The Dark Knight Rises and Skyfall Essay - what messages are presented about the worlds they represent?

The Dark Knight Rises and Skyfall

Compare the extent to which the films you have studied present either clear or ambiguous messages about the worlds they represent

Christopher Nolan's third instalment of his Batman trilogy, 'The Dark Knight Rises' in 2012 (TDKR) deals with the politics and socioeconomic sentiments of the early 2010s, and, like Sam Mendes' James Bond film 'Skyfall', in a post 9/11 and 2008 recession world, both respective to each represented country. TDKR attempts to bring political nuances of corruption, capitalism, and  Marxist-style populism combined with the mythological and spiritual rebirth of its billionaire hero Batman, all through the represented lens of 2000s America, the city of Gotham most resembling New York. Despite Nolan denying any political encoding in a 2012 Rolling Stones interview, the film presents messages about its represented American/western politics, albeit somewhat vague and hesitant in its execution, making many spectators unsure of what the film is trying to say. In contrast, Mendes accomplishes clear messaging about MI6/Bond - and by extension Britain - and its place within a technologically changing (and importantly post 9/11) world, less affected by clear politics as TDKR is, making the film void of unnecessary ambiguity, extending to its hero Bond who also goes through a redefined rebirth - less spiritual than Batman's - of his character - something then uncommon for the Bond paradigm. 

TDKR is more exaggerated in its intended verisimilitude (most referable to Bane/Batman's costume and technology) but in relation to its preceding films, more comparable to reality, especially in its politics. The line of Governmental incompetency and anti-establishment blurs between the hero Batman and the villainy led by Bane. The anti-capitalist Populus Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011 manifests itself, somewhat intentionally ambiguous by Nolan (though clear to spectators) to present messaging about the corruptions of a capitalist system and the 'one percent' that benefit from financial exploitation. For example, the spectator is given an impression of greed, hierarchy, and chaos within Gotham's stock exchange - filmed at New York's Wall Street - in the overlaying of diegetic, distinctly masculine, rowdiness in the aerial establishing shot of the crowd. The workers lower on the economic scale are ignored or disregarded by the wealthy elite, later revealed to be working within Bane's networked revolution as he hijacks the stock exchange, responding to the dialogue 'There's no money to steal' with 'then why are you here?'. Thus, Nolan criticises this display of Americanised capitalism yet simultaneously presents the political 'alternative' as the villain.  As a result, it creates ambiguous messaging in relation to its hero Batman, one we should theoretically idolise and yet he represents this corrupt capitalist system, something Nolan never attempts to acknowledge beyond the anti-hero Catwoman. The only overt politics affecting Skyfall are caused by the event of 9/11, then still in people's minds. The 2000s marked a significant rise of terrorist organisations, attacking western landmarks of significance (9/11), promoting a rise in fear accentuated by the fact that often terrorists were disguised as pedestrians, unknowingly and unassuming to everyone around them. Most poignantly in the film, Bond's villain Silva appropriates a Police uniform to falsely project British protection while seeking to destroy it in the destruction of a London tube train, symbolically dismantling London's underground roots. This is cross-cut with M - the figurehead of MI6 - at a Governmental court hearing, bringing forth to the spectator a frightening point that enemies are no longer marked on a map, 'it's all opaque, it's in the shadows', thus creating an impression of reality for its spectators: villainy codes for terrorism. M concludes by reading the Tennyson poem 'Ulysses': 'we are now not that strength that in old days ruled earth and heaven', clearly enforcing the message about Britain and its empirical unsuitability in a rapidly advancing world; MI6, in the powerful framing of M through CU, is the only organisation to promote British patriotism despite the insecurity within the Governmental establishment, making the spectator side against the British Government. TDKR tackles this sentiment in a comparable way, with Nolan presenting the Americanised president in the world of Gotham speaking from television about how he 'hasn't forgotten Gotham' in a POV shot from batman, compositionally looking through his prison bars. Irony is created since the Police force are presented as both corrupt systemically and largely incompetent, provoking Batman to return to Gotham to save 'his people'. In the same sense, Bond reassumes his role as the protector of London once MI6 is bombed. Therefore, spectators of Skyfall are able to understand the messaging of the film and in relation to Stuart hall's reception theory, its encoded nostalgia and patriotic pride and the need for traditional ways in order to adapt to a technological world. Bane, Like Skyfall's Silva on Britain, makes an attack on America through the violent infiltration and bombing of a football game: in a montage, Bane, his silhouette backlit against the pitch full of standing Americans, their hand against their chest as they sing the national anthem, intruding upon this patriotism, urging the people to 'take control' of their city after various bombings, physically represented and described as a 'shadow' like Skyfall's Silva. TDKR is noticeably less patriotic than Skyfall: The Americanised landscape of Gotham, while a far cry from the first Tim Burton instalment, Nolan still attempts to create verisimilitude of an American reality despite unclear messaging about the politics he tackles: the conflict, in the end, becomes order vs chaos rather than good vs evil. Skyfall instead puts forward strong patriotism throughout, making the spectator clear in how they should respond to the anxieties of terrorism encapsulated in MI6's court hearing, its success (in my opinion) over TDKR perhaps owing credit to this underground bombing to uplift a new order being a personal grievance from Silva in the name of redemption rather than Bane's general and ambiguous hatred of Gotham's elite. TDKR offers no meaningful solution to Bane's chaotic terrorism other than a need for Batman to save Gotham through heroism and violence, with no attempted conclusion to the film's extended politics and contradictions. 

