WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE’S (Like who the hell else’s would it have been?! Arthur Brooke’s? Felice Romani’s?) ROMEO + (!!!) JULIET, Being the Second in an Ongoing Series About Movies That Piss me Off

In the end, it all comes down to the astronaut.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Among friends, especially those from college, I am known for pointedly despising the films of Baz Luhrmann.  To be honest, after seeing this movie, I choked down Moulin Rouge! and have been boycotting Mr. Luhrmann’s work ever since.  But to be fair to me, he’s only made two films since Moulin Rouge! (and only one before this one, which I also haven’t seen) so it’s not like I’ve been avoiding very much.  Anyway, hating on Luhrmann’s work was, for a long time, almost a part of my identity…which is kind of sad to admit but one goes with what one has.  Throughout college, I engaged in some humorous (at least from my perspective) debates about the merit of Luhrmann’s films.  While I was not alone, I was usually in the minority, which is fine.  Most of those who disagreed with me are good, smart people and I might well be crazy.  In fact, I don’t really hate Mr. Luhrmann anymore.  His movies, in my view, are still dreck and I’m going to try to explain my thoughts on that, but I think I understand him a bit better now.  Well, at the very least I understand this film a bit better.  Before talking more about Mr. Luhrmann, however, let’s talk some about the unavoidable (and it is unavoidable): the source material.

Obviously, this film is based on Romeo and Juliet, an early tragedy by Shakespeare.  The play has been, for centuries, one of Shakespeare’s most popular works, in terms of staging, reading, adaptation, and school assignment.  It is also one of the world’s most iconic love stories.

This is the part where I’m supposed to trash it, right?  Like many classic literary works that get done to death, Romeo and Juliet sees a lot of hatred.  The loathing comes in various forms.  There are the students who hate it for being something forced down their throats.  More specifically, there are male students who see it as “chick stuff,” or something like that.  Then there are more mature folks who delight in picking apart the idea that we’re supposed to celebrate a couple of teen-aged idiots who end up causing a lot of havoc.

I’m fairly sympathetic to much of this, although not to the (hopefully skin-deep and short-lived) sexism behind some male students’ dislike of the play.  To the students who just don’t like this weird old play pushed at them, I would say that I don’t think it’s an ideal work to first encounter Shakespeare (more on that later) and I mostly agree that holding up Shakespeare as a god is pretty silly.

Actually, the problems many have with Romeo and Juliet are similar to many of the problems with Shakespeare’s reputation generally.  “Bardolatry,” the raising of Shakespeare to the level of a cultural deity to be genuflected and deferred to, is a tiresome and reductive concept.  There’s a lot of bullshit in it and a person, especially a younger person, who starts smelling that is well within their rights to recoil.  And, unfortunately, that frequently involves recoiling from Shakespeare’s works themselves, rather than from the simplistic adoration of them.  Keep in mind, I say all this as a devout Shakespearean, but as one who finds many conventional celebrations of Shakespeare almost dangerously counterproductive.

Because William Shakespeare was a great writer, one of the greatest, and one who has much of immense value to say to the world.  Approaching his work with genuine understanding of its context, scope, limitations and flaws actually makes him a far more appealing and even lovable figure than the stern, bloodless Greatest Writer of All Time so many of us are familiar with from high school lectures.  Realizing this should mean introducing him to students in fresher ways.  Romeo and Juliet was the first play of Shakespeare’s I studied in school and it was not a good start for me.  Had we read Othello or maybe even King Lear first, I (and I think many others) would have become a fan much more quickly.  Those plays are traditionally seen as too difficult for teenagers but it’s time to remember that most conventional wisdom about Shakespeare is lousy through and through.

Back on the specific disdain for Romeo and Juliet, to the more experienced people who roll their eyes at this play about two dumb kids, first off I would say that, while I totally understand this sentiment, it’s important to step back and view the play with a kind of reset perspective.  This is a work so encrusted with familiarity that, quite often, we barely know it at all.  Mr. Luhrmann is a fine example of someone like this; he made a whole film version of this play, a play he seems largely unaware of.

