Nolan’s whole Batman trilogy is remarkably consistent in its emotional and psychological characterizations. In the Emotional Toolbox method, rather than looking at genre, the essential emotional force driving the movie is analyzed. Nolan’s trilogy is a series of complex multi-layered Power of Truth stories.

These kinds of stories are driven by secrets, lies, conspiracies, or concealment. In the opening of The Dark Knight Rises a huge lie is rotting at the heart of Gotham City.

Bruce Wayne/Batman languishes in disgrace, broken and hiding in his cavernous mansion. Harvey Dent, who had become the criminally insane Two Face in the previous film, The Dark Knight, has been put on a pedestal and is revered as a hero. His crimes are concealed and even blamed on Batman.

When the terrorist villian Bane takes over Gotham he exposes the lie. Bane says: “Behind you stands a symbol of oppression; Blackgate Prison, where a thousand men have languished under the name of this man.”

Bane holds up a picture of Harvey Dent and continues, “Harvey Dent, has been held up to you as the shining example of justice …You have been supplied with a false idol to stop you from tearing down this corrupt city. Let me tell you the truth about Harvey Dent from the words of Gotham’s police commissioner, James Gordon.”

Bane quotes Gordon’s letter, “‘The Batman didn’t murder Harvey Dent, he saved my boy then took the blame for Harvey’s appalling crimes so that I could, to my shame, build a lie around this fallen idol. I praised the mad man who tried to murder my own child but I can no longer live with my lie. It is time to trust the people of Gotham with the truth and it is time for me to resign.'”

Bane asks the crowd, “And do you accept this man’s resignation? Do you accept the resignation of all these liars? Of all the corrupt?”

Police Officer John Blake watches the speech on television says to Police Commissioner Jim Gordon, “Those men were locked up for eight years in Blackgate and denied parole under the Dent Act, based on a lie?”

Gordon explains, “Gotham needed a hero …”

Blake is disgusted, “You betrayed everything you stood for.”

The Dark Knight Rises and all Power of Truth stories chronicle the most profound and personal betrayals. These stories also ask: when does betrayal look like loyalty and when does loyalty looks like betrayal? These stories’ twists, turns, treachery, and reversals, changes everything the character believes is true. All the character holds dear is destroyed.

One of the major betrayals at the heart of the film is Alfred Pennyworth’s omission in telling Bruce Wayne what happened just before Bruce’s great love, Rachel Dawes, died. Alfred argues against Bruce re-emerging as Batman, revealing the truth.

Alfred says, “I’ll get this (package) to Mr. Fox, but no more. I’ve sewn you up, I’ve set your bones, but I won’t bury you. I’ve buried enough members of the Wayne family.”

Bruce Wayne can’t believe Alfred would leave him.

Alfred explains, “You see only one end to your journey. Leaving is all I have to make you understand, you’re not Batman anymore. You have to find another way. You used to talk about finishing a life beyond that awful cape.”

Bruce argues that Rachel died believing that the two of them would be together; that was his life beyond the cape. He can’t just move on. She didn’t, she couldn’t.

Alfred reluctantly tells the truth, “What if she had? What if, before she died, she wrote a letter saying she chose Harvey Dent over you? And what if, to spare your pain, I burnt that letter?”

Bruce accuses Alfred of just using Rachel to try to stop him.

Alfred is adamant. “I am using the truth, Master Wayne. Maybe it’s time we all stop trying to outsmart the truth and let it have its day. I’m sorry.”

Bruce can’t believe his ears. “You’re sorry? You expect to destroy my world and then think we’re going to shake hands?”

Alfred sadly admits that he knows what exposing this truth means. “It means your hatred… and it also means losing someone that I have cared for since I first heard his cries echo through this house. But it might also mean saving your life. And that is more important.”

Bruce Wayne turns on Alfred and bids him an angry good-bye.

Alfred’s action precisely echoes what Batman himself does at the end of the previous film, The Dark Knight. At the end of that film, Batman takes on the burden of Two Face’s crimes to give Gotham a “hero.” Batman turns himself into someone he’s not in the eyes of the public. Like Alfred tries to “save” Bruce Wayne/Batman from the truth, Batman tries to “save” Gotham from the truth.

