LONDON CITY NIGHTS: Anne Hathaway

Saturday, November 8, 2014

'Interstellar' (2014) directed by Christopher Nolan

Saturday, November 8, 2014 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

Spaceships majestically floating around the galaxy to dramatic orchestral music is very much my kinda thing. Bonus points if the music sounds suspiciously like Philip Glass' score for Koyaanisqatsi. I cannot overemphasise how much I enjoy trippy cosmic science fiction that bursts at the seams with science so theoretical that it borders on the mystical. The ur-example is, of course, Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, but more recent entries like Darren Aronosfky's The Fountain, Hideaki Anno's End of Evangelion or Ridley Scott's Prometheus keep blood pumping through the genre.

Other than the basic genre trappings of space, what gives Interstellar common ground with these films is the suturing of objectivity (as represented by science) to subjectivity (usually represented by the power of love). The upshot is a weird, religious intensity that arises when cinema tries to pin down the point where science ends and faith begins. This is usually signified by a balls out crazy psychedelic sequence full of flashing lights and crazy music, or as I call them 'the best bit'.

As far as I'm concerned the actual narrative of Interstellar takes a back seat to the imagery, music and philosophy of the movie, but it provides the backbone necessary to keep everything else ticking over, so here's the gist. A hundred or so years from now Earth is a dying planet. The crops humanity relies on to survive are systematically dying off, and the farmers are plagued by gigantic dust storms that smother the sky and choke up the lungs.

But NASA has a plan. The last, best hope of humanity is to go hermit crab: slough off the crummy old planet and find another. So it's handy that a mysterious wormhole has opened just off Saturn, with a fresh solar system beyond ripe for the plucking. A crew of explorers is assembled captained by Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), and they blast off into the void.

Complicating matters is that Cooper has two young children who he must leave behind on earth. Complicating matters even further is that relativity is mindmelting stuff, so time spent hanging out near black holes means that, for example, every hour is equivalent to eight years on Earth. Complicating matters still further is a litany of betrayals and emotional chicanery that reveals what humanity is really like when its back is truly up against the wall.

And then things get weird.

But enough about that science fiction frippery, Interstellar is really about fucking. More specifically, the film is a camouflaged guide to make men more attentive and responsible lovers. Cooper might be narratively out to find a home for future generations of humanity, but symbolically he's out to give the cosmos the time of her life via mindblowing sex that concludes with simultaneous orgasms and fertilisation of her ovum.

The spacecraft is a stylised blastocyst

From wall to wall the film is covered in reproductive imagery; from the spermatozoa landing craft piloted by our hero to the fertilised egg shape of the base craft Endurance. Then they have to fly their ship right into a gigantic space vagina and choose a suitably hospitable planet/egg to seed with the collective DNA of mankind. Symbolism like this isn't novel or subtle, but where Interstellar stand out is its focus on the quality of the sex and the importance of choice of partner, rather than just the fact of its happening.

Nolan repeatedly emphasises that Cooper's skill in bed, and that he knows precisely how to satisfy a lover. We repeatedly see him clutching a phallic spacecraft joystick, positioned neatly between his legs as he guides his spaceship through all kinds complex manoeuvres. His skills in manipulating his craft are thrown into sharp relief by a later example of an astronaut who is a bad lover.

Go get 'em tiger.

In a tense scene we see the rape of a spacecraft, the unwilling docking ports hamhandedly bashed against to disastrous effect. The sweaty, paranoid astronaut just wants to get himself off with no consideration as to the needs of his partner, something the film outright condemns as short-sighted selfishness. By contrast Cooper is a sensitive lover, expertly matching the motions of the machine to the effect that it's port opens up like a petal and he can achieve penetration. The sequence, one of the best in the movie, echoes Jodorowsky's 'Love Machine' in The Holy Mountain, the two movies overlapping in their tendency to show mankind transcending itself.

Soon after our hero is whirling through a psychedelic void making an unmistakable, gritted teeth O-face while caught up a flaming blast of intergalactic semen. The cosmos has been well and truly satisfied and fertilisation has occurred. Both Cooper and the universe then lie back on their pillows and share a celebratory cigarette. The film then folds in on itself to reveal the consequences of this; which serve to intensify the more obvious surface themes of parenthood and responsibility.

