As the film progresses we learn more about main antagonist Bane but precious little about newcomers Miranda Tate and John Blake, until the film comes to a head and major revelations are learnt about both characters that damages the more central ones. Bane is rendered obsolete when Tate is revealed to be Talia al Ghul and takes his story as her own whilst John Blake is, in fact, Nolan’s interpretation of Robin. This is very much a Robin without a Batman, however, since The Dark Knight Rises is more a case of Bruce Wayne Rises, and that’s something he does twice in the same film. Counter in the arc he went through in Batman Begins and you realize we’ve spent two thirds of this trilogy watching Bruce learn how to be Batman several times over. It’s distressing to see such little care taken over the development of key characters, especially in a Christopher Nolan film.

In many ways Nolan emulates Inception more than Begins or Dark Knight here, and Rises goes bigger for the sake of going bigger. It’s a blockbuster in the truest sense of the word, but substitute Batman for Jason Statham or Steven Seagal and the film remains largely the same. It builds on everything that comes before but carries so much that it starts to crumble under the pressure, and in a universe as rich in detail as this it’s surprising they couldn’t come up with anything better.