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Dark Knight Premiere
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Poor Christian Bale. He’s been lost in all the hype over Heath Ledger’s performance. And that’s too bad because Bale’s soft-spoken Bruce Wayne is the perfect complement to Ledger’s intensity.
‘The Dark Knight’ finally came out of the shadows on Monday at its New York City premiere.
An overwhelming amount of attention has been paid to Ledger’s last onscreen incarnation. It’s difficult not to read too much into it, to search every nuance for some clue to his state of mind. Did he go too far into the abyss? Perhaps. The character draws no line between pleasure and pain -- his own or another’s. Pain is joy, no matter who the target. It is brilliant, chilling, ironic, and sad.
Unfortunately, co-star Bale’s performance has been lost in the shadows. His Bruce Wayne is a knot of conflict who reluctantly admires the Joker’s willingness to embrace chaos. Bale grounds the film into something we can relate to. Ledger’s Joker wouldn’t be nearly as effective or as mesmerizing if it weren’t filtered through Bale’s lens.
If this sounds like I’m taking the movie far too seriously, go see it for yourself. Director Christopher Nolan takes the franchise to places that have more in common with Martin Scorsese than Tim Burton. The action sequences and costumes may be comic bookish, but the emotions are as real as it gets.
Also starring Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Morgan Freeman, the film opens this Friday.
