Even though a new iteration of Batman is on the way with Ben Affleck suiting up for the “Man Of Steel” sequel, Christopher Nolan‘s trilogy is still held as the peerless adaptation bringing both sizzle and substance to the big screen with his “The Dark Knight” trilogy. And as such, folks continue to dissect his films.
And among those folks is pop philosopher Slavoj Žižek, who in this clip from the forthcoming “The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology,” takes a look at the politics of “The Dark Knight.” In particular he points attention to what he believes is the rather conservative message that order can only be maintained in society by perpetuating lies onto the public in the name of the common good. Anyway, while you turn that over in your head, there’s also a quick clip from a longer 25-minute conversation between Nolan and Richard Donner, in which they discuss the virtues of cutting to music (or not— Nolan doesn’t use temp tracks).
The full talk between those directors can be found on “The Dark Knight Trilogy: Ultimate Collector’s Edition” which is in stores now. “The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology” opens on November 1st and you check out the poster and trailer for that right here. [Biblioklept/Movieclips]
I’m assuming that Zizek’s interpretation of The Dark Knight Rises is meant to ruffle feathers and present Zizek as an iconoclast, and that he’s not actually stupid enough to believe that a movie released in July 2012 was criticising a movement that only began in September 2011 (during the last stages of filming).
I always thought Bane bore most parallels with the Tea Party; a money-orientated rabble-rouser who recruits gullible poor people, and is intrigued by what happens when a populace is no longer shackled by state regulation.
Nolan is rubbish simply because he is British ! ! !.
Zizek is a truly repulsive subhuman slug of a person who you should NEVER take seriously on anything… this is a guy who defended the murder of 30, 000 people during the French Reign of Terror as an exercise in democracy, he's a total sleazebag!
At least Chris Nolan got the chance to finish his Dark Knight story, poor Dick Donner never got the chance to finish his Superman story after being fired from 'Superman II'… much to the detriment of the final film that was eventually released!
Not a fan of either the Dark Knight nor Zizek. Zizek is just posturing throwing out theories while Nolan is all technique no substance.
Yeah I always saw TDK as a pretty conservative 'War On Terror' allegory. It gets a little heavy-handed at the end with it (the cell phone trackers), but still a great movie.
Nolan knows his Eisenstein montage theory!
Nolan's Batman films are insanely conservative. TDKR is even worse.