Before I elaborate on that, it’s time to come clean, dear readers: I am not going to trash Romeo and Juliet.  Romeo and Juliet is a great play, moving and thought-provoking, with wonderful characters and powerful language.  It is, in my opinion, fully deserving of its “classic” status.  To be sure, it is not one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays.  It is an early work, only his second in the tragic form.  As such, it lacks the probing philosophical, political and emotional insights of later plays.  It is also at times structurally wobbly and, although this was something Shakespeare would never entirely shake, he got much better at it.  But none of this makes the play anywhere near mediocre.  Within its somewhat modest confines, it’s a masterpiece and a great illustration of an author, still maturing, but well on his way to the heights.

So why do we often remember it with a sneer?  Of course personal taste is not something that can really be argued, but I firmly believe that a good number of people (and I was once among them) are sneering not at the play but at what they think they remember.  The attitude towards Romeo and Juliet is a microcosm of the attitude towards its author.  Just as one needs to strip away a lot of weeds to actually get near William Shakespeare, one has to do the same to see the real Romeo and Juliet.

And that’s where Paris comes in.  Readers may remember Count Paris as the young nobleman (and relative of Verona’s Prince Escalus) Juliet is supposed to be married to.  He’s a minor supporting character until after Juliet’s faked death when he goes to her tomb in mourning.  Encountering Romeo, and knowing nothing of the secret love between the two, Paris fights him and is mortally wounded.  With his dying breath, he begs Romeo to place him in the tomb with Juliet.

This should be a moment to shine for whoever plays Paris.  Unfortunately, the young count rivals Hamlet‘s Prince Fortinbras among characters in the Shakespearean canon for frequency of removal from (or at least downgrading in) performances.  The two most well-known movie versions, Luhrmann’s and Franco Zeffirelli’s from 1968, drop his death scene.  I’ve seen the play performed live twice.  The first time was a surprisingly traditional production, with the cast in period costumes and a largely untouched text.  Even passages eminently worthy of removal, such as the chorus at the start of Act II, were retained.  Paris’s death scene however, was cut.

***SIDE NOTE:  A humorous byproduct of Paris’s death scene being removed can often be found in productions.  In the finale, Prince Escalus speaks of having lost “a brace of kinsmen.”  Brace means pair, his other slain relative being Romeo’s friend Mercutio.  The word “brace” and the use of the plural “kinsmen” make no sense if Paris has not died, but both Zeffirelli and Luhrmann’s films retain the words.  I can’t quite recall if that stage production I saw without Paris’s death scene kept the now inexplicable “brace” and “kinsmen” but I’m pretty sure it did.  Now I’m a fairly lazy person a lot of the time, but the laziness required to avoid maybe three minutes of research, the dropping of one word, and the changing of “kinsmen” to “kinsman” really boggles the mind.***

In fact, those readers wishing to see the scene acted have only limited and problematic options.  Barring access to a stage production that includes it, there are two and a half choices.  The 1936 film version directed by (the usually brilliant) George Cukor, is a blah snooze fest.  It includes Paris’s death but omits his wish to be buried with Juliet.  Renato Castellani’s 1954 film retains the whole scene.  Unfortunately that movie, while not without its moments, can’t decide if it wants to be a version of Shakespeare’s tragedy or an historical travelogue of Renaissance Italy.  The former has some points of interest, but the latter is merely pretty.  For those willing to tolerate a less cinematic approach, the 1978 BBC television version directed by Alvin Rakoff is probably the best option to see Paris’s full death scene.  The production is very well-acted but somewhat stodgily produced.

Why is Paris, or more specifically his death, in the company of snipped out Shakespearean characters, like Fortinbras?  Speaking of Fortinbras, I should say that I’m not generally in favor of the good Norwegian prince’s removal, but there are far better reasons for it than the removal of Paris’s death scene.  So why is the scene cut so often?  I think I found some of the answers at the second production I attended, which retained the scene.  Audience reaction was hushed, and the person I was with said to me later, “That doesn’t make Romeo look very good, does it?”  And no, it doesn’t!  Shakespeare’s play is a tragedy after all, which means we’re supposed to be troubled by what we’ve seen.

