THE SHINING and other Christmas Classics

Everyone knows about It's A Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, and A Christmas Carol. These are the traditional classics of a traditional holiday. Even A Christmas Story has become an oft-repeated favorite, and most families have their annual film choice already made.

But if you're looking to try something new, allow me to suggest that this season you take advantage of some of these less-traditional holiday films:

DIE HARD

Set on christmas eve, this heartwarming story follows John McClane as he comes to LA to visit his wife and prove his devotion to his family, but a grinch-like villain decides to steal the Nakatomi Corporation's Christmas presents. Only John stands in their way in this highly-traditional family film. Rated R.

See Also: Die Hard 2, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and Lethal Weapon

THE REF

Kevin Spacey and Judy Davis are an unhappily married couple, and Dennis Leary is the poor fugitive thief that has taken them hostage. The bickering banter is on full force in this comedy, which successfully displays holiday morals like love and understanding while having the characters scream insults at each other.

See Also: Christmas Vacation, Trading Places, and Love Actually

BAND OF BROTHERS (Episode #6: Bastogne)

If there is one episode that places this mini-series above other war classics, it's Bastogne. The sixth episode follows Eugene "Doc" Roe during the Battle of the Bulge. Stranded behind Nazi lines, the Allied forces are running low on all ammunition and provisions while fighting in some of the worst conditions seen on the Western Front.

See Also: Joyeux Noel and Stalag 17

BRAZIL

It's George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, but filtered through one of the comedy geniuses of Monty Python. Terry Gilliam follows a paper-pusher named Sam Lowry who is perfectly happy to remain a cog in the machine until an unusual series of events involving a fly and a typewriter lead him to come face-to-face with the girl of his dreams. What follows is an epic love story of bureaucratic proportions.

See Also: Batman Returns and Rare Exports

SCROOGED

This is the ultimate version of Charles Dickens' immortal classic, A Christmas Carol. The main reasons would be Bill Murray's heartfelt and hilarious performance, and the Ghost of Christmas Present's use of a toaster. Scrooge is now a callous TV executive, and the classic story arc is populated by dozens of oddball cameos including Lee Majors, Robert Mitchum, and Buddy Hackett.

See Also: Ghostbusters II

THE SHINING

What could say more about the holidays than a family spending the entire winter together in a distant hotel where ghosts and evil spirits infect the mind of the father and turn him into an axe-wielding... oh. Right. Well, at least it is still set during December.

See Also: Eyes Wide Shut, Psycho, and Gremlins

HITCHCOCK

Two brothers are digging a hole outside a farmhouse. After a disagreement about their mother, one of them walks out of frame. He returns a moment later to bash his brother over the head with a shovel and the camera pans to the side where Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) is watching, just like an audience member at a theatre. He turns to the camera and delivers the first charming quip (of which there will be many) to his audience about Ed Gein and how he inspired Psycho. And so begins the entertaining, somewhat lightweight look at one of the most famous directors in history, and the production of his most-famous film.

When it was released in 1960, Psycho made a huge impact on Hollywood that affects movies to this day. It was near the end of the censor’s reign, which had held films back from including content that would get anything beyond a PG rating by modern standards. It was also at a time when television was stealing audiences, and filmmakers were looking for new ways to lure people to the theatre. Hitch created a pre-release buzz that was unheard of, but has since become standard. In the 60s a film could open in a couple of theaters and play for months before finding an audience and becoming a nationwide success; today studios release films in thousands of theaters, and if they don’t make the top three on their opening weekend they are considered flops.

But all of this history is secondary to the real purpose of Hitchcock.

Under all the film trivia, the focus of the story is Alfred (“Just call me Hitch, drop the cock.”) and his wife Alma Reville (Helen Mirren). They are a couple heading into their golden years together, and comfortable performances from Hopkins and Mirren make their long-lasting love affair very believable. Running gags with Alma trying to make Hitch eat better food, and Hitch trying to hide his drinking, play out in scenes of Hollywood negotiations and production stress to bring these two characters firmly to life.

This care and attention given to develop the two lead characters is great for them, but it leaves most of the supporting cast underdeveloped. In the lead up to the production a series of short scenes introduces characters who are offered up like garnish; they look great, but they have little substance. Ralph Macchio plays the psychiatry-obsessed screenwriter Joseph Stefano, Kurtwood Smith is the hardliner censor who hovers over the script with a red pen, and James D’Arcy is Anthony Perkins,  the actor playing the titular psycho. D’Arcy’s performance seems to avoid any of the complexity of the real Perkins in favor of his character in the film, Norman Bates.

A supporting part that actually does get some development is serial killer Ed Gein  (Michael Wincott) who haunts Hitch’s dreams like a psychotic muse. There are times it seems that Gein might have more influence over the director than his long-suffering wife. Gein is one characters who, along with beautiful blonde Janet Leigh (Scarlett Johansson) and slick writer Whitfield Cook (Danny Huston), starts to come between Hitch and Alma, and his appearances are some of the only real insights given to Hitch’s thoughts.

By the end, with a great reference to Hitchcock’s next film, the piece that will be remembered most is Hopkins’ performance. His makeup is perfect and he uses the fat suit and prosthetic lips to make Hitch be the charming, troublesome, childish genius he is known to have been. He has some great lines, but it is his physical reaction to the first audience seeing the shower scene that makes him a likely contender for this year’s awards. Standing outside the door he conducts their screams like Amadeus and stabs the air with an invisible knife.

The simple supporting parts, all of them brilliant impersonations, and Hopkins’ easy-to-like lead create the film’s simple, tongue-in-cheek style. It is the sort of biopic that Hitch himself would have enjoyed because it has the bare minimum of personal insights and regularly choses entertainment over historical accuracy. We can never know exactly what went on with all these people during the making of the film, and we can never know exactly what Hitch and Alma’s relationship was like, so having a lot of talented actors performing an entertaining script is really all we can hope for, and Hitchcock delivers. It might not be perfect, but, after all, “It’s only a bloody movie.”

THE HOBBIT (at 48 FPS)

This isn't exactly a review of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey since fans will go see it no matter what is said, and Peter Jackson has offered up something far more interesting to talk about: High Frame Rate 3D. I plan to go back to see a 2D or regular 3D show so I can watch the movie and not the technology, but, as far as new technology goes, it is worth experiencing.

The new format took almost an hour for my mind to adjust, and until then the picture appeared to be on fast-forward. This was not helped by the film’s clunky prologue, but Martin Freeman soon arrived to save me from Ian Holm and Elijah Woods’ bizarrely bad performances.

