In the City of the Mountain King

I had some time to watch a movie last night, and pulled Fritz Lang's M from the shelf. It's the story of a child-killer in 1930s Germany, starring Peter Lorre in his breakout role. But really, Lorre's character, Hans Beckert, is almost incidental throughout most of the film. He's a man in shadows, or signified only by his own cast shadow and the playful tune he whistles (perhaps nervously, or perhaps in barely contained delight) as he stalks his young victims: "In the Hall of the Mountain King," from Peer Gynt. The real story is going on in the city in the grip of the fear the murders create.

Parents are terrified. Cops are baffled. Criminals are angry; the killings are bringing the cops down harder on every other type of crime as they try to uncover the murderer. People are desperate; eventually the crooks band together to find the murderer themselves, just to get the heat off their other crimes.

At one point, an old man is accosted on the street because he dared to tell a little girl the time when she asked him for it. Everyone is suspect, and a mob can form in an instant.

It's this feeling of fear that permeates the movie. People are scared, and they have to do something, even if there's no sensible basis for their actions.

The Dark Knight has a similar baseline of public dread. Heath Ledger's Joker terrorizes Gotham City with seemingly motiveless crimes of great violence. He pits people against each other, and uses their own better instincts against them. He actively tries to make them complicit in his crimes. At one point, after killing a mob boss, he breaks a pool cue in half. He tells the dead men's bodyguards that he's got room in his organization, but only room for one of them. Then he drops the sharp end of the cue on the ground between them.

It's the Joker's unpredictability that makes him terrifying, and he uses it ruthlessly. And Gotham responds by turning on Batman, demanding he unmask on the chance that the Joker would keep his promise to end things once he did. Or they try to assassinate someone because the Joker brutally makes it doing so seem for the greater good. Cops betray their duty, and their friends. All from fear.

It's important to remember, as the days of heightened terror alerts return like swallows to Capistrano, that we tend not to make the best decisions when we're afraid. President Roosevelt said something to that effect. Do not fear. In the end, when we confront it, the monster that terrified us becomes a weak, craven man pleading for his life.

Do not fear. There is no Mountain King.

Rob