The Dark Knight

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HUGE SPOILER / DONT WATCH

http://www.whysoserious.com/myhero

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the IMAX midnight show July 17 is already sold out.  now i'm upset.

[MacGuffin]

Nolan's Chicago Knight
The Dark Knight director dishes from the set of the sequel.

As effectively as he resuscitated the Batman movie franchise with Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan did end up creating a big problem for himself -- namely, how to top himself? The answer, it seemed, was twofold: bring in Batman's most famous adversary, The Joker; and get a top-notch actor to lend him just the right amount of murderous insanity. After Heath Ledger was cast, images of a fey, colorful but otherwise harmless Joker were little more than fuzzy memories and Nolan's sequel, called The Dark Knight, finally had the right counterpoint to balance out the caped crusader's questionable morality.

On June 29, 2007, IGN visited the Chicago set of The Dark Knight. In addition to watching a scene between Christian Bale and Gary Oldman, we joined a group of online media outlets to discuss the movie with various members of the cast and crew. In between scenes, Nolan himself spoke to the group about Batman's evolution, the escalation of danger in Gotham City, and maintaining both entertainment value and artistic integrity with this second installment.

Q: What can you tell us about the scene we were just watching?

Christopher Nolan: Gosh, we should have finished it before lunch and didn't. What can I tell you about that? It's the first scene between Batman and Gordon in the film and it does a lot of stage setting, scene setting for talking about the time that has past between the first film and this film.

Q: My five year old wants for see this film really badly. Is Heath Ledger going to scare the crap out of him and he's going to have to have years of therapy?

Nolan: Yes, definitely. I wouldn't take a five year old. I'd wait a few years.

Q: Can you talk about Heath's performance?

Nolan: What Heath's doing is very unique and really I think pretty amazing and very frightening as the character should be. There's a wicked sense of humor to it, but he's extremely entertaining. He's definitely taking it in a very intense, very scary direction.

Q: The name Johnny Rotten has already come up twice in regards to The Joker. Is the character based upon him?

Nolan: Well, we very much took the view in looking at the character of Joker that he... what's strong about him is this idea of anarchy -- this commitment to anarchy, this commitment to chaos. So he's not just a bank robber or an ordinary criminal who's out for material gain. His chief motivation would be that of anarchist. I talked to Heath a lot about it even as we were writing the script, finishing the script I should say. And we both agreed that, to me, that's the most threatening force that society faces -- that of pure anarchy, someone who wants do harm really for it's own sake and his own entertainment.

Q: In past Batman films The Joker has had henchmen. Is he going to here or is he the whole threat?

Nolan: Well, let's just say that he's the type of individual that attracts a certain type of individual to him and is able to recruit a certain type of individual to him.

Q: In Lindy Hemming's discussion of The Joker costume, she said she was looking for a reason why he would dress this way and initially came to the conclusion that's just who he is.

Nolan: That is and that's the way of the comics, too. If you read the first couple of appearances, he just is, and I think that's absolutely why we wound up going that direction. Because we had set out to do a more realistic version of a character that's been done before, so it fits into our somewhat more realistic, slightly grittier world view of the Batman universe. But ultimately, you accept that the character just is that way. That becomes the most realistic way of doing it, rather than trying to find [an origin]. We didn't want to be trying to find real world explanations to every aspect of this character. What we realized is that to a certain extent the flamboyance of the character is who he is.

Q: He's a force of nature?

Nolan: Yeah, he's a force of nature. And once you start thinking of the character as a given, as he just is who he is, then the psychology of that becomes immediately very obvious and the idea that he's a very usable character -- a very anarchic character in our society, to me -- starts to seem quite obvious.

Q: What was it that made you want to revisit the world of Batman? What did you not say in the first film that you wanted to come back for?

Nolan: I think for me really, certainly addressing the character of The Joker has a lot to do with it. I mean, overall I just very much enjoyed making the first film though I had no real intention of doing a sequel. But having created a view of Batman's universe and at the end of the film we introduced the idea or the thought of The Joker, that to me becomes an irresistible creative process that myself, David Goyer and Jonah [Nolan] sort of got into. It's just a very interesting thing to sit around and think, "OK, how does it work? Batman without powers, how does that affect where we see Joker, [and] who would that guy be in our universe?"

Q: What comic books did you refer to in fleshing out this iteration of The Joker? The way he looks reminds one of certain versions of The Joker written by Ed Brubaker, for example.