The format allows for extremely detailed high-def images and it removes motion blur entirely. This leaves the action on screen looking as close to reality as is possible. This would be spectacular for a filmed stage play, or really for any film that doesn’t include giant wolves, orcs, and goblins. Every time a CG element appeared on screen it stuck out like a red flag. The doubled frame-rate doubled the standards for visual accuracy, and it felt like seeing something made in the early 90s.

The one saving grace of the film’s CG cast was Andy Serkis playing Gollum. This is likely a combination of a great actor and a familiar character. I know what Gollum looks like, so I didn’t feel myself analyzing his character design like I did for the Goblin King. I accepted his reality in the (brilliantly-scripted) scene. And this gave me hope for the new technology.

I think that the HFR Hobbit is a sacrificial lamb, a bit like The Dark Knight was with its use of IMAX. There was no way that Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster was going to fail to sell on Blu-ray, but the screen changes sizes between the different camera types, which is somewhat annoying. It still sold, though, because the technology cannot damage what is a great film. This has resulted in IMAX gaining wider use in Hollywood, which is good because IMAX offers unparalleled image quality. The Hobbit was going to make a lot of money even if it was horrible (it isn’t), so to introduce the HFR on a sure-thing means that the technology will proliferate sooner instead of dying on arrival. And despite how much I disliked it for this film (a lot) I think that the HFR format, just like IMAX, should be used again.

So what purpose does it have? I mentioned before that it would work for a filmed stage play, and I think that is a key scenario. But it can’t be filmed like a movie. Peter Jackson tried to have his cake and eat it too. He used his new technology to heighten the reality of his film, but he also framed his shots and edited his scenes like he did in The Lord of the Rings. All the 3D film directors have been doing the same thing, but the HFR has brought more attention to it.

No matter how innovative or edgy or Quentin Tarantino a director may be, there is a basic form of framing and editing that all films share. Dialogue scenes generally have establishing shots and move closer to the actors through a series of different angles cutting between the speakers. This is the language of film that audiences understand and follow best. When filmmakers start on an extreme close up or on an empty set with people talking off-camera they are playing with that language for a particular effect. This language exists to guide the audience’s thoughts and emotions into believing in a world that exists only as a flat image on the wall.

3D shares elements of 2D film language, but its ability to reach out into the audience or back into the depths of the image has altered what is possible. Fast cutting between close-ups is not as effective in 3D as having a pair of actors on screen, in focus, together. The director cannot point our eye exactly where he wants in the same way when, instead of a photograph, we are looking through a window. 3D’s similarity to reality means we are less willing to hand our eyes over to a director who wants us to focus on something specific, and our mind is slower to re-adjust when a cut takes us from one location to another.

It is understandable, therefore, that many critics writing about the HFR have praised the “Riddles in the Dark” sequence with Bilbo and Gollum. It is the best scene in the film in terms of performance, motion capture technology, script, and story. But it is also the best for 3D because it is an extended scene in a single location that uses long takes and shows most of the character in the frame. It is a stage play. And for this reason it feels more real than anything else in the movie.

Now imagine a feature film that is entirely made of scenes like this. No extravagant special effects to scrutinize and no fast-cutting action scenes. Just quality performances with a smart script, high story stakes, and an immersive HFR 3D picture offering absolutely realistic images. It could be the ultimate combination of film and live theatre.

3D is here to stay. That was clear the moment Avatar passed two billion dollars worldwide. But we are still in the experimental period where new language is being discovered. Like the 1930s adjusting to sound, the time is soon approaching when films like It Happened One Night, All Quiet on the Western Front, and M will show audiences how new technology can be used to tell a story instead of just showing off how new it is.

LINCOLN

History can sometimes weigh on a film like an albatross around its neck. The importance of getting things right while being entertaining while making something respectable while making it broad enough to get an audience to justify the larger budget for period sets can be overwhelming. When the subject matter is the man on the US penny, and his fight to pass one of the most important pieces of legislation in US history, that weight of history could easily turn any film into a dusty textbook. But Steven Spielberg does not make dusty textbooks, and Lincoln is possibly his best addition to Hollywood’s collection of history on film.

At the end of 1865, Abraham Lincoln has won re-election, the Civil War is in its final year, and the President has decided that the time has come to pass the 13th Amendment to end slavery. With a trio of proto-lobbyists and the Radical Republican Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones), Lincoln and his Secretary of State (David Strathairn) play politics with Congress while continuing to fight the Confederacy.

A film about Abraham Lincoln directed by Steven Spielberg was inevitable. He has been planning it for more than a decade. Scripts and screenwriters have come and gone as the centerpiece of the story shifted from Lincoln’s early days to the Civil War. Finally Tony Kushner (Angels in America, Munich) was hired to adapt Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals, with the focus on Lincoln’s final years. The script that resulted is easily one of the best historical adaptations I’ve seen. It achieves the delicate task of creating dialogue for cultural icons, balancing fact with entertainment, and creating suspense where none exists. Like Apollo 13 or Titanic, there is no mystery about the conclusion, but there is so much drama to be found along the way. History adaptations are interesting for all the details that are not widely known, and unless the audience has studied the source materials, there are plenty of surprises in Lincoln.

In one of Spielberg’s earlier versions he had cast Liam Neeson as the President when Daniel Day-Lewis passed. That production was put aside and Day-Lewis was eventually persuaded to join. Good that he did because the performance he gives is nothing short of astounding. Everything, from his posture to his voice, appears completely natural; he isn’t playing Lincoln, he is Lincoln. It’s a cliche, but it’s true: Daniel Day-Lewis completely disappears into this role.

Part of Day-Lewis’ impressive performance comes from his supporting cast. Spielberg is the most powerful director in Hollywood, so he can get anyone he wants. Everywhere in Lincoln there are familiar faces wearing false beards or Gone With The Wind dresses. Sally Field is a standout as Mary Todd Lincoln, and Joseph Gordon Levitt as her son, Robert. James Spader plays a 19th Century version of his Boston Legal persona named W. N. Bilbo. And Watchmen’s Rorschach, Jackie Earle Haley, plays the Vice-President of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens. The recognizable cast echoes JFK or The Aviator, where modern celebrity is used to make up for the diminished notoriety of the real people. It’s an elegant and old-fashioned strategy to make lesser historical figures relevant to a modern audience. But, among this celebrity cast, Daniel Day-Lewis still disappears under Abraham Lincoln’s face, which makes his performance even more amazing.

