The Dark Knight Rises (M). Director: Christopher Nolan. Starring: Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy. 164 minutes
Nicola Roxon and Shadow Minister Christopher Pyne can agree on one thing at least. 'One of the good things John Howard did ... was his gun control legislation,' noted Pyne on Monday night's Q&A, taking up Roxon's point that gun control, and not violent entertainment, was the larger issue in the wake of the Colorado 'Batman' massacre. Pyne called America's approach to gun control 'seriously wrongheaded' requiring 'dramatic' attention.
As a matter of fact, Christopher Nolan's Batman films — 2005's Batman Begins, 2008's The Dark Knight, and the current The Dark Knight Rises (collectively the Dark Knight Trilogy) — take a decidedly thoughtful approach to violence in general, and gun violence in particular, compared with your run of the mill action blockbuster.
In Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, it is Batman's (and his alter ego Bruce Wayne's) refusal to kill under any circumstances that distinguishes him, explicitly and fundamentally, from those film's respective villains, Ra's al Ghul (Liam Neeson), The Joker (Heath Ledger) and Harvey Dent/Two-Face (Aaron Eckhardt). In Rises, he openly shuns guns, much to the chagrin of his sometime agent provocateur, 'cat' burglar Selina Kyle (Hathaway).
Most of the violence in Rises, especially between Batman and his newest archrival Bane (Hardy), is of the hand-to-hand variety. This includes a climactic scene where opposing armed mobs oddly seem to discard their weapons in favour of fists. Bane's henchmen use guns, but Bane's preferred method is to break men's necks with his bare hands — decidedly more brutal, but not conducive to mass murder.
These characters, villains and heroes alike, are to some extent doppelgangers, reflecting each other's traits and beliefs, and prompting them to self-examination. This is particularly true of Wayne, whose grappling with the nature of goodness and justice in light of the actions of those he opposes are the films' philosophical core and most compelling aspect. All but The Joker are vigilantes; Batman's moral code sets him apart.
This is most evident in the rivalry between Batman and the cultish order, the League of Shadows, represented in Batman Begins by Ra's al Ghul and in Rises by Bane. Prior to becoming Batman, Wayne trained with the League in martial arts and philosophy before parting ways with it over ideological differences. The League sees Wayne's home city Gotham as being irredeemably corrupt, and in both films plots to save it by destroying it.
Wayne, though, sees the destruction of human life as fundamentally unjust. Implicit in his refusal to kill his foes is a belief that no one is beyond redemption. This is evident in his decision not to execute the anarchic mass murder The Joker in The Dark Knight; and, in Rises, in his decision to come out of retirement, and resume as Batman in an attempt to overcome Bane, rather than hiding, or running, away.
The Dark Knight Trilogy is surprisingly, poignantly humane by the standards of Hollywood action films. Rises finds Wayne too damaged — physically, psychologically and emotionally — from his past exploits as Batman to succeed alone against the formidable foe Bane. He requires and receives much practical and moral support.
Fatherly butler Alfred (Caine) tends to his physical and emotional wellbeing. Longtime ally Commissioner Gordon (Oldman), guilt-ridden over the morally equivocal climactic events of The Dark Knight, seeks personal absolution even as he fights alongside Batman for Gotham's salvation. Upstanding young cop John Blake (Gordon-Levitt) helps consolidate Wayne/Batman's moral compass and becomes an unlikely protégé.
These good men who support and sustain Wayne/Batman are the heart and soul of The Dark Knight Rises. They stick in the memory more firmly even than 'cool' villains such as Bane and his trigger-happy henchmen.
The massacre at Aurora was tragic, but as far as US politicians are concerned, blaming Batman is as good as hiding your head in the sand. Pyne and Roxon's fellow Q&A panellist Simon Sheikh, National Director of GetUp!, alluded to an American journalist's comment that the massacre 'was akin to a natural disaster'. 'That suggests to me that in America there's this view that this is somehow uncontrollable, that there's nothing they can do.
'The reality', continued Sheikh, 'is that this bloke didn't commit a crime right up until the point where he started opening fire ... It's obviously about gun control. Let's hope that in an election year they actually can get together and formulate some responses to this.' In other words, take a leaf out of John Howard's book. Or Batman's.
Tim Kroenert is Assistant Editor of Eureka Street.