Nolan: To be honest, myself and David Goyer just thought of... in our talking specifically about comics -- he has an incredible knowledge about all the comic books -- we just really kind of dove in and tried to do our version of the character simply based on our memories of the comics, you know, without going back. And when Jonah came on board to write the first draft from our treatment, one of the things he specifically said was, "Did you look at the first appearances of the character?" And I said, "No." And then we went back and looked at those as we were writing the script and we wound up, I think, very, very close to the original jumping off point of the character in the history of the comics. In visual terms, we really tried to just go our own way and work with Heath in developing what we thought would be the look of the character. Basically, it winds up being an amalgam looking at everything that's been done with the character -- just processing, just having the time. And, fortunately, we really did have the time; I was talking to David Goyer about that earlier before we started shooting. Just ruminating, just allowing our imaginations to remember what we remembered, and take what we took from the history of the comics and put it all together -- which is very much how we approached Batman in the first film.

Q: What in your mind makes a good sequel? What pitfalls were you perhaps trying to avoid?

Nolan: I think that what makes a good sequel is a film that feels inevitable and that when you go back and see the first film you completely understand that the story had to continue with a second film. And I wouldn't be making this film if I didn't have that feeling about a story and how that has to continue across. I think the pitfalls are simply repeating yourself -- repeating yourself but on a bigger scale. That's something we're not doing at all. We're really very much creating a second half to the story.

Q: Do you have any feeling about the inevitability of a third film?

Nolan: No, I'm really just making this film. Honestly, I'm sure I could look back and say at all the things I talked about when I was doing the first film because I wanted everything to be on the first film. That was a very genuine process, and for me having a great story of two halves is something really in accord with this movie. So when people see this movie they really feel that they have seen a complete story.

Q: What did the actors think about coming back and reprising their roles?

Nolan: Well, I think they're all pretty excited just about the nature of the material and where the story took them. And the great thing about doing a sequel that I didn't really know until we dove into it is that you've set up all the characters, so you don't have to take that time with the audience. So you can really take them further, you can jump in with them; there's a nice familiarity to them as they appear on-screen, as they first pop off. So you can do a little more with each of them, and you can do it in slightly less time, which in a way you have to because you have more characters. And we're introducing new characters, so you try not to make a four hour movie. That shorthand you have with characters you already know is tremendously valuable.

Q: Along those lines of the supporting actors, your Batman films relative to other superhero films, have a pretty huge amount of supporting characters. What criteria do you use to decide which characters to bring in? For example, do you have a need for a female police officer and call her Rene Montoya?

Nolan: Yeah, well it's not Rene Montoya. We looked at using her, but we wanted to change the character from the way the character is in the comics so we changed the name, and she became a different character -- and that's part of our process. We look at: What are the demands of our story based on our reading of various comics? As the story starts to shape itself, there's a certain sense in which you decide which characters are we representing and which have changed a bit and therefore need to be our own characters and in what way the history of the comics is helping you tell your story. So that's kind of the best way I can describe the process. There are certain legalistic aspects. I'll sit there with Goyer saying, "Wouldn't it be great if this happened or if we had a character do this?" And he'll say, "Oh, that's so and so from such and such." And he has a great knowledge of the comics, so it's very fun to run over stuff with him.

Q: In the first film you say that things are going to get worse before they get better. Can you elaborate on what that means in terms of the story and in terms of the tone?

Nolan: Well, I think it's really more the idea. It's not necessarily things are going to get worse before they get better, although that's certainly a theme in this film. But really the key point is Gordon's little speech about escalation and the idea of such a radical response to crime and prompting its own radical nature. And at the end of the first film when The Joker's card is presented, it is very clear that was our idea of yes, Batman succeeded, but at the same time he's going to prompt a very extreme response. And in this film, that's the jumping off point -- the very extreme response to Batman's war on crime.

Q: Has he overcome his past or is he more a man on a mission to clean up Gotham?

Nolan: I think he is a more complete version of himself, as it were. I think he is... he has moved on and he is less tortured by his distant past. So we get to torture him more with fresh ones. He's never entirely free from torture, one might say.

Q: As we read in the comics, it seems like at a certain point you've got to make him more heroic.