In Power of Truth stories, like Nolan’s Batman triology, things are never what they seem.  The tangled undergrowth of human duplicity catches and pulls at every character in the film.

In The Dark Knight Rises, deep below Gotham, a secret city seethes in rebellion. The terrorist Bane rises from underground to take over Gotham.  His complex subterranean lair tunnels under Gotham and undermines its very foundations. The hidden  criminal enclave is a visual symbol that under the assumptions of the slick shiny city surface dark deceit and a world of pain wait– For Batman and for anyone else in Gotham City.

The Quiet American

“I can’t say what made me fall in love with Vietnam – that a woman’s voice can drug you; that everything is so intense. The colors, the taste, even the rain. Nothing like the filthy rain in London. They say whatever you’re looking for, you will find here. They say you come to Vietnam and you understand a lot in a few minutes, but the rest has got to be lived. The smell: that’s the first thing that hits you, promising everything in exchange for your soul. And the heat. Your shirt is straightaway a rag. You can hardly remember your name, or what you came to escape from. But at night, there’s a breeze. The river is beautiful. You could be forgiven for thinking there was no war; that the gunshots were fireworks; that only pleasure matters. A pipe of opium, or the touch of a girl who might tell you she loves you. And then, something happens, as you knew it would. And nothing can ever be the same again.”

On one level The Quiet American is a love story about two men in love with the same woman, both of whom believe have her best interests at heart.  On a deeper level it is about the duplicity surrounding America’s growing involvement in Viet Nam.

The film, and the novel it is adapted from, are set during the early 1950’s.  French forces are busy fighting the communists.  Brendan Fraiser (Power of Conscience), a young aide worker believes the way to save Viet Nam is to introduce a third force to take the place of both the French colonialists and the communist rebels and thereby restore order.

If innocent civilians must be killed to protect other innocent civilians– so be it. (How much evil are you willing to do in pursue of what you see as the greater good?)  It turns out he is an American CIA operative able to put his ideas into action.  Along the way he falls in love with Caine’s mistress.  Caine muses that it is a small leap from wanting to save her country to wanting to save her.

Stephanie Zacharek, writing in Salon.com, calls The Quiet American “the smudged line that often separates loyalty and rivalry in friendships, the bewildering complexity of romantic love, the insecurities wrought by encroaching old age and both the value and the blind treachery of political idealism.”

The film is a wonderful meditation on how politics get all mixed up and tangled into what and who you love.  It is a literate and achingly tender portrayal of a disaster waiting to happen.

A character driven by the Power of Love is often someone who tirelessly pushes another forward in a story.  Although typically developed as a female character,  a Power of Love character can also be a compelling male ensemble player (or even lead).  These characters— often soft-spoken, gentle and compliant on the outside— are made of strong, even steely, stuff on the inside.  They believe the best place to be is the “power behind the throne.”

All these qualities are very evident with Alfred.  His courtesy and refined manners mask a steely determination and protectiveness on Bruce Wayne/Batman’s behalf.  Alfred stands just behind Batman’s power and is a subtle but strong presence in the story.

Alfred: I suppose they’ll lock me up as well. As your accomplice…
Bruce/Batman: Accomplice? I’m going to tell them the whole thing was your idea.

In a large part the whole concept of Batman is Alfred’s idea. Bruce/Batman’s continuing story hinges on a key action Alfred takes.

Power of Love characters are defined by their determination.  They will not give up on whatever goal, scheme or objective they have in mind for the object of their attention.  These characters  sincerely do believe they know what is best for others.  They can be very cunning in controlling and manipulating others (always for the other person’s own welfare).

Alfred advises, consoles and prods Bruce/Batman through-out the film.  Rachel entrusts Alfred with the note that, ironically, are her last words.  Alfred first delivers Rachel’s farewell note and then surreptitiously takes it and burns it.  He does so out of love for Bruce/Batman, and he sincerely believes he (Alfred) knows what is best.  Maybe so, but Alfred also deprives Bruce/Batman of the truth and the last words of the woman he loves.