Throughout the majority of the second act in TDKR, Batman is absent from Gotham in order to be 'reborn' in the mythological 'pit' symbolic of his traumatic past and overcome his fragility. Meanwhile, Bane is organising a Marxist-style revolution in Gotham, intending to "feed its people hope to poison their souls". After Batman is reborn from the pit, his return to Gotham is symbolised through the lighting of the bat signal, audibly represented through a non-diegetic dramatic rising chord, the camera following the line of fire lighting the iconic 'bat signal'; a literal control of active chaos, foreshadowing Bane’s downfall as the epitome of chaotic evil. Skyfall creates a similar resemblance of heroic return in references to the iconographic Bond (and thus British) Aston Martin, presented as a necessary accomplice for Bond to succeed. This nostalgia for spectators situated in British culture (which enhances the realism and impression of reality the film puts forth) is emphasised to the spectator in a sense of unity - provoking the spectator to inhabit a social self in reference to Stuart Hall's theory. Like the Bond leitmotif in combination with British iconographies, the image of the Bat-signal as well as the provoking long shot of the speeding Batmobile in TDKR is intended to have a sensory response for the spectator- though, for me (an American audience would perhaps receive it with more admiration), it is less impactful than Skyfall because it is far more mythological rather than practical and believable and the spectator is lost within the ambiguous spirituality; almost like how Bond clashes with the modern technological world, Batman's imprisonment inside the pit, in being presented as a spiritual 'test' of sorts, - enhanced by the apparition of Ra's a Ghul inhabiting an archetypal mentor function to guide Batman's deteriorating hope - clashes with the hyperreal world and 'impression of reality' Nolan establishes to his spectators, especially in relation to the poignancy of the film's Wall Street references. TDKR awkwardly places a mythological representation of the hero, presenting the need for an almost archaic spirituality in order to become mighty and defeat evil, alongside complicated sociopolitical references in the form of a Marxist rebellion, producing a clumsy moral that society cannot rely on corrupt systemic power, yet Gotham's only saviour is a hero moulded and benefitted from that same political system, in the end abandoning his Batman persona to symbolically pass the mantle onto detective Blake. Skyfall, while comparingly 'mythical' in a similar rebirth of its hero Bond, his plunge into water acting as the parallel to Batman's pit, and conquering of a traumatic past by killing the villain Silva at his ancestral home in order to save London from cyber-terrorism, the film is less ambiguously concerned with a spiritual execution of its protagonist's mental and physical turmoil, rather a practical overcoming of fears, making it, in my opinion, more successful in this regard in comparison to TDKR.

In both films, there is a sense of the old/traditional conquering the new which is more prominent in Bond as a response to Britain's empirical insecurity as a demoted global power and Bond being made a heritage or relic, his traditionally masculine origins re-evaluated, and his 'old fashioned' ideology clashing within the modernised landscape. In reverse, Bane in TDKR encapsulates a traditionally Marxist-style revolution, his new order employing medieval techniques during 'court' hearings of Gotham's 'corrupt', framed from sinister low angles, persecuting all from the old system, including the fundamentally good like Commissioner Gordon, to death by walking over ice; Nolan makes this a parody of justice. The French revolution is constantly paralleled as a populism movement gone askew with Bane executing the Mayor of Gotham and freeing its arrested convicts - like the historical storming of the Bastille - and manipulating the people as 'arresting' those from the previous order. Commissioner Gordon even reads an extract from 'A Tale of Two Cities' as a tribute to Batman's sacrificial 'death', in favour of the people of Gotham.  In contrast, Batman relies on advanced technology - the 'new' - to exist while simultaneously presented as having to enter this almost primitive, ancient landscape to overcome his fears in a symbolic rebirth. In this regard, TDKR is far more ambiguous in its messaging about the complicated solutions to Nolan's projected American politics. Skyfall's technology is far more self-parodic - in nostalgic reference to the 'exploding pen' - with Bond hesitant to use new technology and weaponry as a projected response of our sense of insecurity and over-reliance on technology in our society.