Nolan: Yes, he can't mope; he can't have a self indulgent angst. He has to be substantial. We try to tell a story in the first film whereby he did confront and overcome various aspects of what drives him, of the angst, and left others to hang. So in this film we try to have the character, Christian Bale's character, start from that point of he's not sitting around moping about the fact that his parents were killed, etc. [because] we dealt with that in the first film. But he's nevertheless a very dark character.

Q: Can you talk about the IMAX scenes that you're shooting and would you ever consider shooting a Batman film in 3-D?

Nolan: We're shooting various of the action scenes for the film in IMAX format. And as we progress, I'm still trying to convince everybody to shoot more and more bits of it in IMAX. It's a very unwieldy and burdensome format, but it's really a pretty incredible thing to look at and I'm just having a blast working with that format. I've never been particularly interested in 3-D because to me one of the things that's just amazing -- one of the things that I'm trying to get back to and that I love about movies -- is their larger than life quality. And it's a peculiar thing with the way your eyes work: When you wear 3-D glasses and look at a 3-D image, the screen appears to be small. If you're shooting close-ups in a 3-D... I mean, next time you go to see a 3-D film, put your glasses on and the screen shrinks to this size because you're five feet away from the person. [And then] you take your glasses off and suddenly it's massive again. And I'm interested in the massive canvas -- in that larger than life canvas that IMAX gives you and you create an immersive quality by the clarity and the size and brightness of the images. So that gives you a great physical sense, like you would get in a 3-D movie, but it doesn't diminish the scale of it. So you're still dealing with a huge, larger than life canvas, that I think is the best way to use that format. I also hate wearing those glasses.

Q: [Editor's Note: Poor recording quality prohibited clear transcription of this question.]

Nolan: To give an obscure answer to an obscure question, there are fascist aspects to a masked vigilante running around, and even what we've done with the symbol. There are very dangerous aspects of the character, and everything we try and do with the story is explore those aspects. And we constantly ask ourselves in the writing of the film and the making of the film, "Why is Batman a hero? Why is he a good guy?" And that's one of the reasons I think that there are certain directions we could take, and some of the fans would like to see you take, with this character that are very dark and very intense. But there always has to be this guiding idea of heroism. Batman is a good guy, and that's an important question to continually ask because there are parts of his mythology that have in the past been co-opted by disreputable and horrible aspects of humanity, so it's a very important question to ask in the making of the film. Why is he a hero?

Q: There's a quote attributed to you that said Superman is sort of the way that America views itself and Batman is the way that the rest of the world views America.

Nolan: That's fantastic that that's attributed to me, but it's not my quote. It's Michael Caine's. No he said it to me the first time I met him. I thought it was very interesting. I thought it was a very interesting point of view.

Q: Is that something that informed your development of the character or story?

Nolan: Only in the sense that Superman is an ideal of something. And I think of Batman -- being the more human character -- is not as ideal, and is having to deal with the consequences of his actions in a more relatable, more human, and a more political way. So that's what I love about the character because the story gets messy; it's not always easy to figure out, "What is the heroic course of action? What is OK to do? What is the line you can't cross as a vigilante as somebody who works outside of the law technically?" And this story gets to really explore those issues.

Q: All of your films are meticulously plotted. Was there anything that you were not able to work into this story?

Nolan: You know, I mean... honestly, we really pretty much stuffed everything I wanted into the movie. My biggest fear right now is just there's a lot to put in that we're shooting. And when we get to finishing the film, we'll have to be somewhat ruthless about how we put it together. But yeah, we're telling a very dense story and a very sprawling story with a lot of characters, a lot of plotlines, a lot of things going on. So I kind of didn't leave anything out. And I thought that that would be part of the problem doing a sequel actually -- that you're jumping into the story of a character we've introduced to the audience very fully formed. We're not having to deal with the origin of the character, so you've got a good head start. We really wanted to be as ambitious as possible with the scope of the movie and what we put into it.

Q: What's the one scene in this movie that you can't wait to show audiences?

Nolan: You sort of try and fall in love with every scene as you shoot it. [But] we've already shot some scenes that I'm extremely excited about; a lot of them... I mean, we're doing some pretty grand-scale action things in the IMAX format as it will be and I'm very excited just to get those done. But a lot of the character scenes -- scenes that are more intimate, scenes between The Joker and the Batman -- are some of the most intriguing in the film, some of the most involved. But I wouldn't really want to say. We have to finish it and then know.

Q: Does Batman fulfill more of his role as a detective in this film?

