Batman Critical Response

The article “Batman’s Burden: A Director Confronts Darkness and Death” brings an interesting approach to the movie that has not yet been released. It affords the reader a look into the making of the film without actually describing any of the movie’s plot. Halbfinger provides details about the director’s habits and how he goes about creating the movie with so much depth that the piece at first seems like a profile of Mr. Nolan. The article begins to feel a little fake when Halbfinger discusses Heath Ledger’s death. His mention of Heath Ledger sometimes seems to be an attempt to lend more credit to the movie. While Ledger could have been using the narcotics he overdosed on for any number of reasons, the article pushed the theory that he did so because of how complex his role was in “Batman” and how wonderful he was making it. He used a quote from a cinematographer saying, “It was like a séance, where the medium takes on another person and then is so completely drained.” Rather than lending importance to the movie, I thought that this approach to Ledger’s death detracted from the article as a whole and left it feeling fake in an otherwise strong piece of writing.