On with the diatribe.

***SPOILERS FOLLOW***

We are Gordon/Dent/Dawes

I propose we are Gordon, Dent, or Dawes.  These three are the only people besides Fox and Alfred that Batman can trust.  As we mentioned before Batman would ideally like to hand the city over to them.  These three are agents of good who all have framed their ideas of justice and have presented them to the world.  they have been attacked because of their ideas (literally).  Most of us have ideas about what Justice is and even more have strong opinions about what it is not.  Just because these three are attacked for their beliefs does not mean that they have the right idea.  For the most part they all believe that the law is justice.  But Joker tears this belief apart by using his own capture as a vehicle for chaos.  Joker uses the system that is supposed to work to show the Batman that they dot hold the answer.  and as a final blow he takes out the heads of these systems.  Even more drastically he “kills”  all three of these icons of what Batman believes in.  in the end all we have left is Gordon who was never part of the system in its current form.  At the end of the film Gordon actually has the harder job of reconstructing Gotham and “capturing” Batman.

I think this is a big cue to the audience that we have to look at ourselves as these three as well.  We need to be the greatest believers in Justice, whatever it may be, and we need to stand as a beacon to those who do not know what it is, who are trapped in a battle, or who are blind to it.  There have to be people willing to sacrifice themselves for Justice so that it will survive.  Some of us need to be the support to those who are lost (Dawes), some need to be the executor of the Justice and its hands (Gordon), and some need to be the beacon of hope and an ideal to look to.  I don’t think we get to choose which one we are.

We are Gotham

We are The City of Gotham.  Pathetic, helpless, dirty, cruel, antagonistic, easily manipulated, and represented only by the weakest and strongest among us.  We need help we are creatures that can be threatened by those in charge, good or bad, and we are mechanical predictable in our reactions.  Gotham is not innocent but regardless it needs to be protected because they are beautiful and good because they are people.  This is epically important.  because they are fellow humans they deserve respect and protection and gentle care.  and at all costs to be taken care of.  because they have only seen hate, malice, and manipulation they cannot understand the efforts of good men and women who sacrifice themselves for the city.  Just as the city does, we need to recognize grace given to us and seek out those who love us and want to protect our innocence and soul.  It is no surprise that children are ones who constantly see the good in Batman and desire to be like him in Gotham.

As a memer of the city we cant try to emulate those who are fighting the good fight.  without proper education, dicipline, and understanding we will get hurt and will be used against those who are prepared to be our knights.  There are obvious ||s that can be drawn from this in every arena.  Christians, Muslim, envrionmentalists, liberal, conservatives, etc. are cursed by their “gotham” population desperately trying to be Batmans, Gordons, Dawes, Dents, or worse Foxes and Alfreds.

We are NOT Fox/Alfred

We are not Fox or Alfred.  They have no flaws.  They are our compass and light.  They guide us at our darkest times.  We feel that we have to hide our inadequacies from them and we hide the moments that we step over our boundaries. we hide our sins until we are forced to reveal to them exactly how bad we really are.  and Their reaction is always precisely and perfectly appropriate.  These men our the saints we meet once or twice in our lives.  Chances are if you are reading this you are not this person, I am quite sure I am not.  These are the men we should look to be like but we cannot make the mistake and think we are like them.

What can we learn?

I’ll leave this for you to explore on your own.  There is much more than I have discussed here but please post any thoughts in the comments.

I am Nate Marshall.  I was raised all over the country and have settled for the time being in the Bay Area.  I have found that one thing that has always impressed me since my childhood was the incredible power of the visual medium.  From design in toys to films to typography and what the words actual say, I have been fascinated by it all.  Visuals drive me to think harder and to act every day of my life.  This isn’t to say that I am a slave to media but you could safely say that I am often consuming media to learn more about this strange diverse beautiful and horrible world that we all live in and share.

I am a Teacher by profession currently though I will always be a student, I believe, in some fashion.  I trained to be a film producer in college @ Biola University.  My passion was to create films.  I particularly wanted to create animated films because of the freedoms involved and the relatively low cost.  The other reason I liked animation was that the smaller teams of creative individuals allows for a community to be developed and I always dreamed of living a life as an “Imagineer.”

I teach now though, and it is a perfect job in so many ways.  I teach many different classes at the private school that allows me such creative and personal freedom to teach great classes.  I offer a Intro to Video Class (how to hold a camera and point it at something interesting), Art of Filmmaking (creating the interesting image and learning from the masters how to say something Good, True and Beautiful), Applied Filmmaking (creating and distributing high quality content), Screenwriting I teach this with my wife Lindsay (How to tell a story and not look like an amateur so you can eventually put your script in the hands of people who matter).  We also have two other classes that I co-teach with other excellent facilitators and educators, Acting for Film is taught by our Theatre Department head and we offer a daily live news broadcast to the entire school.  I  co-teach this class with our Radio Dept. head.  we offer this news class so that we can live webcast school events and sports as well as provide the daily news to the student body.

My future is teaching for the foreseeable future as well as screenwriting with my wife.  We have been writing together for 5 years and have a great time doing it!  It is something that we love to do together and it keeps our marriage strong because we work together as a family and we work together creatively and academically.  That kind of bond is more valuable than anything I have ever experienced.

So this blog will be about the media, but really mostly about cinema.  I want to begin a tradition of reviewing movies in a new context.  I want to explore movies in the context of their value and their contribution of an age-old conversation on art, communication and other topic raised in the specific films.  because of this you wont expect to see many reviews of films here on the lower brow film of the week.  and you will have to be sure to expand your repertoire of films.

I want to encourage you as well to get involved reading and commenting on these films.  There is no real reason to talk to the air when we write and the only way that we can truly appreciate the films that are created is to discuss and try to better understand them.  So I call on you to challenge me and others in the goal of making us all better film viewers but essentially better people in the process.  People who understand just a small bit better the world that we live in and the world that we all share together.

Our future is together and our future is bright.  Let’s gather and speak of things that have value and create a new comunity of souls that understand the value of the visual word