Nolan: Yes, he definitely I think much more easily in this story assumes more of a detective role. There was something that was important to get in the first film and we got it in a small way, but in dealing with the origin and in dealing with all larger aspects of the character it became very difficult to get that in. Actually, it's an answer to the earlier question of what we tried to put in this film that we couldn't get into the first film and him as detective is definitely one of those aspects.

[Redlum]

the IMAX midnight show July 17 is already sold out.  now i'm upset.

Condolences.

...Do you know if they show cinemascope movies in their original 2.35:1 aspect for IMAX screenings?

edit: http://www.aintitcool.com/node/37285

sure you’ve read that Nolan decided to shoot six major sequences in the film in IMAX. This is the first time a major studio narrative film has lensed sequences in the format. The cameras are a nightmare to move, they hold only three minutes of film, and they’re so noisy it makes it almost impossible to record dialogue live. Even so, I’ll bet we see Nolan work in the format again, because the results are so immersive and startling that they’re worth whatever headaches are involved. The way it works is the IMAX sequences are all projected full frame, so they fill the entire eight-story screen at a ratio of 1.44:1. When the IMAX sequences end, the movie pops into a 2.40:1 letterboxed ratio that’s still pretty damn gigantic. And for regular theaters showing the film, you’ll see everything at 2.40:1, although I’m willing to bet you notice a marked visual difference for certain scenes. It’s not just the size of an IMAX frame... it’s the clarity. It’s the way you get lost in it and no matter where you work, there’s some detail you can notice that might otherwise be lost. It’s the way each motion of the camera pulls you in and makes you feel like you’re moving with it. But more than anything, it’s the way the faces of the actors tower over you, the operatic emotion of this piece cranked up even further by the sheer scale of things. When you look into someone’s eyes, you get a sense of who they are. And in IMAX? It’s like you can see right inside them, which only makes Ledger’s work more disturbing.

I've just watched the IMAX prologue included with the new Blu-ray release and not only does it look fantastic but the comparisons to Heat (which seems to be in most of the early reviews) are appropriate.

[MacGuffin]

New Trailer

[Kal]

Somebody sent me this, written by Kevin Smith in his blog:

"Courtesy of Peter Sciretta over at SlashFilm.com, I caught an early screening of "The Dark Knight" yesterday evening.Without giving anything away, this is an epic film (and trust me: based on the sheer size and scope of the visuals and storytelling, that's not an overstatement). It's the "Godfather II" of comic book films and three times more earnest than "Batman Begins" (and fuck, was that an earnest film). Easily the most adult comic book film ever made. Heath Ledger didn't so much give a performance as he disappeared completely into the role; I know I'm not the first to suggest this, but he'll likely get at least an Oscar nod (if not the win) for Best Supporting Actor. Fucking flick's nearly three hours long and only leaves you wanting more (in a great way). I can't imagine anyone being disappointed by it. Nolan and crew have created something close to a masterpiece."

[hedwig]

Somebody sent me this

haha yeah, cover your ass.

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the IMAX midnight show July 17 is already sold out.  now i'm upset.

i got non-IMAX tickets to my fav screen in the city Lincoln Sq #1 for midnight.  and i also got tickets to see it in IMAX on Tues since i will be home for the weekend.  i will definitely have to see it over the weekend with my dad who is a huge Batman fan.  and my friend who used to work at DC Comics is seeing if she can get us into a screening before it comes out.  so in the first week i will be seeing this at least 3, possibly 4 times.  now i'm excited.

[Kal]

Somebody sent me this

haha yeah, cover your ass.

LOL I know how it sounds but they did send it to me... I didn't know he had a blog

[Stefen]

Mod, have you warmed up to the Ledger casting? I remember you were pretty upset about it when it was announced.

[Alexandro]

If this makes a ton of money (and it's pretty sure it will), with the critical acclaim we are witnessing...could it be possible this thing ends up being a best picture oscar nominee? For tenet goddam years we've been seeing Batman movies ranging from the great (Batman Returns, Batman Begins) to the innovative (Batman) to the cheesy (Batman Forever) to the plain awful (you know)...

I know, who gives a fuck, right? But maybe more people will watch the Oscars if a box office hit that is also a quality popcorn summer movie is nominated. Or maybe they'll nominate the next Juno as their audience friendly option.

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Mod, have you warmed up to the Ledger casting? I remember you were pretty upset about it when it was announced.

yep.