An important aspect of Lincoln’s power is the cast of antagonists. The democratic leaders, the Confederacy diplomats, and the average white farmers who fear mass murder at the hands of freed slaves are strangely humanized despite their views. A combination of script and performance makes clear their arguments as to why ending slavery is bad. Their logic is broken and their views are obviously wrong, but it is not difficult to understand how and why they hold the views they do. This gives the opposition to the amendment real credibility, which aids the suspense in the voting sequence.

The climax of the film, much like the title moment of The King’s Speech, is played almost verbatim as it would have happened. The roll is called and one by one the congressmen vote; focus jumps around to all the characters in the film, and slowly the tally is taken until the results are announced. It seems odd that something so methodical and bureaucratic could be so exciting, but that is the curious power that this film wields. Spielberg has put together a tremendously balanced film. It is witty, engaging, and never feels too long. Essentially, it’s a 19th Century episode of The West Wing, which any fan of the show will tell you sounds amazing.

CLOUD ATLAS

“Remarkable,” “Convoluted,” “Entertaining,” “Sprawling,” “Masterful,” “Transcendant,” and “Guaranteed to divide.” Those are the words the critics have been using about Cloud Atlas. I prefer what was said by the film’s three directors, Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachoswki, and Andy Wachowski, when they premiered the six-minute first trailer: “It’s hard to sell, hard to describe, because it’s hard to reduce.”

Based on the highly-acclaimed (and highly-recommended) novel by David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas is not one 3-hour movie much like the novel is not one 500-page book. It is actually a collection of six 30-minute movies spread across time, space, and genre. These short films have been chopped up and spliced together with interruptions and mid-sentence stops, with voice-overs carrying across multiple stories, and with connections both explicit and implicit. It is an ambitous and unusual film, but unlike other attempts to create grand scope and provoke philosophical debate, Cloud Atlas is also wonderfully fun and entertaining. Tree of Life is an attempt to interweave different eras and themes, but for all its artistic quality it is still a cure for insomnia. But Cloud Atlas’ directors (creators of The Matrix and Run Lola Run) are eager to entertain, and for all the ambition driving the film it never forgets to tell a good narrative.

The ambition of the project is only clearer when the cast is considered. Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Ben Whishaw, Susan Sarandon, and Hugh Grant are among the main cast, and every one plays at least three parts. Several of the actors, including Tom Hanks, actually play six parts; one role for each section of Cloud Atlas, playing different personalities, different races, and even different genders.

In these six sections the film covers all the major genres and time periods: a dying doctor on a pacific voyage in 1849, letters from a composer to his lover in pre-war Europe, a conspiracy thriller in the 1970s, a modern-day comedy of a publisher committed to a nursing home, the future rebellion of a clone in Korea, and the post-apocalyptic survival story of a tribe living on Hawaii. Taken alone any of these stories would be worthy films, but taken together they become part of a larger work that is offered up to the audience for their interpretation.

Unlike in the book, one of my favorite sections is the earliest, the 1849 travel of Adam Ewing (Jim Sturgess) as he is being cared for by Dr. Henry Goose. The eccentric doctor is brought to life by Tom Hanks, and is one of the best examples in the film of how the casting adds new levels of enjoyment to the stories. Like a blockbuster adaptation of “Where’s Waldo?” it is a lot of fun trying to spot all the famous faces hidden under the make-up. At the end of the film the credits include the answer-key with all the actors’ characters showing up alongside their name, and its likely that several will come as a surprise.

Cloud Atlas is a film like The Avengers in that the people who like it and the people who don’t like it will probably be saying the same thing; “So massive,” and “Too massive,” are reviews from personal taste. I’ve met people who hate Casablanca or The Fighter, but praise Valentine’s Day for its originality, and I think those people are idiots. But that’s my personal opinion. It’s impossible to make a film that everyone likes, and Cloud Atlas is not for everyone. It is 3-hours, after all, and there is violence and romance alongside foul language and futuristic slang. Fans of Hugh Grant may find it difficult to see the rom-com leading man in the same light after seeing him play the warrior chief of a tribe of cannibals. But, for the other side of the audience, this film includes Hugh Grant playing the warrior chief of a tribe of cannibals! Depending on how you approach that line (exclamation point or period) might tell you if Cloud Atlas is a film you will enjoy.

The best I can say is that I enjoyed it. When I wasn’t enjoying the characters and their stories, I enjoyed the filmmaking. When I wasn’t enjoying the filmmaking, I enjoyed the music. There was never a moment where I felt the film was dragging too long, skipping over something important, or failing to hold my attention. It is a sprawling epic in the best way, and I highly recommend giving it the opportunity to surprise you.

SKYFALL

Connery. Lazenby. Moore. Dalton. Brosnan. Now Craig. Casino Royale introduced us to Craig as “The New Bond”. Quantum of Solace may have stumbled, but he was still “A Bond”. Now Skyfall shows us that Craig is “The Bond”. Perhaps it is because Craig is more actor than movie star; perhaps it is because he has, in Sam Mendes, been given a great drama director rather than just a great action director; or maybe it is because Skyfall has combined some of the best Bond story elements with a touch of The Dark Knight. No matter which reason is cited most, it is very clear that Skyfall has left Craig standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Sean Connery as the best James Bond.

Skyfall opens with a breakneck sequence on par with Casino Royale’s parkour foot chase, which sees Bond racing through the markets of Istanbul with fellow agent Eve (Naomie Harris). A decision from M (Judi Dench) leaves 007 missing, presumed dead, and the titles play with the new theme from Adele. The best Bond themes have, with the exception of Live and Let Die, been sung by powerful female vocalists like Shirley Bassey or Tina Turner. Adele fits in better than the previous few singers, and the song is a terrific single with lyrics worth hearing again after seeing the film.

As the story gets going there is the foreboding absence of a villain. We meet the charming new Q (Ben Whishaw), and the mysterious bureaucrat Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes). Bond gets his handprint-identifying gun back from Licence to Kill, and a radio transmitter very similar to one he received in Goldfinger. References to the classic films carry on throughout with a familiar car making an impressive comeback. But nearly half way through the film and still no villain. He is hinted at, he is described, but he is not shown. Like the shark in Jaws, he is held out of sight for as long as possible so that his entrance can be more powerful.

The scene were we are finally introduced to Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem) may be the greatest confrontation of Bond and villain ever put to screen. The dialogue is so tightly woven and beautifully played; it is just short of, “No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.” The scene, and Bardem’s performance, are comparable to the kitchen confrontation between the Joker and the mob in The Dark Knight.