Some might argue that the young lovers dying would fulfill those requirements, and their death is certainly the central part of the tragedy, but not the whole thing.  Simply being sad over the fate of Romeo and Juliet is, while far from insignificant, quite a ways from experiencing the tragedy that is Romeo and Juliet.  This is why Paris’s death scene is actually a fairly crucial part of the play, at least it’s crucial to Shakespeare’s play.  The Wikipedia entry on Romeo and Juliet casually, and no doubt correctly, suggests the scene is often omitted so as to focus attention on the two protagonists.  I have heard and read similar statements about alterations to other plays of Shakespeare’s.  Usually it’s just an aside, but sometimes the tone can get surprisingly hostile.  “That’s not what our version is about,” or words to that effect, is a sentiment I’ve heard a few times.  I’m then sometimes accused of being a hidebound traditionalist (true enough) who just opposes any changes.  Actually, I think a lot of cuts and changes are highly desirable when producing a play by Shakespeare.  But certain questions need to be asked: will this cut clarify something in the play, enlarge the play, or diminish its scope and reduce its power?  What impact will my change have on the audience’s reaction to this work?  Do I want to depart from Shakespeare’s goals?  Regarding Paris’s death, focusing attention on the protagonists, thus turning Romeo and Juliet into only a tear-jerking love story, may be understandable, but it is decidedly not Shakespearean.  There are numerous interpretations possible of Shakespeare’s play, but a mere weepy romance is not among them.

Some may now accuse me of proclaiming that We Must Do What The Great Man Intended.  I proclaim no such thing, but I do maintain that what he did in the play is far more interesting than much of what the “improving” adapters have offered.  Paris’s death scene is a prime example of this.  The scene forces us to rethink our reaction to a character we have probably felt hostility towards.  It also makes us wonder a little about Romeo.  But then Romeo expresses shocked remorse and grants Paris’s wish to be placed in the tomb.  We remember that Romeo is also a very young man, caught up in a dreadful situation he ends up with little control over.

Thus the scene connects to an even deeper theme in the play: the horrible pain we have witnessed could have been so easily avoided.  Here I speak again to my fellow clever folks who see the play as kids causing trouble.  Keep in mind why two teenagers falling in love leads to so much death and destruction.  I’ve long thought this line from Prince Escalus, addressing the feuding families near the end, is one of the play’s most powerful passages: “See what a scourge is laid upon your hate,/That Heaven finds means to kill your joys with love…”  It’s crucial to remember that an idiotic squabble between headstrong families is primarily responsible for the tragedy that unfolds.  The price of these mature adults’ bad attitudes is five kids’ lives, the quarreling adults’ own children among them.  Paris’s death fits in perfectly with this rather bleak story, and underlines its message.  In it we don’t only see Paris stumble into a disaster he has no way of knowing about; we watch the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet become his tragedy too, as his young life is sacrificed to nothing more noble than the stupidity of his elders.

None of this is much fun.  In fact, it’s upsetting, but again, Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, and tragedies are upsetting.  Shakespeare didn’t have to go down that path.  His immediate source for the play, Arthur Brooke’s narrative poem Romeus and Juliet, doesn’t include Paris.  And he had other options.  The story is an old Italian legend, going back centuries.  There were multiple versions, with multiple variations.  Anyone wishing to see a totally different take on the story can check out Vincenzo Bellini’s 1830 opera I Capuleti e i Montecchi, with a libretto by Felice Romani derived not from Shakespeare, but from Italian sources based on the same folk tale Shakespeare drew upon.  That opera presents the feud as a political struggle, with Romeo the leader of one faction.  Alternatively, one can easily access the Brooke poem online.  That piece, being Shakespeare’s primary source, is closer to the plot we know.  However, its tone is quite different.  Brooke is not without some sympathy for Romeo and Juliet, but he tut-tuts them for their disobedience and illicit passion, not completely unlike those today who scoff at a play about two dumb kids.

My point here is to illustrate that Shakespeare decided on a very particular route.  He used Brooke’s narrative structure, but saw Romeo and Juliet not as sinners, but as kids, foolish yes, but hardly deserving of the misery they receive.  He redirected blame on the destructive hate of the authority figures and tossed in emotionally perplexing moments, Paris’s death among them.  If one does not wish to engage with all this, I have no objections.  But then it seems only fair to come right out and say “I don’t want Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet; I want my own.”  George Bernard Shaw teased the Victorian actor Henry Irving for altering key lines in Hamlet as “playing Hamlet with the part of Hamlet omitted.”  Shakespeare’s reputation is a great artistic commodity, but his actual achievement is, in the marketplace, often no match for Shakespeare Lite.

