Going Behind the Trauma: Desiring Batman in Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy

On July 20th, Christopher Nolan's much acclaimed Dark Knight Trilogy will come to its conclusion with the already-in-the-bank blockbuster The Dark Knight Rises. So much critical ink has been spilled about the first two installments, from the deployment of gothic anti-hero tropes to the atmospheric return of a grayscale Gotham City watched over by a brooding Wayne Manor, that it hardly seems necessary to preemptively trod these worn paths again. In fact, there is a wonderful interrogation of Heath Ledger's Joker and the narratives of trauma done by Catherine Spooner on this blogsite [July 2008]