Hey, You In The Back! - Dark Knight
Every Time I Die frontman Keith Buckley answers your burning cinematic questions. Sort of.
A lot of people say The Dark Knight is the best film ever made. I strongly disagree. What are your thoughts on The Dark Knight and more specifically, do you think that the film implicitly argues that the ends justify the means (e.g., Batman taking the fall for Two-Face’s crimes)? –David Cosejo, Chicago, IL
The first time Every Time I Die ever went to Liverpool, England, we were talking to some kids outside of the venue and one kid said that his favorite band ever were Battery. Battery. His favorite band ever. A human being said this. A human being who lived in Liverpool, home of the Beatles. Nothing against Battery, but music stretches back centuries and has included such geniuses as Bach, Miles Davis, Frank Sinatra, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Lindsey Lohan and the Beatles. To say a ’90s hardcore band are better than any of these seems almost preposterous—until you realize that maybe Battery spoke to this kid more than any other musician. Maybe they came along at the right time and hit the right chord and played the right show on the right night, and all of a sudden nothing else mattered but Battery. This is exactly why I feel some people would say The Dark Knight is the greatest movie ever. I just think it happened to come along at the right time, specifically, after the death of Heath Ledger. His was a masterful performance, and the fact that he died mysteriously before the movie debut added sadness, mystique and darkness that no advertising could have done. The entire film shifted from a display to an experience. But Christopher Nolan is no Federico Fellini. The Dark Knight is a new story based on old characters and a shitload of visual effects. I believe it contains one of the greatest performances of all time, but in its entirety, I don’t think it deserves the belt. As far as the theme of the film, yes, I would say that “consequentialism” is far and away the prevalent idea, but so what? No Country For Old Men was a far more brutal look into that moral theory and with probably a quarter of the budget.
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