So in summary, with Interstellar Christopher Nolan gives us a lesson on how to be great in bed. Namely that you need to tend to your partner's needs as much as your own, that selfishness in bed leads of misery (and the real significance of the spacecraft being named Endurance becomes apparent...) and, most importantly, if you end up with a child at the end of it all for god's sake do right by it. More fundamentally, Nolan correctly recognises sexuality and eroticism as one of the basic behavioural building blocks of the human condition, something that should be wholeheartedly embraced if you desire happiness.

And he does all this while keeping a whizzy and tense space adventure story going. Whattaguy.

★★★★

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

'Les Misérables' (2012) directed by Tom Hooper, 8th January 2013

Wednesday, January 9, 2013 - by londoncitynights · - 0 Comments

'Les Misérables' certainly doesn't skimp on the miserable. The movie is adapted from the enormously popular musical of the same name by Alan Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg, which is itself adapted from the 1862 novel by Victor Hugo. It's a story of the dispossessed and the destitute desperately and tragically fighting against an uncaring, cruel society. Our protagonists find themselves kicked into the dirt over and over again by cruel and unbending justice, exploitation of women, child slavery and eventually the sheer might of the military. Some of them survive their battles, some don't. All of them end up physically and mentally crushed. 'Miserable' is the exact right word for it.

For the most part this is an achingly serious film about universal injustices. But, obviously, 'Les Misérables' is a musical, and not just a musical where the characters occasionally break into song, everything is sung. The plot is a sequence of (for the most part) solo numbers, sung directly into the camera. The film isn't embarrassed in the slightest about this, and this gung-ho attitude makes it easy to admire. The audience's familiarity with the musical makes this weirdness easy to overlook, but seeing characters bare their souls in such an intimately shot way is like few other things I've seen in the cinema. A point of comparison that springs to mind is Dreyer's 'The Passion of Joan of Arc' (1928), a silent film that is entirely carried on the facial performance of Maria Falconetti.

Musicals are generally filmed by recording the soundtrack and playing it back on set for the actors to lip-sync along to. 'Les Misérables' dispenses with that, having the actors singing live on set while they perform, allowing them to more easily incorporate facets of the song into their performance and vice versa. It works fantastically well. Musicals require multiple layers of artifice to function, relying on an audience to willingly suspend their disbelief. But, by stripping away some of the barriers between actors and the audience, the characters of 'Les Misérables' become more personal and much more emotionally accessible than in an average musical.

Much has been made of the decision to cast actors rather than professional singers in these parts, and much snobbery has been aimed in the direction of the actor's singing. I really couldn't give a toss about the technical perfection of a character's vocals. If the underlying acting performance is solid and moving, that's what's important. If I was reviewing a performance of the musical in concert my priorities might be different, but this is a very different beast. On stage an actor must play to the entire theatre, working in the knowledge that their voice is the leading factor; people sitting in the back rows simply won't be able to see any physical subtlety. But a large part of the power of this adaptation is entirely conveyed through physical (especially facial) subtlety.

Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean.

A major highlight is Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean. Jackman is clearly enthused about getting to work out his pipes on camera, and throws himself both physically and vocally into the role. His physical transformation over the course of the film, from bearded, filthy prisoner, through to dapper man about town, back to filthy again and so on is impeccably conveyed through Jackman's body language and eyes, which grow sadder and wearier the as the film goes on. This is a character that makes several huge sacrifices for others, yet Jackman's humble performance prevents him from becoming unrelatably pious.

The opponent of this intrinsically good and likeable man is Inspector Javert, played by Russell Crowe. I say opponent rather than villain because Javert is not a evil man, rather someone whose inflexible moral code naturally sets him in opposition to our hero. Crowe has been given some stick for not being able to sing as well as the rest of the cast, but I thought he was great. Javert is introverted, sexually and emotionally repressed, a man who is literally tightly buttoned up for most of the film. For a character whose beliefs are under this much stress to be marching around singing beautifully doesnt' add up. Crowe sings his songs in a growl, injecting a testosteroney fierceness that feels more appropriate than soaring operatic extroversion. What Crowe excels at is to showing us Javert's inner turmoil when reality repeatedly fails to conform to his beliefs, and if you've nailed that, then you've nailed the performance.

