Matt Domino on watching "The Dark Knight Rises" after the Aurora Massacre.
I don’t really like comic books and I find it difficult to
go to the movies, but I’ve known for months that I was going to go see The
Dark Knight Rises. I had penciled in a
viewing of the last installment of Christopher Nolan’s Batman series on July
20, 2012 on the same day I scheduled my trip to see Prometheus on June 8. I wasn’t disappointed by either movie. I
sat through every beautiful, tense, dread-filled minute of Ridley Scott’s space
thriller and felt my heart rush during Nolan’s epic conclusion to Christian
Bale’s run as the Batman. At each movie, I sat in the theatre with my large
popcorn and soda and took solace in being able to openly feel like a child
sitting in front of a large screen in the dark.
However, we all know that The Dark Knight Rises took on a different significance after last Friday’s massacre, which stands out to me as the strangest and most difficult to
comprehend American public shooting. When I was in junior high, I went through
the post-Columbine fear that swept every American suburb. In college, as a
senior, I walked around the patio outside of the student center while the rest
of my classmates cried or stood in shock waiting to hear more about the tragedy at Virginia Tech. The Aurora Massacre felt different, though, because not only
did it take place in a movie theatre—one of the only public spaces that truly
feels safe and sacred in some
way—but also because it coincided and was plotted to align with perhaps the
biggest pop culture event of the summer, if not 2012. After the tour de force
of The Dark Knight in 2008, every
comic book aficionado and layperson alike were awaiting the final installment
in the series; everyone was waiting to see The Dark Knight Rises. And then at a midnight showing, 24-year old James Holmes shot and killed twelve people in cold blood. Even as you saw the footage
and the breaking news on Friday morning, it was hard to comprehend that the
massacre had actually happened. Mass shootings don’t happen at blockbusters,
especially not at the biggest movie of the year. One of the tenets of our
society is going to see summer blockbusters, it is a ritual that is held on a
pedestal each and every May through August—it is a ceremony of entertainment,
and people aren’t supposed to die; not in America.
Yet people did die and it pains me greatly. Perhaps the most
talked about casualty was that of Jessica Ghawi (aka Jessica Redfield), who was
an emerging sports journalist and whom had just barely eluded another public
shooting at a mall in Toronto last month. A lot of journalists and bloggers
have pointed to Jessica’s last post on her blog where she explained her
thoughts after escaping a tragedy. At one point Jessica says, “I was shown how
fragile life was on Saturday. I saw the terror on bystanders’ faces. I saw the
victims of a senseless crime. I saw lives change. I was reminded that we don’t
know when or where our time on Earth will end. When or where we will breathe
our last breath. For one man, it was in the middle of a busy food court on a
Saturday evening.” And then a month later, she was a victim of the gunfire.
*******
I had Jessica and all the other victims on my mind as I went
to see The Dark Knight Rises one night
after work this week. I had been delayed in seeing the movie for a variety of
reasons since the tragedy and this night was going to be my last good chance to
see it for awhile. I had been thinking about the tragedy, about my own
struggling career, the lack of love in my life and was feeling lonely, so I was
looking forward to the dark of the theatre, the popcorn and the soda and a
long, epic movie with heroes and villains and good looking movie stars (read:
Anne Hathaway. I swear her engagement is a sham.). It was a late showing, but I
arrived towards the start time right after a long day of work. The theatre was
crowded, so I took my concessions and sat along the wall towards the front of
the theatre. The lights dimmed, the previews started, I ate popcorn, drank cold
soda and listened to the loud theatre sound in the dark. I wasn’t completely comfortable
with the sound being so loud; if there was a chance of attack, I wanted to be
able to react quickly and none of my senses disoriented. The previews ended and
the movie began. I silently cheered Tommy Carcetti’s opening cameo and then
remembered that Holmes had opened fire during the opening sequence of the
movie, his gunshots blending in with the gunfire from the film. I kept back
propped against the wall, facing outward; one hand on my soda, the other on my
popcorn, my legs flat to the floor. I wanted to be able to have a good view of
anyone walking along the aisle. I watched Bane make his entrance and wreak
havoc; I watched Bruce Wayne stagger and become Batman again; I watched Joseph
Gordon Levitt and Gary Oldman give fantastic performances; I was swept up in
the story, but felt uneasy the entire time. Whenever someone moved around the
theatre, to switch seats, to get up to make a soda or bathroom run, I tensed
up, ready to spring into action or spring into hiding. As Bane performed
archetypal terrorist actions, I slightly cringed and thought if it was still
too soon after 9/11, but decided it was good for Christopher Nolan and the
story to go there because its just the potential reality of the world we live
in. I thought about what the victims must have experienced as they felt the
adrenaline and sheer dread of the gunshots in that dark theatre in Colorado and
I wondered what turned James Holmes’ disconnection from the world—which many of
us experience in our own doses—from sadness to violence and I had no answers,
no answers at all. Watching The Dark Knight Rises was one of the unique viewing experiences I have
ever had.
