The Big One finally

Obsession is defined as the overall influence of one's thoughts or feelings by a persistent idea, image, desire, etc.  With that being said, there is defiantly lots of obsession in the films we’ve seen when this was due. In the Dark Knight, the Joker is always out to cause trouble no matter what it is and Batman is obsessed with stopping the Joker. In Singin' in the Rain, they were obsessed with making a movie that not only had sound but the words matched the mouth movements. In High Noon, Kane is obsessed with stopping his “nemesis” to the point his wife leaves him and he was fine. In Proof, you could say that Catherine is obsessed with her father and his work. Finally, in The Prestige, there is clearly a huge obsession in Angier's life.

The Dark Knight is a very unique film when it comes to obsession. Most of the characters in the film are at least a little obsessed. Batman is obsessed with stopping the Joker, and the joker is trying to get rid of the Batman. Batman's intentions are good and some good did come from stopping the Joker eventually. However, he used a personally invasive way to finally bring the Joker to an end. He had Fox spy on the whole city using a giant sonar system, just to find his enemy (because tapping one person’s phone wasn’t creepy enough). This might be seen as taking it a little far but he did what he felt he had to do. The Joker was definitely obsessed with causing chaos and I believe more of getting a rise out of Batman. He shows this when he is being interrogated by Batman. He said, "You just couldn't let me go, could you? This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You truly are incorruptible, aren't you? You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness. And I won't kill you because you're just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever." You could also say that Harvey Dent is defiantly obsessed with justice. He goes maybe a way overboard trying to find answers when he threatens to kill someone if the coin landed wrong, (however it clearly worked) shown in the picture below. Before that, he stole an ambulance with the man who shot Gordon in it. That was where we started to see Harvey go from good to bad.

Singin' in the Rain is a good film about movie making and I hadn’t really thought about it till the subject of obsession was brought up. When the idea of talking in movies was introduced to the characters in the movie, they were shocked and claimed that it would never be a big thing. However not too long after they said this they were, in fact, attempting to make a “talkie”. By while doing this, they had some issues and they became obsessed with fixing them. Don Lockwood, was obsessed with making sure Kathy got her chance at being a star. Together they came up with the idea of making the movie a musical to try and save it. Since Lina wasn't a good singer, they came up with the idea of Kathy covering the voice of Lina which I believe is a bit of a obsession, They spent hours upon hours doing voice over’s. Good eventually came out of this obsession as Kathy was discovered as the true singer. For Lina it wasn't good, but she was seen as the "bad guy" so it was fine.

In Proof you have to look a little bit harder to see the obsessions. Catherine, as I see it, has an obsession with her dad. When Catherine is going to college, she loses contact with her dad and calls Claire to see if she knows what's wrong. When she finds out that Claire doesn't know, she no longer wants to talk to her. She decides to make a trip to her dad’s house that was thirty minutes away just to see that he was okay. He said he was too busy to answer the phone and that it was a distraction. This shows that he was obsessed with his “work” even though nobody else could make any sense of it. Catherine also decided quit school to live with him for a long time to make sure that he was okay. When he died and Claire came for the funeral, she seemed set on taking Catherine back to New York and maybe putting her in a home. She was so sure that Catherine would go back with her that she sold the house that Catherine had been living in for quite a while. While all of that is happening, Hal is pursuing his obsession of finding out if Catherine's proof is a proof and if she really wrote it. This obsession did lead to good because we are led to believe that it is indeed a proof and that she did write it after lots and lots of denial. We see this at the end when they start going over it together.

In High Noon, it is pretty easy to pick out the obsession. It's Kane's obsession to his job and with that, protecting the town. He's so obsessed that he loses his newlywed wife, partner, and all of the towns support all over one person. Even though no one in the town agrees with him, he still decides to take on four enemies all on his own. Even in the beginning when Kane and his new wife were leaving town, he told her that he had to go back. She told him she'd leave him if he did go back. I'd say that that's obvious obsession because he risked his relationship with his new wife just to do his “job” that was let go from. He is also set on the idea that Frank Miller must die when he got there instead of being arrested again. This is why he tries to get deputies but he fails. He goes to the point that he knows he is likely to die, shown in the first 30 seconds of this film, but he still goes through with it.

Finally The Prestige. The Prestige defiantly has the most obvious obsession out of all these films. Angier is most definitely obsessed with seeking revenge on Borden and eventually finding the secret to Borden's "Transported Man" trick. He demonstrates his obsession several times. When he was seeking revenge, he went to Borden's show and shot Borden. Not only that, but, when he saw the transported man, he wanted to do it as well but way better so he could steal the fame. At first he was successful because of his showmanship but because of his obsession he had to make it better. He brought Fallon's life into the situation and buried him alive to ask Borden what the secret was in the picture below. He traveled to America and spent an enormous amount of money to get the real thing. This caused him to kill himself every time he performed the trick. As the saying goes curiosity killed the cat, Borden was trying to find out Angier trick and stumbles upon the “trick” and is accused of murder and Angier just let it happen instead of letting him live. This didn’t turn out very good for Angier because he didn't know there was two of Borden and the one that survived killed Angier. This is an example where no good came from the obsession. This video demonstrates Angier's obsession quite well when it comes to finding Borden's secret. Borden has a pretty sizable obsession too where the two Borden’s swapped wife’s and girlfriend and cut off a finger, pretty much switched lives without anybody knowing.

One of the characters in all of these films had a obsession. Obsession played a huge role in almost all of these films and without it; they wouldn't be very good.