Russell Crowe as Inspector Javert

Every actor in this film must push themselves into a heightened emotional state, and there's no-one that comes out of it looking silly. A few of the performances are less affecting than others, but this is primarily a problem with the material than the film. Amanda Seyfried as Cosette is perfectly fine, but it's a thankless role with little of the depth of the other characters. Eddie Redmayne's Marius falls into the same trap, being slightly less boring than Cosette, but in no way someone we're eager to find out more about.

Despite all these fine performances, it's Anne Hathaway's Fantine that effortlessly stands head and shoulder above everything else in this film. Fantine is a relatively minor part, but it's this astonishing performance that neatly encapsulates everything the film is trying to say. She's desperately trying to provide for her daughter, but is victimised by society and slips into a Hogarthian nightmare. She loses her job, her hair, her teeth and finally her hope in an heartwrenching sequence that's like a musical version of 'Requiem for a Dream'.

Anne Hathway as Fantine

As the last gasps of her hope slip away, she sings 'I Dreamed a Dream' in one unbroken shot closeup. I've always seen 'I Dreamed a Dream' as an impossibly sappy, self-indulgent song, soporific talent show shite. But, in one unbroken take with the camera inches away from Hathaway's face she gasps torturously as she sings, weeping with a crushed vulnerability. The effect is the illusion that she's making up the song as she goes along, realising bitterly that everything she's singing is the truth. This window straight into a character's soul is what Hooper must have had in mind when planning this, and it's an instantly unforgettable moment in cinema. It's so amazingly good that it makes the rest of the film suffer in comparison.

While the tactic of placing a camera right in Hathaway's face pays off in spades, the film keeps using the same trick over and over again. Each time the effect is diminished, until by about the two hour mark you're desperate for something more dynamically visual. This is one of the most successful musicals of all time, and you sense that Hooper wants to give us something we can't get on stage, namely the facial performances of the actors. But practically every song is a character baring their miserable, tortured soul to the camera in closeup and there's so much emotion to deal with that you find yourself becoming a bit numb. There are some more cinematically adventurous moments, notably during 'One More Day' when we neatly cross-cut between each character singing a segment of the song. But with the film having proved that it can stay visually interesting if it wants to, it slips back into a neverending series of closeups.

Helena Bonham-Carter and Sacha Baron-Cohen as the Thernardiers and Isabelle Alan as young Cosette

This all adds up to an obstinately uncinematic experience. Surely there's enough going on in 'Les Misérables' to fill the screen with fascinating visuals? One consequence of sticking closely to the stage version is that when a sequence begins, we're going to stay with that set for as long as is humanly possible. These sets are curiously stagey and claustrophobic rather than cinematic. The worst offender is the street set for the barricade sequence; we spend much of the second half of the film in one street corner which quickly becomes very dull to look at. Another factor that adds to this sense of claustrophobia is that the film is shot in 1.85:1. It's an understandable enough decision, it'd be difficult to compose as many tight closeups in a wider aspect ratio. But the epic nature of the film, in particular the opening and revolution sequences are crying out for more room to breathe cinematically.

Aaron Tviet as Enjolras

But even leaving this aside this is a film with big narrative problems, most of which stem from the musical its based on. The first half of the film is impeccably constructed, with a tight focus on Jean Valjean and Javert, whose relationship is a near perfect example of how unsympathetic authority can conspire to crush a good man. It's a personal story, and this, tied with Fantine's downfall is compelling and utterly moving.

By the time we get to the Paris and the revolution I was ready to see a new society being built, but it's at this moment that the film introduces to us to a load of new characters that simply aren't as interesting or complex as Valjean and Javert. The importance of social change is lost at the very moment we need to care about it most, and even worse, is sidelined for a romantic relationship between two cyphers. Cosette and Marius' intense love is what fuels this half of the play rather than revolution, a love that exists purely because the story says it does. Maybe I'm being a bit cynical, but I want characters that fall in love for reasons a little more complex than that they've glanced at each other across a crowded street.

Amanda Seyfried as Cosette and Eddie Redmayne as Marius

This means the story winds up in an extremely unsatisfying place. We're masterfully shown through Fantine's fall that life is utterly terrible for the poor. Then we're told why it's so terrible, that this fantastically unequal, starving society is the creation of the aristocracy, thus justifying the revolution that we implicitly want to see succeed. The revolution heroically fails and the young, charismatic revolutionaries become martyrs. After this, the 'happy ending' is a son of the aristocracy rejoining the bourgeoisie and dragging Cosette into his social class.