******
While I watched the movie, my mind went to a variety of
places. I looked at Anne Hathaway and Marion Cottiard on the screen and thought
about how I loved them and about how I am the worst kind of romantic there is
because I am forever in love and yearning for women who are on a screen; how I
want a woman like that to come into my life and make me whole, but that will
never happen. I remembered all the parties I gave at my old apartment in
Williamsburg where dozens of people streamed in and out, milled and drank free
beer on my roof and how I was always looking at the door for some woman to come
in, some woman I could never picture, but who I knew existed and who I was
always waiting for. I love the Gatsbys and the Batmans and the Banes of the
world. I love men and characters who stand out from the rest of humanity with
some ill-fated or ill-designed purpose and who are destined to find an end in
tragedy. I thought about how I have always been waiting for my own Wilson to
come and shoot me in my pool while I floated quietly at the very end of summer.
The Dark Knight is
all about themes I have been turning over in my mind for years. It is a movie
about, obviously, rising—being broken, having things torn down only to put them
together again. It is also about the fear of death pitted against an acceptance
of death. Ever since Tolstoy’s character Levin and the philosophy of Martin Heidegger
entered my life in college, I have been fascinated with accepting death,
accepting the origin of life and understanding that life is nothing but a
movement back toward the origin, toward the energy of the universe that is only
represented by death, the return to the source, the return to the dwelling. And that is what The Dark Knight is partially about. A character at one point tells
Bruce Wayne that he is not stronger because he doesn’t fear death; his lack of
fear makes him weak, because it is only our fear of death that keeps us going,
that makes us try new things, new restaurants, buy new albums, see new movies.
Because we don’t want to die, there is too much to enjoy and distract ourselves
with because we are having too good of a time. And even during the movie, I
looked at the two girls sitting one seat over from me. In the dark, I thought
they both looked impossibly beautiful, so I composed myself, even if in the
light they would prove no match for my own romantic inclinations.
The Dark Knight (and
all superhero movies really) is about creation, creating a myth and that is
something else that has constantly appealed to me. Like I said, I like
characters that are larger than life and have always wanted to be one myself,
so I gravitate towards that kind of literature, that kind of music and those
kinds of friends. However, it is also about the choice of love and of life,
about stopping the myth in favor of love. It’s about the people around us each
day, the people that ride the subway with us to work. When I ride the subway
each day, I look at my fellow humans and revel in their existence, I revel at
them each being a part of creation. So, I furtively smile at a small child who
chirps to their very tired parent at eight in the morning; I gently turn my
mouth in sympathy for a crying baby at the far end of the subway car who just
doesn’t understand; and I empathize with the parent who has found a way to
embrace life, the very nature of living—which is creating—more than I have
found myself able. And I tip my hat at the cooing couples of all different
races and sizes because I may forever fail at love, but I can at least excel at
appreciating what the universe is. And meanwhile, on the screen, Bane and
Batman and Joseph Gordon Levitt* battle for the fate of Gotham.
(*Editor’s Note: Look, I think he’s a really good actor,
alright? Plus I've got a slight JGL vibe going on. Just sayin'.)
