New Historian/Biographical Criticism

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Batman Begins


Jan 26th - Glendale train crash: Two trains derail killing 11 and injuring 200 in Glendale, California, near Los Angeles. This could be seen as a parallel to the train crash in the last scene of Batman Begins.

Aug 29th - Hurricane Katrina devastates much of the U.S. Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, killing more than 1,836 and causing over $115 billion in damage.Water in movies is commonly viewed as a sign of transformation, and a lot of water symbolizes a feeling of being overwhelmed and feeling out of control. In Batman Begins the city of Gotham is presented as a city overwhelmed with crime and corruption in need of transformation.

The Dark Knight
Many believe The Dark Knight is filled with post 9/11 iconography because of the similar scenarios of a city being threatened by a terrorist-like character, The Joker. The city contains many police officers much like the ones called to the scene of 9/11.

The Joker is an anarchic agent of chaos. As Alfred tells Wayne, who has trouble grasping what the Joker is about: "Some men just want to watch the world burn." There is a scene in the movie where the Joker is being interrogated like a terrorist by the Gordan and later Batman.

Similar character roles-

Gordan- police officer, joker- terrorist with band of clown helpers, "Gotham isn't beyond saving. Give me more time. There are good people here." like 9/11 trying to save the people

Scenario:



The joker operates by setting many evil plans in motion at one time. An example of this is the choice he gives Batman between saving Harvey and Rachel. Both their deaths are set up at the same time, but in different places. This mirrors the attack on 9/11. There were three planes traveling to destroy different places, but all at one time. Harvey Dent, the political leader, was saved over citizen, Rachel, and the president/ White House was protected, as the plane going to the Twin Towers was not as fortunate. The citizens were also the ones killed.

Our society today:
can a society of laws, both civil and moral, tolerate an agent that must break those laws to fight crime and impose public order? Is corruption the choice of flawed individuals, or is it the sign of a society’s collective weaknesses?

This is what the Batman trilogy aspires to answer.

The Dark Knight Rises




 In The Dark Knight Rises by director Christopher Nolan, Nolan completes his postmodern, post-Sept. 11 epic of good versus evil with a burst of light. As the title promises, Wayne returns to defend his city in “The Dark Knight Rises,” the grave and satisfying finish to Nolan’s symbolic bat-trilogy. His timing couldn’t be better. As the country enters its latest electoral brawl off screen, Batman (Christian Bale) hurtles into a parallel battle that booms with puppet-master anarchy, anti-government rhetoric and soundtrack drums of doom, entering the fray as  another lone avenger. Truth, justice and the American way? No — and not only because that doctrine belongs to Superman. Times change; superheroes and villains too. The enemy is now elusive and the home front is divided as the face of Harvey Dent, a vanquished Batman foe. The politics of partisanship rule and grass-roots movements have sprung up on the right and the left to occupy streets and legislative seats. It can look ugly, but as they like to say — and as Dent says in “The Dark Knight,” the second part of the trilogy — the night is darkest before the dawn.