Continued...
When Rachel and Dent are being held in danger Batman and Gordon each race to save them. Batman declares he is going to save Rachel but is tricked into going to Dent's location. Rachel dies and Dent is severely injured. In a brilliant make-up creation the right side of Dent's face remains normal and the left side is severely and dramatically changed. He has physically transformed from a White Knight into his derisive nickname, "Two Face." Reminiscent of Jekyll and Hyde, Dent's nature is now permanently divided.
The death of Rachel has destroyed Dent's belief in good and has dissolved his commitment to the public's welfare. Now he only thinks of his own personal pain and loss. But he is not a creature of pure evil. His hurt and grudge turn him into a near nihilist. The lucky coin with two heads has been transformed. One side is now ruined and becomes for him the oracle of ethics. Life and death depend solely on chance; solely on the flip of a coin.
Furious at Gordon for the actions of the corrupt police officers in Gordon's unit who betrayed Rachel, Dent finds Gordon's wife and children. Recognizing that Gordon's young son is dearest to him, Dent demands that Gordon reassure the son as Dent flips his coin to decide the boy's fate.
Batman, for whom good and evil, life and death, are not decided by chance, intervenes. In their fight Dent and Batman both plunge to the ground from a height. Batman survives and tells Gordon that the myth of Dent's goodness must become the rallying point for the city. Dent remains the White Knight, while Batman allows himself to become The Dark Knight, spurned by the public, identified wrongly but necessarily as the source of evil, who can then secretly work for the good. Only Gordon and his son know the true story behind this myth. Gotham thus gets the hero it deserves.
The Joker is captured but his fate is left hanging, literally and figuratively. We do not even know for certain whether Dent died, or unconscious, has survived his fall. All we know for sure is that the complexity of fighting evil and the compromises permitted for good are unsolved. Civilization continues but only barely. The Joker has destroyed Rachel, transformed Dent, and caused everlasting turmoil and doubt within Batman.
The need to resort to myth over facts after arguing previously for the absolute value of Truth, ends Plato's Republic, with the famous story of the myth of the cave. We too are left in the dark, in the company of The Dark Knight, at the end of this superb film.
We can only wonder what the sequel might have been, with The Joker and Two Face challenging Batman, had Heath Ledger survived.
Speaking of Heath Ledger I want to mention a few things about his performance as The Joker. There is a small pantheon of presentations of psychiatrically deranged individuals in film. Among the best are Olivia Thailand in Snake Pit, Gregory Peck in Spellbound, Jack Nickelson in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, and Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight. Ledger's perhaps surpasses them all.
For those with a psychiatric or medical background like myself, the use of his slight head tics and the seemingly random movement of his tongue suggest that The Joker has been in a psychiatric institution and medicated with drugs that left him with a case of tardive dyskinesia, a rare but serious and irreversible movement disorder that can be a side effect of certain psychotropic medications. This touch, which I believe was meticulously and masterfully added to the portrayal by Ledger, makes The Joker both more convincing and more dangerous.
I am told that Ledger immersed himself in The Joker's state of mind before and during the filming. It is not unknown for an actor to have difficulty extricating himself from such a wrenching and demanding role. Joaquin Phoenix and Faye Dunaway have each spoken about this as they worked to emerge from Johnny Cash and Joan Crawford. If this was so for Ledger then The Joker got an undeserved bitter laugh while we have only tears.
Addendum July 23, 2008: One of The Joker's henchmen must have gotten into my spell checker to change Olivia De Havilland into Olivia Thailand. Sorry for that.
I want to expand on one point distinguishing Batman from Dent. When The Joker reveals the locations of Rachel and Dent, Gordon asks Batman which location he is going to. Batman says Rachel's but I believe he is aware of The Joker's double crosses and switches, and knowingly goes to Dent's location. That Batman expresses no surprise at finding Dent rather than Rachel confirms this view. Bruce Wayne would have rescued Rachel but Batman, a true hero, puts his public duty above his private preferences.
After Rachel is killed Dent loses his sense of public duty and loses faith in goodness. Batman, equally in love with Rachel and equally convinced she will marry him, retains his public duty and goodness, though he is burdened with grief and guilt. Perhaps a White Knight cannot endure crushing disappointment. Perhaps only a Dark Knight, who has already experienced the crushing loss of viewing the murders of his father and mother, and holding himself responsible for that tragedy, can make his way through darkness without losing his way.
A final note, in response to a commenter who took issue with my portrayal of Gordon as incorruptibly good, I agree that Gordon made pragmatic choices, and refer to them in the essay. But as a person he is beyond bribery and never loses sight of his duty to the citizenry. So how about personally incorruptible but one who made some seemingly necessary but ultimately unwise alliances.
) so it can release a fear gas into the air? Why not just buy some planes and spray the gas over the city, or better yet, screw the gas and just start bombing major buildings like the banks, hospitals, jails, and courthouses?