Now, finally, we come back to Mr. Luhrmann and his astronaut.  There are so many reasons why I dislike this movie so intensely.  I could focus on the religious imagery Luhrmann scatters around the film, including in its very title, for no discernible reason.  Eternal thanks to the reader who finally explains to me why a movie version of Romeo and Juliet needs more crucifixes than the Sistine Chapel.  Or perhaps I could rant about the “Hey!  I’ve got a clever idea!” bit of having Juliet wake up in time to see Romeo die.  It wasn’t even a new “clever idea.”  Jules Barbier and Michel Carre’s libretto for Charles Gounod’s 1867 opera Romeo et Juliette, based on Shakespeare’s play, gives the lovers time for an entire duet in the tombs!  A glance at the play’s stage history shows the idea goes even further back.  But what really gets me is the astronaut.

As you might have guessed, this has something to do with my poor, unloved Count Paris.  Naturally, Luhrmann deletes his death scene.  He could have just left it at that, as Franco Zeffirelli did in his film.  Zeffirelli was, by many accounts, a repulsive human being, and his aesthetic vision is not usually one I’m drawn to.  However, his version of Romeo and Juliet is superb, both as a film and as an adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy.  In my opinion, its only serious misstep is in removing Paris’s death scene (and keeping that “brace of kinsmen”), but at least Zeffirelli simply reduces Paris to a walk-on role.  Baz Luhrmann does something very different.  When Paris attends the Capulets’ party with Juliet, Luhrmann has him costumed as an astronaut, Juliet as an angel, and Romeo as a knight.  Several shots of Paris are extremely unflattering and clearly meant to provoke laughter from the audience.  Mr. Luhrmann is thus not content to simply remove Paris and deny him his tragic end; he keeps him around long enough to mock and uses him as a contrast to the now semi-divine lovers.  Paris is an uncool preppy.  How dare he even get near the kind of love meant only for the gorgeous people?  Compare this with Shakespeare’s use of the character to create a sense of terrible and easily avoidable waste.  Paris is a minor character, but his treatment, in the play and in Mr. Luhrmann’s film, tells us a lot about the respective cores of these works, and they are very distinct works.  William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy, focused on the wrenching and troubling fate of its young characters; Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet is a glitzy declaration that some people should be bowed to for their beauty, while others should be sneered at for thinking they might get into the club.

“But in this version…” I can almost hear Mr. Luhrmann and his defenders beginning.  And I get it.  Were it not for the fact that I’m just not fond of the music and imagery in Luhrmann’s film, I would agree it’s considerably more palatable than Shakespeare’s play.  Mr. Luhrmann wants to be beautiful and cool, and that’s something almost universal.  Perhaps decades of having it made clear to me, sometimes by fans of this movie, that I will never be either of those things is coloring my judgement of Mr. Luhrmann’s work, but I certainly know where he’s coming from.  His perspective seems much more comforting than Shakespeare’s.  The fate of the young lovers isn’t even all that sad in his film; demigods don’t really die, at least not in the way little people do.  But this comfort seems fleeting to me.  Eventually life intrudes, beauty (or at least what passes for it) fades, and the demigods turn out to be jerks.  As such, I personally find Shakespeare’s knotty works more comforting in the long run.  Yes, the real Romeo and Juliet can be a bit of a swallow, but it provides much more nourishment than Mr. Luhrmann’s chocolate frosting-covered comfort snack.  I remain contemptuous of bardolatry; I’ve seen Shakespeare’s plays improved upon, but not here.  In this instance, I just find what Shakespeare did so impressive it acts as an aesthetic rebuke to what Luhrmann did.  If you want to say I’m just stuffy and old-fashioned, that’s fine with me, if by that you mean I take Shakespeare over Luhrmann, because I most certainly do.  Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet isn’t perfect, and it’s very lamentable.  But unlike Mr. Luhrmann’s film, it is most excellent.