I'm sorry, but that's just not good enough. It's the anti-'Casablanca'! When that film tells us that 'the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world' it's a fantastic line because it's absolutely right! Just saving Cosette from poverty isn't good enough. What about the starving masses? What about the thousands of victimised Fantines out there? We end with nothing changed in the slightest other than Cosette living a slightly more comfortable existence.

Anne Hathaway has that Oscar in the bag.

It's not that 'Les Misérables' isn't worth seeing, it's ambitious in all the best ways and works as a film in its own right rather than simply as an appendage of the musical. The numerous problems with the cinematography and more cruciallythe narrative don't cancel out the amazing performances. It's butt numbingly long, but it's just about able to justify its length. And, above all that, it is literally worth sitting through the entire thing just to see Anne Hathaway sing 'I Dreamed a Dream', a moment that reminds you how effective the spell that cinema weaves can be.

***/*****

Monday, July 23, 2012

'The Dark Knight Rises' directed by Christopher Nolan, 20th July 2012

Monday, July 23, 2012 - by londoncitynights · - 1 Comment

[Spoilers Throughout]

'The Dark Knight Rises' is a epic summer blockbuster, a film aimed squarely at the masses, and it's ambitious, confident and unselfconsciously weird. I was anticipating this film so much that I was somewhat nervous - I've been burned too many times by hype (the Phantom Menace, Matrix Reloaded, Spider-Man 3 etc) and even though all signs pointed towards the film being amazing I still harboured some small doubt that Christopher Nolan could screw it up. I had tickets to the 1am showing at the Waterloo IMAX, so to refresh my memory I had a mini-Batman marathon throughout the day, catching up on Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Both of these are excellent films, The Dark Knight particularly so, the bar isset pretty high.

I'm pleased to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it, although it was a quite different film to what I had expected. The previous films in the series have tended to keep the action relatively grounded. The stakes were still high, but the action still took place in a recognisable version of reality. In this film, Nolan literally tears up the gritty streets of Gotham City, and imposes a far more bizarre world on top of it. Christopher Nolan has made a film with courage in its convictions, with a willingness to explore concepts to their logical, if at times bonkers conclusions.

Christian Bale as Batman

In a world of CG spectacles, Nolan's direction stands apart - there is a focus on physicality throughout all of his work, but especially here. In sequences involving vehicles he concentrates on their every interaction with the environment, when something explodes it never feels like an antiseptic blob of graphics - something has actually gone kaboom. The physicality of the film extends to the interactions between the actors, the first Batman/Bane showdown is not only shockingly visceral in its brutality, it concentrates of the 'texture' of the beating too, with matt surfaces becoming wet and more primal.

The cast is uniformly excellent, without any weak links. Actors like Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine are about the safest pairs of hands you can get, and inhabit their roles in much the same ways as they did in the previous films. Caine in particular gets more emotional range than before to work with to heartbreaking effect.

The primary characters all take their roles to unpredictable and interesting places. Christian Bale unexpectedly shows us a fairly happy and contented Bruce Wayne for part of the film. There is a moment where he realises he's been locked out of his mansion, and his obvious pleasure in the novelty of this is not something you can imagine from the tortured youth of Batman Begins. I had been expecting the tortured, depressive, overly serious loner of the previous films to dominate here, it's fun to see him defy this and show us a curious, if somewhat emotionally sedated Bruce Wayne. Bale's physique has changed over the last few films, we see the effects of inaction and age on the overly cut beefcake of Batman Begins, rendering him still fit, but thinner, with hollow, gaunt cheeks. It's a nice way of getting us to feel sympathy for the man, as well as accentuating his vulnerability.

A somewhat gaunt Bruce Wayne and Alfred

It's Tom Hardy's 'Bane' that's likely to garner the most attention. Combining brains and brawn seems to be an obvious thing to do to create a nemesis for Batman, but rarely has it been done with such originality and style. Much has been made of Bane's voice in this film, but I absolutely love it. Seeing this huge lump of muscle walking around spouting somewhat mannered yet intimidating dialogue sets off a nice disconnection in the audience. In terms of his looks, he appropriates a militaristic revolutionary chic, with a hint of the aristocratic country gent in his sheepskin coat. The one moment that stands out is when he gently caresses the cheek of someone who's trying to threaten him. The man angrily says "I'm in control!" Bane softly replies, "Do you feel in control?". He's not showing off or being egotistical, the way he understates his obvious dominance over the situation underlines how scary he really is.

