Clarifications About The Dark Knight

In a response to comment about an earlier blog entry, I noted the cumulative trauma that might explain why Harvey Dent went over the edge to become Two-Face:

his parents and sibling killed, love of his life killed--after she'd agreed to marry him, facial disfigurement, and extreme pain from the fire.

Since that post, I've read the "novelization" of the movie , written by former Batman writer/editor Denny O'Neil. (Click here, The Dark Knight, for a link to Amazon's webpage for the book)

The novelization provided interesting backstories for the events in the movie, and helped clarify a couple of the movie's more confusing elements. The novelization makes it clear that:

1. The two murdered individuals with "Harvey" and "Dent" identification tags had no family relationship to Harvey Dent;
   
2. The Joker intended to misdirect Batman when he revealed the locations where Rachel Dawes and Harvey Dent were being held. He tells Batman that Rachel is at one address and Dent at the other location. When Gordon then asks Batman which one he was going to, Batman replies, "Dent knew the risks," and he rushes off to the location that Joker said housed Rachel.  
   

They have deleted this line from the movie, which is too bad because it makes the subsequent sequence much clearer. And once Batman found Dent rather than Rachel at the location, the novelization explains (page 231):

"He had expected to see Rachel, to free her and get her out of the building. To tell her he loved her and would keep her safe forever. Instead, he saw Harvey Dent lying in a black puddle, bound to a chair. Next to him were two barrels, one on its side, and a timer. Shock and horror flooded over Batman…Rachel, thought Batman. Good God, I've failed her…

Dr Robin on BlogTalkRadio.com

Today on blog talk radio Pop Culture America, I discussed with hosts John and Dave possible reasons for the success of The Dark Knight and chat about psychology of superheroes generally. Click on the link, above, to hear the show--my segment begins 30 minutes into the show.

A Cohort Effect to The Dark Knight Experience?

I just returned from my second viewing of The Dark Knight, which I saw in an IMAX theatre. Let's get the IMAX part out of the way---Wow! The aerial scenes were breathtaking, literally. As a viewer, I felt that I was in the helicopter that housed the camera, flying above the city. And close-ups of the Joker were terrifying—it felt as if he had me in a stranglehold and was forcing me to look at him, as he did with Rachel Dawes.

I quickly habituated to the IMAX features of the movie (except for the aerial shots), and focused on the movie itself—plot, story, visual aspects, message. During my first viewing, I must confess that during the last third of the film, I was expending a lot of energy trying to keep up with the fast-paced twists and turns of the plot, and the cuts between different characters and storylines. The first time, I didn't quite get some of the quietly spoken words, and didn't understand some of the quick visuals. I was still be processing the implications of one scene—in terms of the plot, the character development, the emotional consequences—when I was ripped from that scene to the next complex scene.

There were times when I wished that I could press a pause button so that I could fully digest a scene before moving on to the next one. It was frustrating. I felt as if I was on a treadmill that would sometimes shift into a faster pace than I was prepared for, and it was all I could do to keep up and not fall off. In the last third of the film, rather than feeling energized, the pace left me fatigued. The younger people that I know who saw the movie did not feel this way, and they seemed to understand most everything that happened. And they didn't feel tired during the film, only afterward, when the adrenaline rush stopped.

In my second go-round with The Dark Knight, I could appreciate the finer details of the story that I missed this first time (such as the extent of Dent's grudge against Jim Gordon and Dent's use of his coin before versus after his kidnapping).

After this second viewing, my adult companion who had not seen the film before commented that he felt overloaded by the last third of the film. As with my first viewing, his cognitive and emotional energy to handle the film diminished with its length and the horror the Joker wrought.

Why the different responses between older viewers (I'm guessing the dividing line is at around 40+ years old) and younger viewers? You could chalk it up to an age difference—that younger people, but virtue of their age, are better able to track fast paced events, and so don't become particularly tired by it. I don’t think that's the answer, though. Rather, I think it's because people who are in their 20s and younger have been exposed to things that my generation wasn't exposed to as children: computer and console games, extreme multitasking with instant messaging and internet surfing, and fast passed television shows and movies. That exposure has influenced how this younger generation processes and responds to information. Had my generation been exposed to these technologies in our formidable years, I think we wouldn't be fatigued by the end of The Dark Knight either.



