Senator Obama's Berlin Speech; Also, "The Dark Knight"

REGARDING SENATOR OBAMA'S BERLIN SPEECH...

I believe that Senator Obama's dual objectives of looking impressive in a foreign setting (which projects American power and personal gravitas, two elements that could help him politically at home) while not pandering to some of the prevailing European political stances to which many independent American voters may take some exception (which would surely hurt his chances of shedding the lingering "overly liberal" and "elitist" tags the Republicans are working hard to make permanent) created a situation in which his Berlin speech was destined to be heavy on platitudes and light on specifics.

It was therefore clearly meant to be a "mood" speech, with soaring rhetoric allied to a less insistent tone than he would use on the campaign trail back home; Europeans are often (if not always) far more suspicious than Americans of such rhetoric when it is married to grandiose rising and falling vocal pitch, due partly to the fact that Americans are far more romantic in their overall and political mindsets than people in, say, Germany and many other European countries. (The British also tend to prefer more straight-forward deliveries, though they would also remove a lot of the American-romantic platitudes that such people as Ronald Reagan excelled in, and that Barack Obama has used to his advantage, as well.)

However, Berlin, of course, is a city steeped in rich recent history, as it was for many years the East/West fulcrum of the Cold War, at least insofar as European geography is concerned. It also looks so very different from when I was there in 2001, when the Brandenburg Gate was under construction, as was much of the area around it. Then, much of East Berlin still looked crumbly-arthritic; by my next visit in 2003, however, much of that dilapidated look had disappeared, and I have it on good authority that it looks very different in 2008 than it did just a few years ago. Though Senator Obama spoke publicly in the West of the city, which I've always found overwhelming and impressive in real life, the undercurrent of rapid development and change the city has displayed in a general sense since the fall of the Berlin Wall creates an equally frenetic and uniquely romantic feel.

So it is entirely appropriate that Senator Obama used the type of rhetoric that he did, and it also is entirely appropriate that he toned down his pitch and intonation. (After all, one might very well suggest that the history of the place, and the events about which he spoke, provide their own pitch and intonation; anything on top of that might be too superfluous and too over-the-top to be taken seriously by a European realist mindset.) And it's right that he directed much of his speech to citizens the world over, as well, because like London, Toronto, and New York City, Berlin is a magnet for people from all over the globe; it is a very international place. (When I speak to folks in Berlin in my very rusty German, they often reply to me in English, sometimes because they are German and realize that I am not, but often because they are foreigners for whom English is their native language, or foreigners who speak another native language but find it easier to communicate to fellow foreigners in English, which is a sort of stand-in lingua franca in many such scenarios.)

Yet given the electoral tightrope (described above) that Senator Obama needed to walk today, his speech was destined to sound nice but often unspecific, encouraging but not very particular. It was bound to be a bit of a fluff piece, which it was, and yet it was an important fluff piece when one considers the general sense of transatlantic cooperation and solidarity it suggested, which contrasts starkly with the sense that many Europeans (and many Americans, for that matter) have of President Bush as far as his European policies are concerned. If, like me, you believe that political "mood music" was the most important aspect of the speech--both for Americans and Europeans--it was a success. If you were looking for details, it most likely came across as being flat and ineffective.

Yet the first order of international business for Senator Obama, outside of the more immediate Middle East scenario, is, as I see it, setting a tone indicating that he is hopeful but not naieve, resolved yet cooperative, open-minded but no pushover. That's a tough thing to do, and doing it with consistency will take time. In today's Berlin speech, he took another step toward achieving that tone, and for that reason it was a successful speech, and a successful day, for him.

Europe, of course, is not nearly as politically and culturally homogenius as is the United States (which, of course, is itself not homogenius on those fronts), so now we'll see how the often internationally ambitious French accept him, and how he fares with British reticence.

REGARDING 'THE DARK KNIGHT'...

There is a scene in the new film "The Dark Knight" in which The Joker, played by the late Heath Ledger, meets unexpectedly with leaders of Gotham's major organized crime groups in a boiler room, or a kitchen, or some such place. Prior to showing them a series of grenades strapped to the inside of his jacket, he manages to intimidate them through his odd vocal mannerisms and sharp, discomfiting wit, both of which are used in a creepily intelligent manner to place the room under his spell, at least for a while. It's the best scene in the film because it crystallizes what those of us who have long admired Mr. Ledger's acting skills knew he could accomplish given a unique, smart script, and it highlights what a singular talent he was and, for the duration of time that the film runs on the screen, still is.

It's a testament to Mr. Ledger's performance (which should be nominated for an Oscar, by the way) that I was left rueing the fact that the scene finished when it did--I could have watched it go on for another half hour, plot be damned--even though watching The Joker perform his freakish magic is a nightmarish experience. It's also a testament to his performance that the film lost a little steam (for me, at least) in its final third, when his on-screen time was reduced due to the vast amount of explosions the filmmakers felt we needed to witness as a "climax." (The real filmmaking "climax" was probably the slower, more layered first two-thirds of the film, which was intriguing and almost enveloping.)

Maggie Gyllenhaal also turns in a strong performance, replacing Katie Holmes's doe-eyed yet serious mindset (no bad thing) from "Batman Begins" with more depth and a knowing sense of intelligence. That she is able to do this is indicative of the consistent and considerable, if often subtle, sense of personal gravity she possesses, particularly when one takes into account the often thankless lines she must deliver ("...oh, Bruce...."). It was a treat to see her on screen at the same time as Mr. Ledger, even if the most immediate example of this to pop into my mind involved the archaic damsel-in-distress/hostage-taking moment.

U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy is involved in that particular scene, too; he seems genuinely perplexed by The Joker when he is very nearly roughed-up by him. At that moment, Mr. Leahy seems as though he's trying to figure out just how intelligent the character, or the actor playing the character, really is. I'd err on the side of "highly intelligent indeed" as far as the actor is concerned. It's a very sad thing that we won't get to see him engage his personal aesthetic mania in any future films.