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES, Being the First in an Ongoing Series About Movies That Piss me Off

PREFACE

As the subtitle suggests, I’m planning to occasionally discuss films I have a…strained relationship with.  These are not, however, going to be mere “bad” reviews.  There are plenty of movies I just don’t like, or think are poorly done.  The movies in this series of reviews may or may not be “bad,” in the sense of technical flaws, problematic production, or weak acting.  (Come to think of it, they usually won’t be like that because I’m much more forgiving of that kind of trouble in a film.)  What these movies will have are qualities that fundamentally irk me.  Those qualities are sometimes political, sometimes aesthetic, sometimes a combination.  Obviously, these are just my idiosyncratic opinions in the end.  Much as I hate these films, I don’t think ill of anyone who likes them.

 

Some of my feelings about this 2012 superhero blockbuster have to be placed in a broader context.  I remain something of an infidel when it comes to the vaunted superhero genre.  Nothing I have seen (and I admit I haven’t seen everything) has matched the ecstatic claims of admirers.  While I have certainly enjoyed some superhero films, I have never really been moved by one, nor have I seen any that make me believe they will be seen as the great cinematic art of their era.  I have pondered my coolness to the form.  The best I can come up with is a lack of exposure to comic books as a child, although that doesn’t explain everything.  Perhaps it’s just random but I thought it fair to note that I am peculiarly unsympathetic to the superhero film and that I am aware my judgement may be tainted.

All that being said, I’ve long had something of a soft spot for Batman.  I enjoyed the campy Adam West TV series as a kid, and I still really like Tim Burton’s Batman and (to some extent) Batman Returns.  However, Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy (which this film concludes) left me underwhelmed when it came to the first two and downright miffed at the third.  Batman Begins seemed an OK action flick, although I initially tried to pretend I liked it more (I do that a lot).  The Dark Knight was a bit punchier but most of its bigger moments still fell flat for me.  Sure, Heath Ledger, tragically in his final role as the Joker, turned in a wonderful performance (although I didn’t find it quite as astonishing as some), but I spent most of the movie hoping something awful would happen to Aaron Eckhart’s character and was mildly pleased when it did.  It was also nice how much more likable and relatable he was as a disfigured, vengeance-crazed killer than as a smirking, self-righteous district attorney.

Having found these two flicks yawn-inducing in the theaters, it is to be understood why I did not rush to see The Dark Knight Rises.  In fact, I would probably have never seen it had it not been for some of the news and commentary it started generating.  Several critics, with varying degrees of approval, identified the film as a sharp jab at the Occupy Wall Street movement.  I recall one film commentator lauding the film’s criticism of “wealth redistribution.”  According to these writers, Bane, the movie’s villain, espoused left-wing philosophies and the terror he causes demonstrated Nolan’s negative opinions of such views.  At that point in my life, I was not a full-blown socialist (as I am now), but I was certainly moving steadily to the left.  Naturally I was intrigued that such a popular film was apparently taking on ideas I largely agreed with.  I was also fascinated when I read that prominent philosopher Slavoj Zizek had commented on The Dark Knight Rises, also focusing on the character of Bane.  (Read Zizek’s comments here: (https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/culture/2012/08/slavoj-%C5%BEi%C5%BEek-politics-batman)

On a darker note, some may remember that a number of film critics who wrote negative reviews of The Dark Knight Rises were threatened with violence.  Movie review website Rotten Tomatoes even temporarily removed at least one piece in an attempt to protect the targeted critic.  Sadly, we know superhero films are now routinely part of vicious online cultural battles, but at the time such ferocity over a superhero movie seemed bizarre to me.  Finally, I was taken aback by a review from Andrew O’Hehir of Salon.  O’Hehir called the film “evil” and “fascistic” but was also transfixed by what he saw as its power, writing that The Dark Knight Rises was “arguably the biggest, darkest, most thrilling and disturbing and utterly balls-out spectacle ever created for the screen.”  (Read the whole review here:  (https://www.salon.com/2012/07/18/the_dark_knight_rises_christopher_nolans_evil_masterpiece/)  Now I really felt I should see the movie.  What had happened?  How had a so-so action series become the harbinger of the Fourth Reich?  What was this film, that inspired death threats, acted as a rebuke to social movements, and called forth commentary from important public intellectuals?  After the movie left the theaters and things calmed down a bit, I got a hold of it, expecting to be angered, frightened, mesmerized and galvanized.  My reaction when I finished The Dark Knight Rises can be summarized in one phrase:

Huh?