In this mix, Anne Hathaway's Selina Kyle (I don't think she is referred to directly as 'Catwoman' in the film) doesn't quite get the screen time that her performance deserves. This film is nearly 3 hours long, but doesn't waste any time. Even so, of the three leads she gets the least development. This is a shame, because she gives an interesting performance, playing a character who's weaponised femininity for her own ends. There is a contradiction at the heart of her character, she is an individualist, yet one who frequently adopts different personalities (the submissive maid, the hysterical victim, the seductress) to achieve her ends. She is completely in control of her own identity, yet is also trapped by it, trying to find a way to erase her criminal record and lead a normal life. It's a nice contradiction, but we only really explore the surface of this idea - this is a film where character's pasts are vitally important and apart from knowing that she's got a criminal history we know very little about her. Despite this, Hathaway neatly fills the role with a dangerous, lithe charisma - it is easy to see what attracts Bruce Wayne to her.

Tom Hardy as Bane

Joseph Gordon-Levitt's John Blake, on the other hand has far more screen time - and somewhat simpler motivations. He's slowly and gradually built up as Batman 2.0, and while the need for this concept is fundamental to the themes of the film, we possibly spend a bit too much time with him. Gordon-Levitt is one of my favourite actors, improving almost every film he's in with his charisma - but John Blake is a fairly cliched and simple character - the hero policeman with a 'hot head' but a heart of gold. We are repeatedly shown what a fundamentally good person he is, his fixed moral centre, his unhappiness at using guns and his willingness to act on his own initiative. But all of this set up is for a payoff that takes place after the film finishes. We see him discovering the Batcave, and assume he's going to be a good Batman, but that's about it for payoff.

It's hard to talk about this film without bringing up the appropriation (intentional or otherwise) of imagery from the Occupy protest movement. When Bane storms the Stock Exchange in the film it's a cathartic moment for the audience - the brokers have been quickly sketched as immoral sharks. It is difficult not to side with Bane, who is dressed in the uniform of a bike courier and his group of shoe-shiners and cleaners:

Stockbroker: This is a stock exchange. There’s no money here for you to steal!

Bane: Then what are you people doing here?

Soon after Bane takes over we are shown the proletariat of Gotham literally dragging the rich out of their houses and stripping them of their luxury possessions. After the economic crimes committed by the wealthy it's difficult to sympathise with them as victims. I felt a slight disconnect here - was I was supposed to be cheering Bane on at this point? But Bane himself is being bankrolled by the elite of Gotham, and his people's revolution is explicitly shown to be a sham with the ultimate aim of destroying the city.

Heroic?

There are valid readings of Nolan's Batman series as being about the importance of maintaining the Western capitalist status quo. I don't see the politics of this film as being so clear cut - the series has been fairly clear about showing us how inequality in society leads to criminality. I do find some of the imagery problematic though, it is hard to swallow the sequence where the policemen of Gotham square off in open warfare with the freed prisoners running the city. Throughout the rest of the series we have had it hammered home that the GCPD are unavoidably corrupt, and now we are expected to see them as noble heroes fighting these prisoners, who are painted as scum to a man. The 'Dent Act', that has apparently cleaned up the city is never explained to us, but there are hints that it is restrictive of civil liberties. In the climax of The Dark Knight Nolan shows us the prisoners on the ferry as more noble than we'd assumed - refusing to act selfishly in sacrificing the lives of civilians for their own. The film is on shaky ground here, and seems to have conceded some philosophical ground for the visual impact of a street war between two easily identifiable sides, one good, one evil.

