“My subject in fiction is the action of grace in territory held largely by the devil.”—Flannery O’ConnorI have not seen The Dark Knight, nor did I ever really intend to; I don’t watch all that many movies (though it’s nice to be able to see them in the theater again), and I’ve never been a Batman fan. It does sound like a remarkable movie, though, judging from the reviews—and, no less, from the arguments over it in the Christian blogosphere. I know Thinklings Phil and Jared loved it, and I know Brant Hansen hated it, and their reactions seem to be pretty much representative. The most interesting response, though, has to have been the question Grant Thomas asked:What would Flannery O’Connor think?As he points out, given her artistic philosophy and her view of what it takes to communicate the reality of sin and grace to an unbelieving world, there’s good reason to think that she would have approved of the movie.
I think Flannery would say that Joker shows us that the world we are living in is in the territory of the devil. . . .I think in light of what I’ve been reading from Flannery O’Connor, that she would applaud the film for showing evil for what it is. Not only does it make evil look evil (rather than funny like in the old Adam West TV series), but I think Flannery would say that we need the Joker to realize how much we need grace. We need him to wear make up to realize that this kind of person should seem out of place in our world when most of the time we simply think this sort of thing is normal or at least tolerable.
As I said, I haven’t seen the movie to be able to judge, but what Grant says here makes sense to me. Read the whole post, including his several quotations from Flannery O’Connor, and see what you think.HT: Joyce
I’m sure this will surprise you, as it’s not the sort of movie I would generally see, but I did go to see it, and it might be worth at least a rental at some point. It really is what Jared says it is, and there was one scene in particular that really stuck out to me – a long speech the Joker makes to Batman that could just as easily be a portrait of what the world thinks of the church. There’s a very cold insane rationality to the evil in this film – a network of lies and twisted truths that, if you’re not paying attention, don’t seem quite as insane as they actually are… your heart begs people to make the right choices, and you want to stand up and yell when they don’t, and it breaks your heart – and the ending! I left the theatre depressed – my general review is “that was profoundly disturbing” – but the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve come to appreciate it. Not sure I’d go see it again, but I might fast-forward through bits and watch some of it when someone I know buys it… just to get a grip on what struck me that I can’t recite verbatim, having only seen it once.
Now, Get Smart… That I could quote bits of to you. I saw it three times. It was classic. 🙂
Thanks very much for the comment. I suspect I probably would find it well worth watching, if I was in the right sort of mood; it’s just a matter of whether or not I get to it. Sara’s talking about seeing it, though, which could change the calculation.