The Darl Knight Zeitgeist

Wow. I can heartily endorse the post by Jim Emerson linked below. I've recently started reading his blog regularly and find him to be one of the best film critics around. Emerson's blog is linked from Roger Ebert's home page (Emerson is a fellow Chicago Sun-Times employee) and I've added his link to mine. He had a collection of interesting writings on No Country For Old Men (2007), that are still available. For those posts and the one I'm linking here and for many others, the comments section is practically equal to the original post. Emerson evidently draws an erudite readership (and me).

Anyway, what I'm linking here is a post of his that is not just on The Dark Knight but on the reaction to it. It in turn references and quotes extensively from the Boston Globe's Ty Burr who wrote on interesting piece about the film's hype.

The Dark Knight has clearly emerged as one of those rare films that causes a major stir transcending the film world. In the case of Dark Knight you've got a film that is destroying box office records while garnering critical acclaim. We're about to reach a point that happens to every such film, the critical backlash. It even happened with Schindler's List (1993). It's a rule of our culture that anything or anyone that is universally beloved for any amount of time will at some point be taken down a couple of notches. It is similar to the manner in which celebrities are built up and at the first opportunity torn down.

The Dark Knight is the type of film that gets discussed as much as a cultural phenomenon as an artistic achievement. Thus it's meaning to our cultural and the timing of its arrival and long term impact are dissected. It gets talked and written about to death.

There could be an entire cottage industry on Dark Knight writings. Regardless of how interested you are in delving into the Dark Knight zeitgeist, be sure to read this: Under Cover of the Dark Knight