For me, the film's success lies away from its somewhat confused politics, and with its summation of the philosophical and societal importance of symbols. The previous films in the series take pains to 'ground' the Batman mythos in reality. Batman Begins in particular takes painful care to justify just about every aspect of the character, from his motivations to his costume, while The Dark Knight serves as an examination of what the longer term effects of Batman would be, and ends rather pessimistically with our hero taking the fall for multiple murders. This, coupled with the rather grim trailers and advertising campaign seems to set the film up as the ultimate in grim, realistic, somewhat depressing reality, this time we're going to see Batman get his face pushed into the mud by the big bully Bane. And we do. But this isn't a cynical film, one that underlines exactly how flawed the character is, it's one that takes these grim, depressing elements and systemically goes about 'curing' them. It's an exorcism of the Batman, outlining his flaws and showing how to fix them, all the while underlining the central thematic continuity between the films; the power of symbols.

All good superhero films tend to set their heroes against a warped aspect of themselves. That's why Spider-Man tends to fight against tragic scientists who accidentally gain animal-based superpowers, why Superman fights fascist kryptonians and so on. Nolan clearly understands this, and all of the previous villains have been reflections of aspects of Batman. Scarecrow took Batman's tactics of fear to an impersonal and unbalanced chemical conclusion. Ras al Ghul was a megalomaniacal surrogate 'dark' father figure. The Joker was the chaotic and unpredictable reaction to a man with a fixed moral code. Two-Face was a demonstration of how a man that's suffered massive personal tragedy can fall into murderous, evil revenge, as opposed to Batman, who used his tragedy to mould himself into a figure for justice.

Bane vs Batman

So what of Bane then? Bane encapsulates almost all of these themes and more. This film is an apocalypse, and he is the antiBatman. Contrast their outfits, Bane's is the inverse of Batman, his armour covering only his mouth, as opposed to the mouth being the only exposed area of Batman. Batman is a creature of stealth and shadows, while Bane marches around in daylight in front of huge crowds making speeches. Batman has a gruff, growling affected voice, Bane's is cultured, effete and aristocratic. Batman rejected the League of Shadows, Bane was rejected by the League of Shadows. Whereas Batman uses the city itself as a weapon, Bane tends to stamp upon it.

What is Nolan trying to show us here? Throughout the film, Bane is portrayed as scarily competent, explicitly outlining his plans and effortlessly executing them. He seems unstoppable, an inexorable force rolling over Gotham City like a steamroller. When he and Batman face off for the first time, Batman gets effortlessly ground into the dirt by Bane, who mocks him throughout. None of Batman's attacks have any discernible effect upon him, not his hard, furious punches, not his gadgets and not his stealth. Bane ends the fight by relentlessly pounding Batman's mask, a symbolic smashing of the Batman identity. They fight later during the climax, without Batman using any dramatically different tactics, and this time it is Batman who is triumphant. Why? What changed?

This is because in a series that repeatedly outlines the importance of symbols, Bane co-opts nearly all of Batman's symbological power, draining him of meaning and therefore rendering him ineffective. In Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne is shown to be clumsy and ineffective until he realises the importance of becoming more than a man:

"People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy and I can't do that as Bruce Wayne. As a man I'm flesh and blood, I can be ignored, I can be destroyed, but as a symbol I can be incorruptible, I can be everlasting."

He's absolutely right, in The Dark Knight Rises we open to a Gotham City that's essentially free of crime. The 'Dent Act' has allowed the police to crack down on organised crime, a piece of legislation that's only been possible to enact through the lie of Dent's martyrdom constructed by Commissioner Gordon and Batman. In taking the blame for the murders Dent committed and becoming a symbol of the danger of vigilantism and the importance of an incorruptible legislature Batman has done more good for the city as a idea than he ever did as a guy in body armour punching people in alleyways.

Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle

With Batman the idea cleaning up the city far more effectively than he ever did, Bruce Wayne is left adrift and stripped of meaning. He is effectively neutered when we meet him, a recluse hobbling around his huge, empty mansion. It's interesting to note that he's not in some dark and depressed fury, he seems relatively upbeat about the situation. Throughout these scenes Nolan frames him as vulnerable. One of my favourite scenes during this sequence is Wayne in a doctor's office getting a checkup:

Doctor: I've seen worse cartilage in knees.

Bruce Wayne: That's good.

Doctor: No, that's because there is no cartilage in your knees. Scar tissue on your kidneys. Concussive damage to your brain tissue. I cannot recommend that you go heliskiing.

