Finding the Dark Knight
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Finding The Dark Knight in The Bride of
Frankenstein
As sequels go, there are many flavors. Some film series, such as the Star Trek
films, were simply additional stories with numbers indicating a sequence (e.g.,
Star Trek: The Motion Picture has very little to do with Star Trek II: The Wrath
of Khan). But inside the Trek series, there are continued stories that span films
(e.g., Star Trek III: The Search for Spock is a direct sequel to The Wrath of
Khan, picking up moments after the latter film left off). In many series, however,
the sequel is more a remake, with a formula approach (such as the Rocky films,
the Lethal Weapon films, etc.). Most often, Hollywood sequels seem to follow
this path.
Occasionally, though, a sequel shifts gears. While its root concepts are born in
another film, the follow-up goes off in its own direction, where structure, tone,
and often the director’s intent are drastically different from its predecessor.
Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, compared to his Batman Begins, is a very
different type of film, and one way to analyze the differences is to look at some
other films that have diverged unexpectedly from their predecessors. Ridley
Scott’s Alien and James Cameron’s Aliens would be an obvious example of two
very different kinds of films, but that might be expected from two very different
directors. Francis Ford Coppola’s first two Godfather films might be another
example, but the tone of the two films is very similar – it’s only the structure
(much of which occurred very late in production in the editing room) that seems
different.
Perhaps the best films to use in analyzing Nolan’s Batman films would be James
Whale’s Frankenstein and its follow-up, The Bride of Frankenstein. For both of
the predecessor films, Batman Begins and Frankenstein, their directors
delivered genre films that embraced the required elements of the genre – the
Monster is a monster and the Batman is a heroic crime fighter. For the follow-
ups, however, both directors broke out of the genre classifications to achieve
films that greatly dwarf their predecessors.
The Bride of Frankenstein is barely a horror film, just as The Dark Knight is
barely a superhero film. Bride moves deeply into the realm of fantasy, with few
scenes even attempting to provoke chills (while many seem geared toward
gathering a good laugh). James Whale wasn’t horribly interested in creating
what was originally called “The Return of Frankenstein” and it is perhaps his
boredom with the genre that enabled him to step outside of it and craft
something truly unique among horror films. The Bride of Frankenstein is often
hilariously funny, with camp characters like Ernest Thesiger’s Dr. Pretorious and
Una O’Connor’s delightfully scatterbrained Minnie. Still, in the midst of all of this,
Whale delivers one of the most poignant scenes in any genre film, a monster
meets blind man and the best of humanity is on display until Mel Brooks would
parody it so successfully years later that one can’t think of the original now
without smiling. The Bride of Frankenstein stands alone among the classic
horror films created by Universal in the 1930s and 1940s in that it is a lush,
lavishly produced film that isn’t meant to simply scare – what its original intent
might have been is entirely open to debate.
The Dark Knight is barely a superhero movie. One of its central themes, that of
the futility of attempting to create order, cuts into one of the core elements that
make superhero stories pleasurable – that the hero can succeed in creating
order (particularly in ways that we can’t). Batman in The Dark Knight can only
create order through morally questionable acts – kidnapping, assault, invasion
of privacy, even going so far as to propose a cover-up for the greater good.
There is little that is heroic (other than his abilities) at the end of the film. The
hero offered to the city of Gotham, Harvey Dent, remains heroic only through
deceit. The most heroic character in the film, you might argue, is a criminal on a
ferry who throws a detonator out of a window – it is an entirely selfless act that
may result in his own destruction but he does it anyway because no one else
has the moral courage to do it (and even he lies to get the detonator in his
hands).
We watch horror films to get scared and we watch superhero films to maintain
an illusion of order (and to entertain a sense of envy, because wouldn’t we all
like to have those powers and create that order?). The Bride of Frankenstein
fails to scare us, The Dark Knight knowingly reminds us that the hero’s efforts
are potentially meaningless.
What lessons can we take from this? The greatest sequels don’t follow their
original formula -- they frequently shift gears into entirely different genres (in
fact, they even betray the central conceits of the genres which produced their
forebears). You could argue that a strong villain from outside the story of the
original (Dr. Pretorious, The Joker) is required to give breadth to the story. But
perhaps most of all, you need a director who has already succeeded in creating
a genre classic who may just be a little bored as a result. We so infrequently
see directors of genre classics returning for sequels that his or her boredom
may never kick in. Perhaps that’s something Hollywood should begin to
understand – it might be the bored of directors have the greatest things to offer
us.