"The Dark Knight" and the Dark Night of the Soul

SPOILER ALERT: If you have not seen "The Dark Knight" and plan to, this posting reveals key plot points you probably don't want to know.

Toward the end of "The Dark Knight" --the latest and greatest "Batman" movie -- District Attorney Harvey Dent tries to convince a crowd of angry citizens to not make him reveal Batman's true identity, despite the fact that the Joker is terrorizing Gotham in an attempt to force his hand. Dent says Batman is making Gotham a better place. One citizen shouts something like, "Since Batman started helping, things have just got worse." Dent responds, "But the day is darkest just before the dawn."

This proverb has roots that go back to at least the 17th century, but it's invocation reminded me of an even older bit of wisdom: mystic St. John of the Cross' famous 16th century poem, "Dark Night of the Soul." St. John of the Cross describes in this poem the period of spiritual "darkness" that comes with transformation and true faith. In both a psychological and Buddhist sense, the dark night could be understood as the place where one faces the barbed defenses that are the nitty gritty of ego: the brilliant barriers that fortify the "false self" that keeps us feeling separate and alone. The dark night was understood by mystics to be not only an extended period of profound loneliness but a gift, as well. Unfortunately, the citizens of Gotham don't see the opportunity in their collective "dark night," which is really too bad, since the evil they're concerned with takes the form of the Joker--whose particular brand of chaotic violence is fueled by their fear itself.

"The Dark Knight" is filled with a diverse range of charachters: disconnected, believing Batman; the profoundly human Harvey Dent who is partly an idealist attorney and partly the broken, faithless Two Face; mad, frightening, lucid Joker; and the faceless, fearful, mob-like citizens of Gotham. However, as in a dream, all of the players could be understood to be the dreamer herself. Of particular interest in that regard is the yin and yang of Batman and Joker: both of whom are deeply human and deeply "other," simultaneously. It is that very "other-ness" that allows for Batman's wise assessment, at the end of the film, of the denial-oriented needs that drive the culture of Gotham - a culture he is not quite a part of. It is this same outsider position that allows for Joker's brilliant, burning social commentary (signified through his example of the arbitrary comfort found in law for law itself, as a way to mask how truly out of "control" people are) and recognition of the way fear constricts everyone around him.

The Joker also has a very human need - the need to be understood. He spends most of the film seeking to convince Batman of his entropic perspective. Of course, if Joker's impulse for connection could be amplified productively, he might not be a super villain at all.

On the other end of things, Batman is impeded by what seems to me a nasty case of shame following (presumably) the death of his parents. His faith in Gotham's cattle-like masses would be better placed in himself - but Bruce Wayne has yet to bring his transformed soul out of the dark night it is shadowed in. Until that illumination, Batman/Bruce is bound to discover over and over the truth as he stumbles on it here: that Harvey Dent (whom Batman/Bruce views as a "truer" hero) is exactly as capable of good and evil as everyone is. As Dent himself postulates glibly, "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." Though the relationship need not be so binary or linear, nobody escapes the potential.

I I've left myself out of this but, needless to say, this film affected me enormously because I've struggled with my own "dark night(s)" over the last few years. Child abuse tends to transmute shame, and shame, in fact, is a particularly barbed defense system. Getting a grip on it has stung. What is becoming clearer to me in the midst of my particular metamorphosis is the utter normalcy of brutality: it is a relentless force in the world around us. Which (hence the dark night) sometimes seems cause for despairing and reinforces my childhood ideas concerning separateness, and sometimes serves as a reminder that I am no different in my humanity than anyone else. I, and you, are capable of joy, love, and compassionate action as well as rageful, mindless harm - and everything in between. Maybe even all in the same day. I don't think it's any coincidence that you see a lot of "wounded healers" in helping professions: I think a lot of people who've seen the effects of suffering know that you make a choice to either stop it or breed it on. Maybe without that history it's harder to bring that reality into awareness.

It's from this position that I've watched "The Dark Knight" twice, and it's from this place that I want to say this: though he's often portrayed as such, I don't think Batman is an anti-hero at all. Batman is, in fact, the ultimate modern hero: a wounded man who faces great horrors at enormous sacrifice for the good of others, but whose greatest challenge and largest contribution involves the difficult, painful work of recognizing and excavating what is already visible to everyone else--what was never, in fact, "lost" at all--his soul.

Thanks to the cultural theory-oriented brains of MB and EK, who helped me, through post-viewing discussion, form some of the ideas addressed above.