Landon Horsch
Professor Browning
English 102
15 March 2017
The Darkest of All Knights
Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy is one that has redefined comic-book movies. His second film The Dark Knight is one that goes deep into the origins and creates an outstanding tragedy. He creates characters that the viewers are drawn to and care much about. This was possible due to lead actors Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Aaron Eckhart, Michel Caine, Gary Oldman, and Morgan Freeman’s wonderful performances. After Batman Begins a new district attorney named Harvey Dent has been elected in Gotham City. Harvey’s plan is to destroy the underworld mob that has been running the streets. Batman has been interrupting his agenda and caused problems …show more content…
With his sloppy clown make-up and facial wounds visually the viewer can see chaos and pain within this character. One example is the scene where The Joker interrupts the mob meeting and walks in with a pencil and asks the men if they want to see a magic trick. A man tries to attack the clown but The Joker takes the man head and forces it to hit the pencil and makes it disappear. After that he waves his hands at where the pencil was and says “it’s gone”. The way Ledger’s movements and actions flowed was so natural and felt real. In another scene where The Joker was walking away from a hospital that he was going to blow up, a malfunction occurred on set and the explosion was delayed so Ledger improvised and hit the remote till the explosion went off. Nolan decided to keep this take and used it in the final cut. This once again shows the humor of the Joker as he wanted to explosion to go off he just hits the remote to make it activate. The improv that Ledger added to the scene shows more of Jokers character. These types of high drama scenes occur throughout the film and one had many of the characters participate. The last scene with The Joker present he has two ferry-loads of passengers rigged to blow unless one ship decides to blow the other up. This scene shows the pure chaos that The Joker wishes to inflict onto the city. Batman, Commissioner Gordon, and Harvey Dent are forced to make decisions that may not be …show more content…
One thing that is hard to notice until you think about is the setting. In most scenes where you can see the city, the viewer sees only tall skyscrapers that are not recognizable. Nolan makes the setting feel as if it is not in taking place in the real-world, but in the world that Batman exists. When Batman is parasailing through the city with his cape all the viewer sees is tall buildings, meaning Nolan doesn’t want the viewer to know where the scene takes place in the real-world. He does this so the viewer can feel the immersion of the movie. The scene with The Joker that was mentioned before where there was a malfunction in the explosion is another example of the directing that Nolan performed. If Nolan decided to cut that scene or redo it, the viewer may have missed a great moment in the
Professor Browning
English 102
15 March 2017
The Darkest of All Knights
Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy is one that has redefined comic-book movies. His second film The Dark Knight is one that goes deep into the origins and creates an outstanding tragedy. He creates characters that the viewers are drawn to and care much about. This was possible due to lead actors Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Aaron Eckhart, Michel Caine, Gary Oldman, and Morgan Freeman’s wonderful performances. After Batman Begins a new district attorney named Harvey Dent has been elected in Gotham City. Harvey’s plan is to destroy the underworld mob that has been running the streets. Batman has been interrupting his agenda and caused problems …show more content…
With his sloppy clown make-up and facial wounds visually the viewer can see chaos and pain within this character. One example is the scene where The Joker interrupts the mob meeting and walks in with a pencil and asks the men if they want to see a magic trick. A man tries to attack the clown but The Joker takes the man head and forces it to hit the pencil and makes it disappear. After that he waves his hands at where the pencil was and says “it’s gone”. The way Ledger’s movements and actions flowed was so natural and felt real. In another scene where The Joker was walking away from a hospital that he was going to blow up, a malfunction occurred on set and the explosion was delayed so Ledger improvised and hit the remote till the explosion went off. Nolan decided to keep this take and used it in the final cut. This once again shows the humor of the Joker as he wanted to explosion to go off he just hits the remote to make it activate. The improv that Ledger added to the scene shows more of Jokers character. These types of high drama scenes occur throughout the film and one had many of the characters participate. The last scene with The Joker present he has two ferry-loads of passengers rigged to blow unless one ship decides to blow the other up. This scene shows the pure chaos that The Joker wishes to inflict onto the city. Batman, Commissioner Gordon, and Harvey Dent are forced to make decisions that may not be …show more content…
One thing that is hard to notice until you think about is the setting. In most scenes where you can see the city, the viewer sees only tall skyscrapers that are not recognizable. Nolan makes the setting feel as if it is not in taking place in the real-world, but in the world that Batman exists. When Batman is parasailing through the city with his cape all the viewer sees is tall buildings, meaning Nolan doesn’t want the viewer to know where the scene takes place in the real-world. He does this so the viewer can feel the immersion of the movie. The scene with The Joker that was mentioned before where there was a malfunction in the explosion is another example of the directing that Nolan performed. If Nolan decided to cut that scene or redo it, the viewer may have missed a great moment in the