Echoes of Christopher Nolan’s Batman masterpiece are throughout, and in every way these echoes add to and improve the Bond formula. A major element of the villains plan is lifted directly from the Joker’s plot, and the pitting of an “unstoppable force against an immovable object” drives Skyfall in a powerful way. It seems things have come full circle since Nolan has cited Bond’s films as being formative to his technique.

Beyond the story and character details that make Skyfall so engaging, and standing behind Sam Mendes on the creative team, is the film’s cinematographer Roger Deakins. His name might not be familiar, but he has nine Oscar nominations for such films as True Grit, No Country For Old Men, Fargo, and The Shawshank Redemption. His work behind the lights and lenses of Skyfall make it the best-looking Bond film ever. The constantly changing neon world of Shanghai, the foggy highlands of Scotland, and the red haze of a massive fire are brilliantly captured. Combined with Sam Mendes’ sure direction, which avoids the fast and shaky editing of Quantum or the Bourne films, Skyfall has an elegant clarity that has been missed from modern action films.

Returning Bond to the clear film style and classic formula is at the heart of Skyfall’s goal for the franchise. It is, as Empire Magazine put it, as if Daniel Craig was introduced as Bond in Casino Royale and Quantum, and has in the intervening time been through all of his previous adventures. He is older, wiser, and is more like the character we were introduced to fifty years ago. The re-introduction of formula standards like Q make it clear by the end that when Bond returns he will have all the elements that make a Bond film with him.

Unlike Craig’s first three pictures, Bond 24 will, I hope, open with a gun barrel and that classic Monty Norman theme. Skyfall teases the famous theme music, and holds back from using the full riff until well over half way, but by the time the guitar notes hit the film has already stepped into place as one of the greatest Bond films in the franchise’s fifty-year history. With Skyfall achieving 92% on Rotten Tomatoes and leading Quantum of Solace by $60 million to be the most successful of the franchise, further Bond can only be a good thing, and 2014 is eagerly awaited.

State of the Hollywood Rom-Com

Did you see The Back-Up Plan? How about The Five-Year Engagement? The Bounty Hunter? Anything Katherine Heigl did after Knocked Up? You have? Then let me ask, are you ever going to watch any of them again?

In any film genre I can usually find enough solace in the five-star classics to make up for the two-star clones that follow. This is becoming less and less the case with romantic comedies. Crazy, Stupid, Love. was terrific and surprising, and Friends With Benefits had Aaron Sorkin levels of witty dialogue, but there were a dozen films like The Switch in between.

The reason for this is the same reason that Universal made Battleship and Paramount has hired Michael Bay to do a fourth Transformers film. Hollywood executives are dealing with piracy and the threat of HBO and AMC in the only way they know how. Fewer films are being made each year, and the ones that are greenlit are broad-appeal PG-13 films with major star names attached for max marketability. These can make decent money in the US and then sweep up in the lucrative Asian market. I’m not joking when I say that this is why Dreamworks is planning five more Kung Fu Panda sequels.

The rom-com genre evolved out of the melodramas and slapstick comedies of the 1920s and came into mass popularity with screwball comedies like It Happened One Night. To qualify as rom-com a film needs two people to fall in love and for nothing (like death) to separate them at the end. That’s it. Everything else is up for creative interpretation. So why are there so many lousy boyfriends keeping the girl from the right guy until act three? Why does everybody work in advertising or publishing? Why is the right girl always the quirky one who resembles Zooey Deschanel?

This dilution of artistic integrity is obviously not limited to the romantic comedy genre, and independent producers continue to make critically-praised, good films in all genres, which go on to steal all the major awards from the major studios. But as long as major studios keep their advertising budgets on the level of a small country’s GDP, the general audience who doesn’t attend film festivals will be stuck with the movie that opens in four thousand theaters on Friday and is on Blu-ray three months later.

The good news is that change is coming. Hollywood always bounces back, which is why it has lasted over a century. When television stole their audience in the 50s, filmmakers stole it back with Technicolor and bigger screens. When VHS changed the market in the 70s, producers handed creative power to young directors like George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Martin Scorsese. The digital age has done it again, and Hollywood has already started to shift. Like before, they are fighting back with new technology (3D) and new talent. When Marvel hired Joss Whedon he was widely unknown. He had several cancelled TV shows and an eager, but small, fan base. Then he made The Avengers, which has become the third highest-grossing film of all time ($1.5 billion).

If a filmmaker like Joss Whedon, the man behind the no-budget web series Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog, can become the toast of Hollywood then there is plenty to hope for. Christopher Nolan is the clearest example of how a filmmaker who makes good films can gain independence, which gives him the freedom to make even better, bigger films. Directors like Nicholas Winding Refn and Duncan Jones are following in Nolan’s steps and gaining the credentials necessary to gain creative independence.

For those of you who suffered through Killers, Did You Hear About the Morgans?, and The Ugly Truth, I offer you this solution: while Hollywood sorts itself out and finds new talent take a look at the past for your romance needs. Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Groundhog Day (1993), Annie Hall (1977), The Apartment (1960), The Philadelphia Story (1940), His Girl Friday (1940), It Happened One Night (1934), and City Lights (1931) are called “classic” for very good reasons. Films like Made of Honor do not keep audiences coming back for eighty years.

This argument for rediscovering the classics is not meant to be just a list of recommendations. The fact is that until films like The Proposal stop making $300 million worldwide the studios will not stop making predictable, hit-and-miss, sometimes-funny films that rely on awkward situations and ad-lib from talented actors who deserve better. Stop picking the films that have all the advertising and 55% on Rotten Tomatoes. The internet is there for you. Use it. Let the critics watch bad films for free so that your ticket revenue can go to real filmmakers. Don’t call everything made before 2010 “old”, try watching a foreign film every once in a while, and don’t expect Katherine Heigl to pick a good script.

PREMIUM RUSH

Premium Rush is an urban action thriller about Wilee (like the Coyote), a Manhattan bike messenger who picks up an envelope that a corrupt cop is desperate to get his hands on. It uses old fashioned stunt work in combination with digital maps and a non-chronological plot to keep its 91 minute runtime breezy and accessible.

