I am an agent of chaos. And you know the thing about chaos, Harvey? It's fair.

says the joker to aaron eckhart's harvey dent as dent is pushed by the joker to become the villain: two-face. i've had that line buzzing around for a couple days now because it sounds about right, the idea of chance and chaos, which is the driving theme of the dark knight, as more fair and balanced than our general ideas of right and wrong. but it is a false premise. chaos is a neutral state. it knows neither what is fair or good. it exists as it stands, unpredictable and sloppy. the idea of fairness presupposes a balance of goodness, which is counter to chaos. so the joker as portrayed by the brilliant heath ledger goes about without a plan to scare the shit out of our sense of the rightness of the world.

and yet, the joker does have a plan as is exemplified by his orchestrations of violent action in the narration. without an organizing principle nothing can be done. it can be argued that luck played a great role in the joker's success as a leader and as an agent of destruction, and luck indeed plays a great role as it is enacted by dent's gambit that the batman will do the right thing at the crucial moment. that the batman does indeed do the hoped for thing underscores both the need for luck in order for the plan to succeed. which is why maybe this film speaks to us now. and why some of the reviews i've read of the movie are sharply critical of christopher nolan's embrace of the macabre and bleak violent action.

'existence before essence' goes the old existentialist mantra. this film is nothing but the will as it creates itself. the joker wears make-up in much the way bluebeard put candles in his hair, in order to provoke fear. bruce wayne is seen as a rather fey billionaire playboy, but with a cape and mask he also becomes a creature of violence. dent's downfall is not so hard to fathom even if it is rather sudden for he was in great physical pain and tremendous anguish and his brilliant mind sharpened its focus to a single goal: revenge. he remade himself as well by an effort of will into a malevolent spirit. evidence of this change was presaged in an earlier scene when the public servant dent, bound and sworn to uphold the law, was turned by his frustration to an almost gleeful ability to torture a prisoner.

a few of the scenes standout as well. the shot of the joker with his head out the police car window his painted face haloed by the blurred city lights as the soundtrack turns into a hissy sinewave was near-brilliant. the joker in a nurse's uniform and woman's wig while in full make-up as dent twists in utter rage. and a few of the set pieces were a bit silly. the extraordinary rendition [to use the phrase of the current administration (and by using the phrase in the service of my little essay puts a chill down my spine - oh, look how far we've come)] of the hong kong money man was a bit much of too much.

fear needs a plan. again, look to this administration and you'll find ample evidence of that. the joker strikes fear but in order for him to succeed he must know how to plan and organize. and he does. an agent of chaos is also a liar and will tell us anything to keep us off-balance, which, if lucky, goes according to plan, will scare us to submit and attack each other. again, look to this administration for evidence of that. however, rather than turn this little review into a political rant i'll point out the talents of ledger, eckhart, oldman and christopher nolan in this rather bleak rendering of the batman mythos. still, the movie is rated pg-13 and most of the violence is done out of the frame or blazing fast. ledger did indeed create one sick and twisted genius of a fuck who is awfully frightening. but the cinema is awash with psychopaths. recall frank played by dennis hopper in david lynch's blue velvet. frank out-psychos every freak, including the joker, in this movie. frank makes my stomach churn and i feel the need to take a shower to get all the grime off each time i see lynch's masterpiece. and i can't help wondering how dark the batman franchise could get in the hands of a true weird worker like david lynch. is the world ready for such a vision? i doubt it. that is the subject of another essay, i think.