In this shot we look down upon a slightly nervous, seated Bruce Wayne - he seems a little lost and childlike in his optimism, but again, not particularly angry about it. He seems to have accepted that this is the price he's had to pay for apparently succeeding in his mission as Batman. This serenity doesn't last for long though, a Batman film featuring a happy and relaxed domestic Bruce Wayne pootling around his house isn't going to put bums on seats.

Soon after this, he's back in the suit, but unbeknownst to him causing far more damage than harm. The idea has over-taken the man, and his very presence distracts the police to such an extent that Bane manages to escape from his raid on the stock exchange. Batman doesn't know it yet, but the ideological balance of power has shifted. Before we know it, Alfred has left him, Bane has stripped Bruce Wayne of his wealth and he's been betrayed, suffered massive injuries and been dumped in a big hole in the desert.

Bane, meanwhile has seized power in Gotham through a display of overt force, exposed the lie of Two-Face, opened the prisons and is maintaining martial law by using (among other things) versions of Batman's own Tumbler 'Batmobile' to keep the citizens quelled. Bane's revolution seems be a blunt extension of Batman's own burgeoning fascistic tendencies towards the end of The Dark Knight. Whereas Batman 'merely' illegally wiretapped the population of Gotham to defeat the Joker, Bane is far less subtle and directly imposes his will on the citizenry. This perfectly ties in with the two men's tactics, Batman subtle and covert, Bane obvious and overt. It is possible to imagine Batman going completely off the deep end and enforcing martial law over the city using a fleet of Batmobiles to cow people into behaving the way he feels they should.

At this point in the narrative, Bane has comprehensively out-Batmanned Batman on nearly every conceivable level. So how does Bruce Wayne come back and save the day? What is that gives him the power to climb out the hole he's been thrown in and save the day? Well, much like another character from a great comic book film, Batman must earn the power of self-respect. Nolan shows us this through extremely straightforward symbolism. Bruce Wayne must climb out of a big dark hole into the light. There's a rope that looks like it's aiding him, but this is an illusion, and this connection to the dark is holding him back. It's only when he severs this link, realising that he values his life, that he has many people that care about him and that he needs to get over his own insecurities that he succeeds. From this point on, he quickly seizes control of his own symbology back from Bane. He begins by lighting a huge flaming Batsignal over the city, asserting the notion of the 'light' as his own over Bane. He then trumps Bane's fleet of ersatz Batmobiles with his more intimidating flying 'Bat' vehicle. He sets in motion plans with his network of friends, expanding his influence. This time when he fights Bane, he's got the ideological upper-hand, and before we know it, Bane has become just another big thug to be dispatched.

'The Bat' vs Tumblers

Much of the power that Bane wields comes from his aura of invincibility. His backstory as the 'one man to climb from the pit' seems to be common knowledge - setting him apart from other men. The film literally strips this back-story away from him and transfers it to others - this time Batman has co-opted Bane's myth. With Bane's true motivations revealed and his power as a symbol stripped away he is broken, and is unceremoniously finished off with a blast from Catwoman.

At this point, Batman is ideologically triumphant, but the ghosts of his past still haunt him. The legacy of Ra's al Ghul lives on in the form of a ticking nuclear bomb. If these films have been about the power of symbols then we know there is but one way for Batman to defeat this ghost - he must sacrifice himself to save the city. Whereas Harvey Dent was an illusory martyr, Batman must become a genuine martyr. And he does, flying off into the sunset and exploding in a nuclear blast. His status as a symbol is now unimpeachable, shown by the city erecting a statue of Batman in honour of his memory. He has finally achieved his ambition of becoming a legend, of being more than a man.

Batman is conclusively dead, but thankfully Bruce Wayne has survived, and is leading a truly happy, carefree life with Selina Kyle in Europe. Is this a cop out? Would the film be more powerful if Bruce had indeed sacrificed himself. From a certain perspective this 'lie' is another version of the fake martyrdom of Harvey Dent. It's more than that though, in truly transforming Batman into legend Bruce Wayne has finally succeeded in disentangling himself from his creation. Batman is dead. Bruce Wayne is now a healthy, well-balanced and happy individual.

Yet although his demons have been exorcised, the concept of Batman lives on. Someone, somewhere needs to work out their own demons and so John Blake takes up the mantle.

Batman is dead! Long live Batman!

LONDON CITY NIGHTS