The story is told in a fractured manner, which has become standard practice for thrillers. Starting in the middle and jumping back and forth through the day with a digital clock to orient the viewer, Premium Rush hits many familiar points and plots. Despite the familiarity it won’t feel like an assembly line film because it has a good script and strong performances by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Michael Shannon.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who was once best-known as “Tommy” from 3rd Rock From the Sun, plays Wilee. Since Mysterious Skin, Brick, and The Lookout he has graduated from child actor to up-and-coming performer, and 50/50, Inception, and The Dark Knight Rises have started him on the path to being an A-list star. The last 10 years of his career is a mix of arthouse and blockbuster, and his performances have been stellar in both. With mind-bender Looper and Oscar-bait Lincoln on the way he has picked the perfect time to be involved in an easy entertainer like Premium Rush.

The corrupt cop Bobby Monday is a great role for Shannon because he is another on-the-edge psycho for Shannon to add his unique voice and physicality. Shannon is not a household name and his face is probably only familiar to the small audience who has seen his indie drama work like Revolutionary Road or Take Shelter, and his role as Agent Van Alden in Boardwalk Empire. Next year he will bring a new on-the-edge psycho to life as General Zod in the Superman reboot, Man of Steel. Some have called him the next Christopher Walken, but until Shannon tries a full-on comedy he is more likely to follow his Zod predecessor Terrance Stamp and continue to play corrupt psychos, which is fine because he is terribly good at it.

Premium Rush is directed and co-written by David Koepp, who is best known for writting the screenplays for Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible, and War of the Worlds, but he also directed the entertaining Stephen King adaptation Secret Window. A major part of Koepp’s career has been as a script doctor, and many of the better Hollywood adventure films of the last twenty years have his finger prints on them.

If there is a criticism to be layed on Koepp’s direction it is the over-use of 3D maps and other digital flourishes. When Wilee approaches an intersection the film slows down to show him imagining his route options. These scenes are at times funny or suspensful, but the “Frogger vision” gimmick runs dry and spoils some of the tension.

I tend to get annoyed when characters in action films act stupidly just to extend the plot, but it is nearly universal in recent thrillers. Luckily David Koepp is an old pro at this and he keeps the contrivances to a minimum. By the end of the film you won’t be thinking that you could have handled the situation better. Unless, that is, you are a world-class athlete, bike acrobat, and an expert at interpersonal communication.

Premium Rush is worth the ticket price, but it’s also worth the rental price. It isn’t an event picture like The Dark Knight Rises or a potential mind-bender like Looper, so there is no need to hurry. It is an exciting and entertaining action thriller that will be just as exciting and entertaining if you happen upon it on cable next year, but if you’re looking for a new action film then this is your best option until James Bond returns in Skyfall on November 9.

Kubrick and Freud

The id, Freud’s name for subconscious desires, and the superego, which is the subconscious limiting of those desires to conform to society, are weighed by the conscious ego. This balancing act of fantasy and repression is what Freud considered the baseline of someone’s personality. With a career spanning fifty years and a filmography that crosses all genre boundaries, Stanley Kubrick achieved status as a master filmmaker with particular skill in bringing to the screen stories and personalities that defy single interpretations. Through open narratives and careful use of the alienation effect Kubrick’s films remain compelling reasons to apply psychoanalytical theory to modern ideas of fantasy, personality, and desire in both films and real life.

Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) was the critical and commercial success that allowed Kubrick to make his ambitious science fiction masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Eyes Wide Shut (1999), based on Arthur Schnitzler’s Dream Story, was originally intended by Kubrick to be his follow up to 2001, but he pursued other projects until thirty years later when it became his final film. Eyes Wide Shut is an overtly sexual drama while Dr. Strangelove is, on its surface, a cold war satire. Both films use sexual fantasy and repression - a pendulum swing of inner desire and social conformity - to expand on their abstract themes; Eyes Wide Shut explores modern theories of love and sexuality while Dr. Strangelove explores the madness of the cold war.

The “odyssey” that Dr. Harford (Tom Cruise) goes on in Eyes Wide Shut is triggered by his wife Alice’s (Nicole Kidman) confession to fantasizing about an extra-marital affair. This is a blow to his self-esteem and his monogamous security. In response, Dr. Harford explores his own desires and fantasies as he agonizes over the imaginary infidelity. Eventually he finds his way back to his wife and to the discovery of a new interpretation of their sexual relationship. The trigger of the female fantasy leads to a series of confrontations that interchange sex with death, commerce, and love (Deleyto 31).

A similar, but inverted, connection of fantasy and nightmare occurs in Dr. Strangelove. In a film where the only female character is a secretary and sexual partner named Miss Scott (but only addressed by Gen. Turgidson as “Baby”), the male characters are given free rein to plan their fantasies. When the doomsday device has been triggered and the nuclear apocalypse is upon them, the men in the war room listen to the Nazi Dr. Strangelove and his plan for them to survive in mine shafts with a ratio of ten women for each man:

I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics, which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.

- Dr. Strangelove (Peter Sellers)

This new world imagined by the doctor is a genetically pure culture, a Nazi fantasy, and it is such an exciting idea that the wheelchair-bound Dr. Strangelove stands up (becomes erect) and declares, “Mein Fuhrer! I can walk!” But the male fantasy of this future would be less-than-ideal for its female population. As much as Eyes Wide Shut reveals a man’s sexual nightmare resulting from a woman’s fantasy, Dr. Strangelove shows a woman’s nightmare resulting from male fantasies.

A pivotal film in Kubrick’s career was his follow-up to 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was an adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s novel about anarchy and social conditioning through science, A Clockwork Orange (1971). The main character, Alex (Malcolm McDowell), is the psychotic leader of a gang of violent teenagers. His life is completely unrestricted, and he satisfies every urge he has through violence, sex, murder, and music. When he is betrayed by his gang, Alex is sent to prison and then into a rehabilitation program. Through chemical psychotherapy, Alex develops a false superego, a debilitating nausea that appears when he comes into contact with his socially unacceptable desires. It is this treatment that has turned him into “a clockwork orange,” which leaves him with a natural exterior but with nothing underneath except the psycho-chemical constraints. When Alex is returned to his violent self at the end it is presented as a positive event because it means that - although he is violent and destructive - he is back to being human.

Freudian characters like Alex populate many of Kubrick’s films. In Eyes Wide Shut, Dr. Bill Harford is a man who, unlike Alex, appears to be in complete control of his emotions and desires. When his wife accuses him of lusting after his female patients, Bill reacts calmly and clinically. He explains that there is a female nurse present, that the situation is completely free of any romantic elements, and then he tries to calm her down by diagnosing the source of her anger: “Let’s just relax, Alice. This pot is making you aggressive.” The doctor’s veneer of honest professionalism is undermined in a number of scenes. For example, he reassures his wife that he would never lie to her in one scene, but in the next he lies about his reasons for staying out late. Bill is driven by his subconscious desires or a sense of guilt for much of the film, and it is only in short moments, such as when he leaves the prostitute’s apartment before having an affair, that his conscious sense of responsibility drives him away from making mistakes.