As with the two earlier Dark Knight films, I had seen an intermittently distracting action movie.  The plot was so forgettable I had trouble remembering key points within hours of watching the final scene.  Not one of the characters was remotely interesting and several just faded into the background.  Everything was technically well-done (although the vigorous stretching Batman does to fix his broken back had me chuckling loudly) but unremarkable.  As for the political angle, I’ll repeat: Huh?  For a film that many thought was engaging critically with leftist social movements you’d think it would, I dunno, depict a social movement!  Bane, supposedly the Vladimir Lenin of early 21st century film, was the leader of nothing more than a bunch of criminals, with no ideology, either internal or public, beyond their own gain.  He is never shown having any popular support from the people of Gotham, nor is he really shown (with one exception, about which more later) seeking such support.  Certainly small political groups can sometimes take control and inflict horrors “in the name of the people” but if that’s the point here, it’s not made much of at all.  Even the most tyrannical political movements, left and right, generally make some gestures towards the popular will, however false.  Bane does almost nothing on this front, and there is very little of the populace depicted for him to be appealing to anyway.

If this film had an anti-“redistribution” ax to grind, one would rationally expect it to highlight the pain inflicted on the “class enemies” leftist extremists tend to target.  It’s therefore surprising that the depiction of the rich people persecuted under Bane’s rule amounts to little more than window dressing.  Scenes that would seem likely vehicles for social commentary along these lines sidestep opportunities for even two-dimensional political engagement, let alone anything truly adroit.  For instance, the much-discussed scene where a number of wealthy and powerful people are hauled before kangaroo courts and “exiled” to certain death by walking on the thin ice of a frozen river, passes without any sense of human suffering.  No one, beyond the thugs in Bane’s employ, is cheering these actions on, and it mostly just feels like a way for the villains to get rid of potential threats to their power.  The scene is certainly not wrenching, but it’s not even boo & hiss inducing.  It just feels like paper cut-out baddies being bad for the sake of badness.

Anyone defending the idea of deeper meanings in The Dark Knight Rises is likely to center their argument around The Speech.  For those unfamiliar with the film, The Speech is an address Bane gives outside a prison shortly after seizing control of Gotham.  Please check out the scene here:    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzK97Aaj_U8.  At first glance, The Speech would seem to damage my argument that The Dark Knight Rises is a politically empty film.  Bane speaks of “myths of opportunity,” and condemns the prison as a “symbol of oppression.”  He rails against “corruption” (three times, so presumably the word did well with test audiences), “the rich” in “their decadent nests” and speaks of giving Gotham back to “the people.”  Doesn’t all of this clearly indicate the film is making political commentary, specifically commentary critical of leftist movements?  It would indeed seem so, especially when one factors in the scenes of wealthy people dragged from their homes that plays through part of the scene.  However, when one looks a BIT closer, The Speech is actually further evidence of this movie’s utter vapidness.  Let’s examine Bane’s address more carefully.

Christopher Nolan has proclaimed the film is not about the Occupy movement, and I think he was being honest about that.  Still, he left something out.  While he did not want to comment on Occupy (or anything else for that matter) in The Dark Knight Rises, he wanted us to think that he was.  The Speech is, when one really digs into it, just like the rest of the film’s politics, in that it really isn’t political at all, but only fakes being so.  Starting with nothing more than the presentation itself, who is Bane speaking to?  Ostensibly he’s addressing all of Gotham, but Nolan and co. trip up by almost exclusively showing us the reaction of the prison inmates, a few moments with featured characters aside.  It becomes clear almost immediately that the prisoners are the only real audience for The Speech.  Bane urges the people of Gotham to storm the prison, as his own men are doing just that.  He calls for an army to come together and attack the establishment, a redundant request since the freed prisoners (having already read the script) form a remarkably cohesive force either while Bane is still speaking or shortly after he’s done.

As for Bane’s supposedly lefty rhetoric, some slight probing exposes it as meaningless.  None of this vaguely Occupy-ish language seems to connect with anyone who isn’t a hardened criminal or a vicious sociopath.  The only people newly animated by the pseudo-revolutionary talk are the prisoners, who swiftly become indistinguishable from Bane’s band of merry monsters.  To the extent that Gotham’s normal citizens are seen at all, they appear to be cowering in terror.  Whatever the state of the city when Bane invades, it clearly isn’t bad enough to cause anything even remotely resembling a mass popular movement to arise.