Psychologists call this a cohort effect: The impact of a common event or experience on a group of people, compared to those who do not share the event or experience. My hypothesis is that there is a cohort effect in how tired people feel after watching The Dark Knight. Younger viewers, by virtue of their technological and media experiences during their formidable years, experience the film differently than do older viewers.

There's an easy way to test my hypothesis about the cohort effect: Assess the reactions of two types of The Dark Knight viewers: Compare young viewers who grew up with significant a amounts of computer, gaming, and media exposure with those young people who did not. I welcome any comments you have about my hypothesis!

[On a related note, younger people in general are "smarter" than their elders: IQs scores have been increasing by, on average, 3 IQ points every 10 years. This finding is called the Flynn Effect, named after the social scientist, James Flynn, whose research revealed the increase. There are various explanations for the Flynn effect, including increasingly better health and nutrition in children, increased familiarity with IQ-type questions, and an increasingly complexity in the environments in which children are growing up. These are discussed in his most recent book, What is Intelligence?: Beyond the Flynn Effect. To read Malcom Gladwell's article about the Flynn effect, click here]

The Dark Knight--A Psychologist's View

This second installment of Christopher Nolan's vision of Batman and his world offers a psychologically rich and multi-layered portrayal of characters struggling with all-too-real issues of responsibility, trust, betrayal, the role of physical appearance in forming impressions of people, and of psychopathy unleashed. Whereas Batman Begins explores Bruce Wayne's evolution from anxious child to the Caped Crusader, The Dark Knight brings us a matured Batman battling against a terrifying psychopath whose main motivation appears to be similar to two-year but with deadlier consequences: he does "stuff" just to see what happens.

This film is really about the Joker. We're lured in to his world, where we learn what he's capable of and what he cares about—what motivates him. Learning more about him is like watching a car accident unfold, but worse and more frightening, because it feels like you might be hit next. Nolan's incarnation of the Joker, and Batman's reactions to him, seem so real that The Dark Knight doesn't feel like a superhero movie, but like a documentary on the emergence of a terrorist-cum-serial killer.

I was repeatedly struck by the Joker's cleverness and restraint: [spoiler alert!] He planned three simultaneous murders, Godfather style. [end of spoler alert] That takes extraordinary planning abilities, meticulous attention to detail, and the ability to defer gratification. Sound like anyone else in the movie--like Batman? This Joker is neither impulsive nor capricious, although he may appear that way at first blush. Just as with Batman, the Joker's actions are designed to create a particular impression, an impression that puts his adversaries at a disadvantage: that he's weird and unpredictable. That you never know how far he'll push something, so take him seriously. This, too, is part of the impression that Batman tries to create. But the Joker's got Batman's number because he knows that Batman isn't entirely unpredictable—Batman lives within certain self-imposed and societally-imposed rules. Because of those rules, Batman becomes predictable…at least to the Joker. Two men with similar talents, but in the Joker's case, his talents are used to create anarchy for his own amusement. Is he a psychopath? Let's investigate.

A psychopath is someone who displays personality traits that involve more than simply engaging in criminal acts. A psychopath:

(1) can be superficially charming and manipulative. The Joker is that. Imagine him without his clown makeup—imagine him with a handsome face doing and saying what he does in the film. He'd make a compelling—versus repellant—figure to some, wouldn't he?
(2) is emotionally callous, without remorse or guilt. The Joker lies freely when it suits him (he gives two different stories for how he came to have his scars, both likely untrue). He doesn't feel badly about his dastardly deeds—the lives he taken or ruined.
(3) has a socially deviant lifestyle. Not only is the Joker a criminal, but he seeks out the excitement of his life of crime. His crimes act as a drug and he needs the regular fixes of the intense stimulation his actions bring. Unfortunately, he seems to develop tolerance to the drug, wanting ever-increasing "doses" and so planning increasingly sadistic and elaborate capers.

Hats off to Christopher Nolan, Jonathan Nolan, and the cast and crew. Heath Ledger's performance deserves an Oscar.

For more about my take on Batman, look for me on the History Channel's Batman Unmasked: The Psychology of the Dark Knight and an essay wrote about "What's the Matter With Bruce Wayne?" in the anthology, "Batman Unauthorized."