Another important character representing unleashed subconscious desires is Jack Torrence (Jack Nicholson), the familicidal caretaker in The Shining (1980). At the start of the film, Jack has restrained himself by repressing his destructive urges, such as drinking, and is introduced as a happy father, husband, and writer. His dark, unrestrained side is hinted at when his wife tells a doctor of the time when Jack dislocated his son’s shoulder in a moment of rage. When the family moves into the Overlook Hotel, Jack’s unrestrained self begins to take over. As with all of Kubrick’s films there are various ways to interpret Jack’s slow decline into madness. The “evil” hotel, disturbed ghosts, schizophrenia, or cabin fever are all defendable explanations for Jack’s psychosis; however, the evidence for his decline is rooted in the Freudian tug-of-war that Kubrick shows Jack going through. His hallucinations (or visits from ghosts) are slowly developed until the final chase when all the horrors of the hotel are revealed. Jack does not step away from reality in a single moment, and his growing frustration with his wife and distance from his son are mixed with moments of tenderness or protective behaviour. The character arcs in The Shining were so central to Kubrick’s story that he insisted on filming in sequence so the actors would not be forced to revert to an earlier, more restrained point of view (Duncan 166).

Although the central character representing the audience’s point of view in The Shining is Danny, the film’s main character is the killer, Jack. In A Clockwork Orange the main character is the psychotic Alex. These extreme personalities are not alone in Kubrick’s filmography. Many of his films include central characters with extreme personalities like the murderous computer HAL 9000 in 2001, the pedophiliac Professor Humbert Humbert (James Mason) in Lolita (1962), the amoral social-climber Redmond Barry (Ryan O’Neal) in Barry Lyndon (1975), or the ensemble of broken eccentrics in Full Metal Jacket (1987). These characters illustrate Freud’s theory of personalities resulting from the id/ego/superego balance as much as they show Kubrick’s careful attention to character development.

The scene at the center of both Eyes Wide Shut and Schnitzler’s Dream Story is a masked “orgy” in a country mansion infiltrated by the main character. In the film version, Dr. Harford’s curiosity is peaked by an old friend who claims to play piano blindfolded for a secret group. Using what little his friend tells him, the doctor gets an appropriate costume and hires a taxi to get to the mansion. The masked characters move slowly, never speak, and remain anonymous throughout the strange sequence. When Dr. Harford is discovered he is made to remove his mask and expose his identity, which in the book the character thinks would be far worse than to be naked when everyone else is clothed. This humiliation is interrupted by a masked woman who “saves” him by volunteering to take his place, and this comes at the end of an evening that included several insults to Dr. Harford’s perception of his own masculinity. While walking the streets the doctor is physically assaulted by a group of frat boys who throw homophobic insults as they walk away, which bothers the doctor and leads directly to his nervous acceptance of a prostitute’s invitation to her home. Dr. Harford’s sexual desire or curiosity leads him through the first half of the film until his discovery at the party. In the second half it is his curiosity about the night before that continues to drive him to seek out answers. What he finds is that the prostitute he nearly slept with is HIV positive, that the woman who “saved” him has died mysteriously, and that his friend, the piano player, has disappeared from his hotel. Each of these incidents are taken by Dr. Harford to be his fault, and his building guilt drives him on to seek more answers. Despite warnings from the secret society behind the masked party, Dr. Harford continues his quest until he is confronted by an old friend who is revealed to have witnessed his unmasking. The masked party is the turning point where Dr. Harford’s character shifts from following his desires (his id) to following his guilt (his superego). Only when both have been taken to the extremes does Bill finally break down, weep, and confess everything to his wife.

In confessing to his wife, just as she had confessed to him at the start, Dr. Harford comes to a place of balance. The final scene shows the couple in a toy store with their daughter, shopping for Christmas, and their final discussion opens with Bill asking his wife, “What do you think we should do?” She slowly answers, “Maybe I think we should be grateful. Grateful that we’ve managed to survive through all of our adventures. Whether they were real or only in a dream.” Neither of them has a complete answer. They cannot confirm what the purpose of their story has been, how they will handle the future, or if they will remain together. But the fact that they are together, shopping with their daughter, talking to each other, and confessing their desires and concerns show the psychological balance they have come to.

Bill tries to affirm his commitment, “Forever,” he says, but she replies, “Let’s not use that word. It frightens me.” At this point the film, like the novel, comes to Freud’s conclusion that a balance of desire and guilt is necessary for a healthy personality, but that nothing can be predicted to last “Forever.” Kubrick, however, goes one step further. In the final seconds of the film the exchange between Bill and Alice expands the argument to include a balance of psychological desire with physical expression, which is Kubrick’s truly modern addition to Schnitzler’s story and Freud’s theory:

Alice: “But I do love you, and you know there is something very important that we need to do as soon as possible.”

Bill: “What’s that?”

Alice: “Fuck.”

- Final lines of Eyes Wide Shut

Despite working as a director for over fifty years, Stanley Kubrick only wrote and directed twelve feature films. The extent to which his films can be reinterpreted and analyzed is a testament to Kubrick’s skill, ambition, and understanding of the psychological effects of film. It is fitting that Kubrick’s final film was based on a novel by the Viennese writer Arthur Schnitzler, whose work was highly respected by Sigmund Freud for its psychological insight (Cocks 36). Many have argued that Kubrick’s slow working method deprived the world of further Kubrick films, and even Stanley Kubrick himself expressed dismay at failing to create more. But, in Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (2001), Martin Scorsese responded by saying, “I wish he’d made more, but these are enough. Because there is so much in each one… It’s like watching a different movie every time you see it.”

Works Cited

2001: A Space Odyssey. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester, and Douglas Rain (voice). MGM, 1968. Blu-ray.

A Clockwork Orange. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, and Michael Bates. Warner Brothers, 1971. DVD.

Barry Lyndon. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Ryan O’Neal, Marisa Berenson, and Patrick Magee. Warner Brothers, 1975. DVD.

Cocks, Geoffrey. "Stanley Kubrick's Dream Machine: Psychoanalysis, Film, and History." The Annual of Psychoanalysis 31 (2003): 35. Print.