On the other hand, maybe poverty and inequality ARE rampant in Gotham.  If so, why no flocking to Bane’s side?  I admit my fiendish plots have been pretty minimal so far, but I think it’s probably a good idea to learn how to suppress the giggles while you’re lying to people.  Watch Bane declare he is returning Gotham to the people: his voice crinkles into a sneer and the actor even bobs his head a little.  No sane person could miss what’s going on here.  I’ve seen a good number of bad guys in cartoons who are much slicker.  Even in the fictional world of the The Dark Knight Rises, Bane might as well have “Villain” written on his coat.  For all the film’s grim pomposity, this is “cackling dastard tying young woman to train tracks” stuff.

But if The Dark Knight Rises isn’t political, what is the point of The Speech and the other scattered lines that seem to point in a political direction?  I truly believe that Nolan wants us to think his movie is about something, something probably/kindasorta political.  Why?  My guess would be a degree of pretentiousness.  Clearly he doesn’t have the guts to actually engage with serious issues but he seems to relish the thought that people might get the impression he does, in the process mistaking his banal movie for something edgy and dangerous.  I suppose I should be grateful for this on some level.  Nolan could have made an actually fascist film, and that would have been morally, rather than just aesthetically repugnant.

Still, there are a number of ways The Dark Knight Rises could have been tremendously less irritating.  Nolan could have forgotten about reputation and just had fun.  That may well have been the best course for a superhero action movie, but there are other alternatives.  Perhaps he could have included material that would have said something genuinely thoughtful about the effects of poverty and the dangers of how unchecked misery can be taken advantage of.  Maybe we could have seen regular people in Gotham suffering and Bane saying things that were seductively appealing.  People could have been seen joining Bane’s network, some of them doubtfully, but ultimately feeling he was the only voice offering hope.  In the climax, perhaps Batman could have dramatically revealed Bane’s real motives and his contempt for the people who put their faith in him.  I once described these ideas to a friend.  He laughed and said “But that would have been a drama.”  It’s a fair point, and I guess I have to plead guilty to wanting real drama, whatever the genre, instead of something that just keeps telling me it’s drama.

***SIDE NOTE: Speaking of the absence of any real social ills in The Dark Knight Rises, I’ve been struck since the start of Nolan’s trilogy by his lack of interest in portraying Gotham itself.  Tim Burton’s two films are just chewy entertainment but, especially in the first one, he turns Gotham into a full-blown character.  We feel the grit and grime, to an extent that made me uncomfortable as a kid.  In the first film, there’s a real sense at times of a city teetering on the brink of collapse.  There’s even more creepily decadent wealth on display in Burton’s films!  Meanwhile, in Nolan’s trilogy all the trouble is inflicted from the outside and Gotham could be any generic movie city.***

In the end, The Dark Knight Rises pisses me off not because it doesn’t want to do anything important; that’s hardly a requirement for a movie.  It pisses me off because it wants the credit for saying something while actually saying nothing.  As another friend pointed out to me in conversation about the film, its use of vaguely political language won’t stand up to scrutiny, and isn’t meant to.  Its only goal is to fool the audience into believing the film is more than an empty husk.  This is the mentality of people who are content to only understand issues through snippets of the surface, the mindset that convinces itself it can’t possibly understand something, so it must denigrate the very idea of comprehension.

There is a perfect embodiment of this attitude in the previously mentioned kangaroo court scene.  Bane is glimpsed knitting in the background, an act many connected with the character Madame Defarge in A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens’s historical novel of the French Revolution.  Well, they both knit, sure.  But what exactly is the link between a classic story about an extraordinarily complex historical turning point, an event characterized by class oppression, social tumult and revolutionary excess… and a scene of bad people being mean?  Something about the rich…I guess…right?  The fact is there’s no connection, simply another part of Nolan trying to drizzle enough empty semi-references throughout The Dark Knight Rises in an attempt to make viewers feel clever so they will reward Nolan with flattery.  But to be sure, examining the cynical way Nolan goes about this process demonstrates he likely thinks very little of his audience.  Therefore, let us treat his film with the same disdain it has for us.