LET ME JUST PRAY TO GOD ALOUD THAT THIS IS NOT TRUE>  PLEASE GOD, DO NOT PUT HEATH LEDGER IN A BATMAN FILM.  THANK YOU LORD.

11 23 months later (and 1 month to go) i just want to apologize to Heath Ledger and the Lord.  every shot of The Joker that i've seen is completely iconic.  even if this movie sucks, it's still going to be my favorite movie this year. 

[MacGuffin]

[matt35mm]

aw, that's cute.

[MacGuffin]

Nolan Mulls Third Bat-Movie
Source: SciFi Wire

Christopher Nolan, the writer/director who continues reinventing the Batman franchise with the upcoming sequel film The Dark Knight, told reporters that he hasn't begun to think about doing a third installment--though at least one of his cast members thinks otherwise.

After Nolan completed the first of his Caped Crusader reboots, 2005's Batman Begins, Dark Knight writers David S. Goyer and Jonathan Nolan (Christopher's brother) told reporters that the director challenged them to give him a story so compelling that he had no choice but to make a second movie. They apparently did: Nolan's The Dark Knight opens this month with a new story and new characters, led by the late Heath Ledger's Joker and Aaron Eckhart's Gotham City district attorney Harvey Dent, joining a returning Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman.

What would it take for Christopher Nolan to do a third film? "Enormous amounts of cash," Nolan joked in a group interview in Beverly Hills, Calif., over the weekend.

No, seriously. "I don't know," Nolan said, adding: "The only way I can answer that question--there are two ways. The first thing to say is, I literally finished this film last week. That was when we finished our IMAX prints. So I have no idea what I'm going to do next, what I'll do in the future."

Nolan added: "The film to me is not actually finished until the audience sees it and tells me what it is, really. So it's too early to say for all those kind of reasons. The other thing to be said on the subject is we absolutely did not feel in taking on the idea of doing the second film that we could in any way hamper ourselves or disadvantage ourselves by saving things for another film. ... I think that's a mistake people have made in the past, thinking too much of the future. I think you have to put all your eggs into one basket and make as great a film as you can, and that's what we've tried to do."

But Gary Oldman, who plays police detective Jim Gordon, is pretty sure Nolan will sign on for a third film.

"Chris Nolan, ... he comes in, and then you'll say, 'Are you going to do the sequel?'" Oldman said in a separate interview. "And he sits here and he goes, 'I don't know. I'm kind of tired. I'm going to go on holiday.' Which I think is code for yes." The Dark Knight opens July 18.

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Knight Shifts Batman Genre

Christopher Nolan, director of the Batman sequel film The Dark Knight, told reporters that his ambition was to make the franchise bigger and smaller at the same time by shifting genres from superhero-origin story to urban crime drama.

"There's a huge advantage being able to jump in having told the origin story, so you can jump in with a fully formed character and then see where that goes," Nolan said in a group interview in Beverly Hills, Calif., over the weekend. "So I think it definitely gives you the opportunity to go new places and to get into the story much faster."

In The Dark Knight, Gotham City has seen crime lowered by the presence of Batman (Christian Bale), who is working with police detective Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman), and a new crusading district attorney, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), has been elected. But a sinister new villain, the Joker (the late Heath Ledger), appears, casting doubt on the moral choices made by all and challenging Bruce Wayne to confront his darkest impulses.

"I had very much enjoyed the rhythm and dynamic of the origin story that we got to tell in Batman Begins, so it was a little bit daunting how we were going to replace that, the feeling of scale and size that gave us, just the timespan of that story," Nolan said. "And so what we chose to do is to tell a very immediate, very linear story, but based on a slight genre shift, going a little more into the crime story, a little more into the kind of epic city stories of films like Michael Mann's Heat, things like that, which I think achieve great scale even though they're confined within one city."

In his own interview, Bale said that viewers will find themselves immersed in a Gotham City that feels authentic. "We see an even more realistic-appearing Gotham, the characters, and I think he's really nailed it with his ability to take a certain genre of movie but not have it be constricted by that genre, you know?" Bale said. "And [he] truly has made a superb story, and finely crafted movie, that I think stands up against any movie regardless of genre."

The murky morality of The Dark Knight is particularly relevant now, Bale added. "Clearly that's very relevant to America: the question of what kind of deals do you do with the devil in order to solve a problem quickest," he said. "But are you then setting yourself up for future problems and more dire circumstances and consequences?" The Dark Knight opens July 18.