Danckwardt, Joachim F. "From Dream Story (Schnitzler) to Eyes Wide Shut (Kubrick) from Identity through Meaning Formation to Identity through Excitation." The International Journal of Psychoanalysis 88.3 (2007): 735-51. Print.

Deleyto Alcalá, Celestino. “1999, a Closet Odyssey: Sexual Discourses in Eyes Wide Shut." Atlantis: Revista de la Asociación Española de Estudios Anglo-Norteamericanos 28.1 (2006): 29-43. Print.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickens, and James Earl Jones. Columbia, 1964. DVD.

Duncan, Paul. Stanley Kubrick: The Complete Films. Koln: Taschen, 2011. Print.

Eyes Wide Shut. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, and Sydney Pollack. Warner Brothers, 1999. DVD.

Falsetto, Mario. Stanley Kubrick: A Narrative and Stylistic Analysis. Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2001. Print.

Full Metal Jacket. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Matthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, Vincent D’Onofrio, and R. Lee Ermy. Warner Brothers, 1987. DVD.

Lolita. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. James Mason, Shelley Winters, Sue Lyon, and Peter Sellers. MGM, 1962. DVD.

Shining, The. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, and Scatman Crothers. Warner Brothers, 1980. DVD.

Spartacus. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Perf. Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, Jean Simmons, and Tony Curtis. Universal, 1960. DVD.

Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures. Dir. Jan Harlan. Perf. Tom Cruise, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Malcolm McDowell, and Sydney Pollack. Warner Brothers, 2001. DVD.

Helmetag, Charles H. "Dream Odysseys: Schnitzler's Traumnovelle and Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut." Literature/Film Quarterly 31.4 (2003): 276. Print.

Schnitzler, Arthur. Dream Story (Traumnovelle). London: Penguin, 1999. Print.

Heroes, Trilogies and THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

WARNING: this contains spoilers for the end of all of Christopher Nolan’s films including The Dark Knight Rises. DO NOT READ if you have not seen The Dark Knight Rises. I cannot stress enough how much better it is to experience the film spoiler-free.

In a film like Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon the question, “Who is the main character?” is easily answered. He’s the one in the title. Stanley Kubrick used a character name for the title of four of his films. Two of them (Spartacus and Barry Lyndon) are clearly of the main character. Lolita is a slight variation since the main character is clearly Professor Humbert, but the driving force of the film is his focus on the girl, Lolita. The fourth is Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Ignoring the satirical subtitle, Dr. Strangelove, is a film about an ensemble of political and military characters facing nuclear armageddon. The title character in this case has no impact on the driving forces of the plot since he neither launches the attack nor makes the final decisions on how to remedy the situation. Dr. Strangelove is as much a concept as he is a character, which for a political satire makes sense; there is very little “character development” in Dr. Strangelove, and many of the parts are characatures or impersonations. Kubrick’s relationship through his films to the idea of a “main character” evolved as much as the subject matter of his films. He focused on a charismatic leading man (A Clockwork Orange), on the inner turmoil of a single person (Eyes Wide Shut), he told the story of an ensemble (Full Metal Jacket), a couple (Killer’s Kiss), and of the entirety of human existence (2001: A Space Odyssey). In the films that do feature an easily recognizable “main character” he is usually the one shown with the most to gain, to lose, to witness, or to grapple with emotionally.

Stanley Kubrick is not alone in this form. Most mainstream filmmakers choose a main character to follow and allow the story to revolve around that person. In cases where a main character is overshadowed it is usually a more talented actor stealing the spotlight, or a case of the writer making a mistake about who the main character is. There are also cases of main characters only appearing for a short time. Anthony Hopkins appears in The Silence of the Lambs for only 16 minutes, but he won an Oscar in the Best Actor in a Leading Role category because he is both integral to the plot and rediculously memorable.

Arguably the best contendor for the title of “this generation’s Stanley Kubrick” is Christopher Nolan. At this stage of his career he has directed 8 feature films, and, like Stanley Kubrick, he has exercised a high level of control over each. Among those 8 films is The Dark Knight, which holds a 94% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and (as of July 21, 2012) is the fourth-highest all time US box office. Nolan has achieved a level of financial success that Kubrick never dreamed of. To be fair he has done it by creating wide-appeal blockbusters instead of the more “adult” films of Kubrick. Even still, the quality of Nolan’s filmmaking has easily placed him on the level of the greatest film directors.

There have been many great sequels, but very few great trilogies. This is because there is a transformation that occurs when the “trilogy” is defined, and often there is a weakest link that harms the other two entries. In the case of The Lord of the Rings, it was defined as a trilogy from the very beginning because of the source novels of J.R.R. Tolkien. The original Star Wars trilogy was defined in the scene of The Empire Strikes Back when Darth Vader tells Luke that he is his father; as the movie concludes it is clearly building to a conclusive third part. Other trilogies are only defined in the aftermath of the third film’s release; Toy Story 3, The Godfather Part III, and Back to the Future Part III were all sequels that ended in a more conclusive way than their predecessors. In cutting off clear sequel options these films defined themselves as being the end to their trilogies.

Newly released is Nolan’s 8th feature, The Dark Knight Rises, which concludes the newly-minted Dark Knight Trilogy. These three films are some of the best-reviewed films of the last decade and can be held up together as one of the greatest trilogies ever created. It is also a unique trilogy because the defining moment occurred outside of the films’ storylines, but after the second film. Christopher Nolan was the one who called The Dark Knight Rises the conclusion to his trilogy, and when he did there began a shift in how the films must be viewed.

Most trilogies, such as the original Star Wars films, are crafted with a clear main character. When George Lucas wrote Star Wars he was working from the Joseph Campbell theory of “The Hero’s Journey”, which has become the dominant storytelling structure in Hollywood. Campbell’s structure favours a single main character and a single villain. There are supporting parts, of course, but the focus of the story is on these two parts: Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, and the journey that one takes to confront the other.

Despite being the title character in all three films (although I will discuss the third film’s title in more detail), Batman/Bruce Wayne is not, by the end of the trilogy, the only main character. This is the trick that Nolan has pulled off so well in his trilogy's conclusion. Much like how The Empire Strikes Back line, “Luke, I’m your father,” causes the audience to re-evaluate the character motivations in Star Wars, The Dark Knight Rises makes the audience re-evaluate who the main character really is.

