The bright light of The Dark Knight

Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight is an artistic triumph, a relentlessly grim tale that stays true to the realistic Caped Crusader from graphic novels like The Dark Knight Returns and The Killing Joke, but also sneaks in a surprisingly conservative - even Republican - political message: plot points touch on illegal wiretapping, torture for vital information, and doing what needs to be done to deliver justice even as the casualties add up.  Of course, you don't have to agree with the film's political leanings to thoroughly enjoy it (thank goodness), but Nolan and co-writers Jonathan Nolan and David Goyer ensure there's no mistaking where it falls on the left-right scale.

The Dark Knight is a meaty, ambitious, undiluted work of vision that asks tough questions between its astoundingly creative set-pieces.  But, with it already the second-highest grossing film of all time, you probably know all this because you've probably seen it.

But unless you've caught it in IMAX, you're missing the full scope of The Dark Knight's grandeur.

I did just that yesterday, after several earlier attempts that were thwarted by sold-out screenings, marking the second time I saw the movie.  And it was like a new film, like a theme park ride.  This is one of the only mainstream narrative films to use actual IMAX cameras during filming, quite a feat in itself given how large and cumbersome the equipment is, and how quickly it runs out of film (see Wikipedia for a good primer on the technology).  A handful of whole sequences were shot using the 70 mm IMAX film stock, along with many of the establishing helicopter shots, and when you see the movie in IMAX, it switches from its Cinemascope 2.35:1 aspect ratio to the taller 1.44:1 ratio that fills the entire screen - a moviegoing experience unlike any I've seen before.  Wally Pfister's naturalistic photography is starkly beautiful, and shooting raucous action scenes with bulky IMAX cameras has the unexpected result of most shots being solid, cautiously composed, and moving slowly and deliberately, injecting an antidote to the increasingly overused shaky-cam that masks lazy action staging (not that all shaky-cam is bad - the Bourne films were almost uncomprehensible at times but were always stylistically appropriate).

I know I'm a little late to the party with this post, but have been too busy to update the blog thanks to the convergence of finally moving into my new condo while simultaneously becoming hooked on Battlestar Galactica (I'm relieved we've finally made it through all available seasons on DVD, as I could use a fracking break).