We live in the information age. Every important thing that goes on in this world is broken down by the masses at the moment it happens. Thirty years ago, one needed a job writing op-ed articles at the newspaper to be able to express an opinion on a worldly event. Now, since the Facebook and Twitter revolutions, everybody and their mother has a medium for expressing themselves. And no part of society is more thoroughly discussed, broken down, and criticized than American popular culture. There are post-show podcasts, blogs, and countless other parts of the public that shout their opinions, whether they are well-constructed or not.
During the spring and beginning of the summer of 2012, one bit of our culture was broken down more comprehensively than anything before it. The build-up to its release on July 20th was unlike anything I had ever seen. Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises was the cinematic event of the information age. I personally read more articles, listened to more podcasts, watched more TV discussions, and had more conversations about TDKR before its release than any other bit of culture in my lifetime. The Olympics were about to start, the American Presidency was up for grabs, and the Middle East was falling apart, but all anybody could talk about, for months, was what was going to happen in The Dark Knight Rises.
I saw the movie myself on Friday of the opening weekend. And I thought it was great, but lacked so much of the elements that had me anticipating it for months. I don't think that's the film's fault, really. I think Christopher Nolan was put in a tough place - he had so many people demanding so many things of this film that he got caught up in trying to make people happy. All the blog posts and Cracked articles about what would happen in TDKR ruined the movie, even though they didn't mean to. They expected perfection out of Christopher Nolan, a human being. No film is perfect and if we didn't live in this age, with opinions and theories everywhere, I would have enjoyed the film more.
I could have discussion after discussion about the film's quality and how it stacks up to the other two films and other third movies in other trilogies, but it's not about that. I think TDKR, and the hype surrounding it, really shows where we are in society today. These studios read what we write, and they know that they have to please us. If somebody doesn't like a movie at the midnight release, they go to Twitter and Facebook and tell everybody what they thought. Movies these days need to be so broad and please everybody so the studios can sell tickets. And that was especially so with this film, the conclusion of THE trilogy of our generation. Nolan tried too hard instead of just making a movie. He had three endings when he needed to choose one. SPOILER ALERT He spent the entire trilogy talking about sacrifice and the importance of being a symbol, and then keeps Bruce alive frolicking with Catwoman in Europe for the rest of his life. Great sacrifice, Bruce.
But if this were thirty years ago, I wouldn't have cared, because I wouldn't have had an idea of how this movie should have been constructed for me months in advance. And now, with every highly anticipated release, I can sigh and slump in my theater chair knowing that the movie I'm about to see won't meet its otherworldly expectations.
No comments:
Post a Comment