*****
Then, after nearly three hours, the movie was over. I was
still alive. The lights came on and the two girls next to me immediately filed
out. I didn’t even have a chance to get a look at them in the light. I made my
way immediately to the bathroom and relieved myself in one of the two urinals
while a line of unrest crowded behind me. I pushed my way through the crowd and
made my way out of the theatre. I entered into the surprisingly cool New York
summer night and looked around. The city streets were covered in the purple and
orange light of post-midnight. The buildings of downtown Brooklyn rose and
stood ominous and uncaring like the beautiful and efficient structures of
Gotham. I felt strong and at peace with the world and my mind started turning
again.
And as I turned the corner from the theatre, entering a
quiet, pleasant residential street and leaving the impossible Gotham
architecture of Downtown Brooklyn behind, I noticed an ace of clubs lying on
the sidewalk in front of a brownstone stoop. I stopped for a moment to look at
the card before keeping on. In front of me, a little boy walked next to his
father, excitedly moving his hands and feet.
“The buildings gonna blow! We’ve gotta go! It’s Batman!”
The boy jumped a little in the air and his father smiled.
For despite the violence in James Holmes and the disconnect we may feel from
the world at some time in our own way, that small boy’s excited dance in the
wake of a blockbuster movie is what life is really about: moments of creation
at every little turn of the street.
Dearest Domino,
ReplyDeleteThe sense of longing in this work is authentic, visceral, and well proffered. However, I would like to caution you against endings such as this. You are critical, you are intelligent, use this side of you. I think the silence you have been met with in posting this entry derives from the fact that you leave so much out. For instance, don't you have anything to say about the violence portrayed in the film and how the young child at the end of your piece was inculcated into this very violence, not dissimilar from the way in which young Mr. Holmes was as well?
I mean the last quote in this post, the one from the child, is really quite disturbing. You use it as an example of why blockbusters are so ooey gooey wonderful but I feel you could have taken a hard look at this action. Do you think the writers you love and revere would have come to such a conclusion after hearing that statement?
I am both a layperson and a comic fan and I have to say I was not looking forward to any of Nolan's further Dark Knight films after seeing the first. Fuck his castrated 2002 style matrix-wannabe rehash of Alan Moore's take on Batman. Anyway, violence permeates these films in a way we must be aware of and a way which seems to effect the less stable members of our society in a very real way. Holmes literally called himself The Joker. I am surprised you made no reference to this fact.
In any event, I know what it is like to long for a companion, I know what it is like to sit in a Brooklyn movie theater with crazy hot girls next to you, but longing itself must not obscure your writer's eye.
I say all this because the last story you posted was so very fine. You didn't take the easy way out in that work. Read that statement by the child one more time, perhaps such a remark (which instantly echoes 9/11, by the way) is not "what life is really about."
With sincere admiration for your sincerely enormous talents,
Anon
P.S. You do look a bit like Joseph Gordon Levitt.
Hey Anon,
ReplyDeleteFirst, thanks for acknowledging my JGL vibe.
Second, thanks as always for your comments. Let me weigh in a little.
I think you are right, in this post I let longing, which is one of the things people have said I convey best, get in the way of things. I have been feeling slightly stuck and a little down and it clouded my tone and maybe where I wanted this thing to go. But, I did address the violence in the movie and how it made me slightly uneasy that a lot of Bane's actions were very real-life, terrorist-esque.
I did also want to fit the Joker statement in as well and I should have, because, I guess what I wanted to show is that no matter how disconnected we feel from the world, there is always that decision to create or destroy something out of the world. Maybe I didn't hammer that point home enough. You can watch the Batman movie and choose to kill and destroy, or, like that little kid hopefully symbolized, you can use it for your imagination, to create your own superhero adventures.
Maybe I'm just optimistic and I saw that action in that manner. However the battle will always remain the same: Force vs. Love/Creation.
Ah Domino,
ReplyDeleteYour replies are always so eloquent and well-considered that they make me feel ashamed for expressing any criticism whatsoever. Bravo, man. I was pretty much just playing devil's advocate, anyways. I look forward to reading more.
As always,
Anon