Batman Begins is a very character-driven story that follows Bruce Wayne’s journey from child of fortune to Batman. He has important supporting players like Alfred and Lt. Gordon, but the events of the film are portrayed for how they impact Bruce’s journey. In the end, however, he has achieved his status as the Batman we already knew - albiet in a darker, more realistic way.

The Dark Knight is the Batman film that no one could have expected. Christopher Nolan took the character, pitted him against his greatest enemy, and then revealed an element of the character that was entirely new. At the end of the film the Joker has achieved his goal of driving Harvey Dent mad, which will break the spirit of the people of Gotham and undoe all the anti-crime work that Dent, Gordon and Batman had done. To save Gotham, Batman takes the blame for Dent’s crimes and allows himself to become an outcast, a villain, that the city can rally against. This concept of uniting in peace against a common foe is at the center of Watchmen, Alan Moore’s influential comic. To end the cold war the main characters agree to stay quiet about Ozymandias’ guilt and allow the world to believe that their common foe is really to blame. In this way the choice Batman makes at the end of the Dark Knight is similar to the one made by Dr. Manhattan at the end of the film version of Watchmen.

Batman, Bruce Wayne, is still the main character of The Dark Knight, and Comissioner Gordon’s final speech makes clear how he has become the title character. The Dark Knight, however, has more than one main character. James Gordon and Harvey Dent are given equal footing, and both are made to be characters (almost) as important to defeating the villain as Batman. By expanding the role of supporting characters Nolan began down a path that no film series had done before, but which is common storytelling practice in comic books. Batman: Year One is a comic by Frank Miller detailing the first year that Batman and James Gordon are in Gotham City. Although it was a source for Batman Begins, in the comic both men are main characters. Year One, like many comics, allows multiple character to share the spotlight. In larger stories, such as War Games or the stories of the Justice League, comics tell epic narratives with multiple main characters. This form of narrative goes slightly away from the structure established by Joseph Campbell and popularized by George Lucas. Wether intentionally or not, Christopher Nolan hinted at what was coming when he made The Dark Knight, and his statement that The Dark Knight Rises is “the biggest one anyone’s done since the silent era,” is true. (Empire Magazine #277)

The concept of an “epic” makes most people think of the massive sets and budgets of films like The Lord of the Rings, Ben-Hur, or Titanic; the films are longer, the explosions are bigger, and the awards are won in greater numbers. However, the Hollywood epic is more complex than that. Films like Spartacus, Lawrence of Arabia, Gone With The Wind, and 2001: A Space Odyssey are epics, and they hold this title because - beyond their big budgets, sets, and runtimes - they tell the stories of many people. Epics do not tell the story of a single Joseph Campbell hero, they tell the story of multiple Campbell heroes. The Dark Knight Rises is a Hollywood epic. It is also a Hollywood epic that is almost entirely unique because although it is based on established characters and parts of its story are lifted from specific comics, it is not based on an historical event or on a previously-published book.

The Dark Knight Rises delivers what Christopher Nolan promised it would: a conclusion to Bruce Wayne’s story that was started in Batman Begins. However, it is also the story of Commissioner Gordon, Selina Kyle, Alfred Pennyworth, Miranda Tate, John Blake, Lucius Fox, Bane, and Deputy Commissioner Foley. Each character is given a part of the story that involves personal stakes as high as those faced by Harvey Dent or James Gordon in The Dark Knight, and each character is important to the larger story of the city of Gotham.

It is possible to counter by arguing that these characters are all still supporting players to the story of Bruce Wayne. To a certain extent that is true. But the proof that Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy is about more than just Bruce Wayne lies in the film’s title and in its final shot.

Nolan has a terrific history of leaving his films with a very important final shot, and sometimes a very important final line. Inception ends with Cobb’s top spinning and then cuts to black before the mystery can be conclusively solved. Memento ends at the beginning of the story as Leonard Shelby pulls up in front of the tattoo parlour, which starts everything in motion. The Prestige ends with the haunting image of dozens of dead Robert Angier clones floating in water traps. Batman Begins ends with the teasing image of a joker card and then Batman flying over the city. The Dark Knight ends with Gordon’s powerful monologue and the final explanation of the title, and how it relates to Batman and Bruce Wayne as the main character. The Dark Knight Rises ends with John Blake stepping into the Batcave and being raised on a hidden platform. The Dark Knight of the title is not Bruce Wayne, it is this former detective who’s birth name is Robin Blake.

In the end it is Gotham City and its citizens, the world in which this Batman exists, that is the main character. That might seem like a cop out answer, but the concept of Gotham City as a character has a deep tradition in the comic books. City of Crime, Year One, and the Knightfall series (which is a major influence on The Dark Knight Rises) all involve major characters considering the city itself and how it is like a living organism.

Christopher Nolan’s creative control over his films is nearly unprecedented for filmmakers dealing with such massive budgets. He exerts more power over the multi-million dollar films he makes than most indie directors have over the lowest budget films in production. Any writer-director who has Nolan’s level of creative control will be very careful to select the title of his film. The Dark Knight seemed to be an unusual choice because it was the first Batman film that did not say “Batman” in the title, but the end of the film made it clear why it was the perfect choise. The Dark Knight Rises, on the other hand, seemed like a very predictable title given the success of its predecessor. No one doubted that the “Dark Knight” of the title was Bruce Wayne, and everyone has been proven wrong.

Audiences are notoriously picky. They want to experience something new, but refuse to pay for anything other than a re-hash of the same material. Of the top 20 highest-grossing films worldwide (as of July 21, 2012), only 5 are not sequels: Avatar, Titanic, Alice in Wonderland, The Lion King, and Jurassic Park (Alice in Wonderland’s story is essentially a sequel, but it was not marketed as one). Only Avatar and The Lion King were written as original screenplays, and both owe large parts of their stories to the legend of Pocahontas and Shakespeare’s Hamlet, respectively.

The audience, therefore, will not willingly trade in Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey that has been so satisfying on film since 1977. But by building to The Dark Knight Rises in a trilogy, by sneaking the traditional Hollywood epic back into the mainstream, and by making three of the greatest superhero films of all time, Christopher Nolan has achieved a new form of classic filmmaking. At a time when the biggest blockbusters are based on comic book heroes, and when the best of those films are escapist entertainment, he has created a trilogy of comic book films that are intellectual, emotional, philisophical, and challenging on levels that even the best non-superhero films fail to reach. His films, and The Dark Knight Trilogy in particular, will be worthy of study for centuries to come. Like the films of Stanley Kubrick, the films of Christopher Nolan are in a game of their own.