The Dark Knight and My Life

Ryan Chang wrote this

Saying goodbye to Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight franchise felt so bittersweet, as I sat in the midnight release of The Dark Knight Rises. After all the rumors and speculation on the plot, and hanging on every detail of the plot and casting, slowly over months, it all came down to that midnight release. Something weird happened to me while I was sitting there awaiting the movie. All of a sudden, I just did’t want to see The Dark Knight Rises. Something inside of me was resisting, and I realized why. I didn’t want to say goodbye to this amazing franchise. A few weeks before my Freshman year started, I saw The Dark Knight and it dictated so much of my time in high school, and now, just weeks after I graduated, I saw The Dark Knight Rises. When I reflect on what each film meant to me at there time of release, I realize what I took from those movies has changed me.

I still remember watching Batman Begins and being so amazed that someone had humanized Batman. It never had to wink to the camera, it asked to be taken completely seriously, and because of the incredibly real journey of Bruce Wayne and the immersive world of Gotham built by Nolan, we did take it seriously. It dealt with real social issues and big themes. This wasn’t in the same league as Iron Man or Spider-Man, this was a crime saga in the leagues of Heat and The Departed.

Even though Batman Begins was fantastic it still didn’t feel like a complete film. We knew that the story of Bruce Wayne hadn’t reached it’s full potential and that the best was yet to come, and it did in the form of the new age classic, The Dark Knight.

I sat in the chair of an AMC theater just a half hour away from The Dark Knight Rises, and I started to think about the impact of The Dark Knight on my life. The Dark Knight changed everything for me as a film lover and it changed my high school career. This was an epic, a film full of amazing, living, breathing sets, huge action, yet so much thought, emotion, and big ideas. The Dark Knight changed my entire view of cinema. If it weren’t for that film I never would’ve thought you could’ve made a big-budget blockbuster, completely rooted in reality and so personal, yet so large and epic in scale. In my life time, I’d never seen a film like this in the theater.

All of freshman and sophomore year I talked about how I wanted to become a film maker, and how much The Dark Knight inspired me to do so. I thought the possibilities of what film could do were endless with the right amount of heart and craftsmanship because of The Dark Knight.

As high school went by though, that dream started to fade. Awful films started to come out. Big-budget sequels and remakes that were loud and awful were all to be found. At the same time, I had no idea how to get into the film business. It seemed like it was just dumb-luck that got every film maker started. Although, it may not have seemed so if you knew me, but really, I had lost the enthusiasm for film to a degree. You’d be surprised at some of the bigger films released recently that I hadn’t seen and didn’t plan to get around watching. As high school got more complicated and time consuming, my dreams of being a film maker were going away.

I’m lucky to have had Unleashed to keep me writing, advancing my skills and keeping me involved in the film world.

As I sat in the theater just a little bit away from The Dark Knight Rises I realize the reason I didn’t want to see it was not just because I didn’t want to say goodbye, but because I’m not the same person who saw The Dark Knight. I’m not that little film-loving kid who wouldn’t take no for an answer when he thought he was going to become a film maker. I was a slacker. I barely graduated with all D’s and I hadn’t even applied to any colleges. When people asked me what I wanted to do with my life I didn’t give them the enthusiastic answer of “I’m going to become a director.” It was a vague and unreasuring “I don’t know.” As I realized this, I felt like a dissapointment to myself, my family, my friends, everyone I ever told that I would do great things, that told me how talented and skilled I was. I sat in that theater, and I’d never felt like such a loser, and I felt I didn’t deserve to see The Dark Knight Rises.

(Mild Spoilers Beware) But the film started anyway, and man, does it start. Almost immediately I was swept back into the world of Gotham as Bane takes down a plane in an epic and wonderfully directed scene. As the film went on, I really started thinking about Bruce Wayne, and I realized our similarities.

It was Wayne’s drive to save Gotham that caught my attention. Here was this guy who wanted to save Gotham and didn’t take no for an answer. Just like I did when I told people I would become a film maker. He was so confident in his goals like I used to be. But when he deals with the Joker his confidence is destroyed, the Joker took everything from him and made him lose faith in fixing Gotham.

Bruce Wayne starts off in the film where I was when I entered the theater. His dreams are a distant memory, he sits up in a far wing of Wayne manor where no one sees him. But he comes back into action when Bane starts terrorizing Gotham. Clearly, he is no match for Bane. Bruce attempts to take on the giant that is Bane, but loses and Bane puts Bruce in the prison where he was born so he can watch and do nothing about the destruction of Gotham.

When Bruce was in prison, I truly start to connect with him. He sits in a prison with a giant agape view of the sky built like a giant well, making you think you can escape, but the climbing and jumping is so demanding no one can do it, making it “the worst kind of hell”. Bruce has hit rock bottom and becomes hopeless, but he puts the rope around his waist and fails to make the jump out of the pit.

When a blind cell-mate explains why he doesn’t make the jump, my eyes opened wide. I realized where I’d gone wrong in my life was where Bruce Wayne did. He tells Bruce that the only person to ever escape was a young child terrified of dying there who had no rope to save them, and that you must fear death to make the jump. But Bruce never felt fear, and I never felt fear either when it came to becoming a film maker. Somewhere, deep down, I felt that if I was meant to be a film maker that I would be. That’s when Bruce realizes that in order to stop Bane and achieve his life goal of saving Gotham he has to fear death to give him that push to escape.

I started thinking to myself that the blind man was right, you have to have the fear inside you that maybe you won’t achieve your dreams. I thought about all the great film makers and the more I studied them, I realized they were never handed anything. Quentin Tarantino gave up absolutely everything for the small chance of becoming a film maker. Sylvester Stallone sold his possessions, including his dog outside of a 7/11, just for a small glimmer of hope that Rocky would be made.

Bruce Wayne and I need to feel fear to truly succeed. When Bruce finally feels the fear that he may die in prison while Gotham is destroyed, he realizes he has to do the jump without the rope. The only way to make the jump is to cut the rope, and use that fear of death to push him the distance to escape and save Gotham. Even the citizens of Gotham “Cut the Rope” in there own ways, and make big sacrifices to save Gotham.

Everyone becomes a hero in there own way, they may not have million dollar, crime-fighting suits, but their fear and large spirits made them stand up and save Gotham. That’s when Bruce and the audience finally realize the point of Batman. Batman could be anyone, he’s a symbol that anyone can rise up and be a hero in there own way. That “Even a man who puts a coat around a boy to let him know the world isn’t ending” is a hero.

As I left that wonderful and epic movie, I realized that I never really tried to become a film maker. What real attempts had I made? I know that I can’t take “no” for an answer, that one day I will be a film maker, because I owe it to myself. I owe it to the 7-year-old little boy who thought The Matrix was the coolest thing he’d ever seen, I owe it to that 9-year-old geek who obsessed over Blade Runner and over-analyzed every scene. I owe it to the that 13-year-old freshman who learned the true possibilities of cinema in that screening of The Dark Knight. I owe it to my family, everyone I ever told I’d become a film maker. Most importantly, I owe it to me.

Now I say goodbye to The Dark Knight franchise, the Unleashed Program, and high school. Now it’s time to cut the rope, make the jump, and rise.