In his essay “The Evolution of the Language of Cinema", Andre Bazin distinguishes between "those directors who put their faith in the image and those who put their faith in reality" (Bazin 43). Here, he essentially refers to the difference that often occurs between the presentational and the representational in film – as film continues to skew towards the realistic, these works tend to emphasize verisimilitude over abstraction. Films today often feel the need to create a sense of immersion within their worlds, wherein an audience member could reasonably believe that they are watching real life unfold before their eyes. This sense of grittiness and realism necessitates at least the restructuring of abstract images, if not their outright exclusion – there is little room for magical realism in the world of the modern audience. Few examples of this skewing toward realism of modern film are as acute as Christopher Nolan’s 2008 film The Dark Knight, in which the usual comic-book trappings of a superhero film are abandoned in favor of restructuring the Caped Crusader’s fight against evil in Gotham city as a Heat-like crime thriller, thereby firmly putting his faith more in reality than in the image. Through the exploration of Bazin’s perspectives on montage and image and the exploration of Nolan through auteur theory, the following will establish the writer/director’s efforts to ground this comic book movie as much in reality as is possible.
One of the unique thrills typically ascribed to the Christopher Nolan Batman films, and of The Dark Knight in particular, is its focus on grounding its superhero mythos in realism. While Batman himself is effectively a magic creature of the night, spreading fear to the villains of Gotham, his motivations and tactics are always conveyed realistically and given fully-fledged backstories. His tactical gear, his gadgets and everything else is given a scientific explanation, placing an undue emphasis on the logistics of his crimefighting. Furthermore, the film humanizes Batman by focusing much more on his alter ego, billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne, as a tortured human being with deep-seated psychological issues and struggles regarding his own responsibilities as a superhero.
Making these choices as a filmmaker, Nolan takes his central character (adapted from typically-fantastical comic books) and tries to apply its trappings to a realistic world. Batman is still a billionaire playboy with lots of toys, but this fantastical setup is explored and given explanations – his weapons designer, Lucius Fox, builds his weapons out of old, discarded Wayne technologies, his playboy nature is only a front to keep people from suspecting what he normally does in his free time, and his billions come from his wealthy parents and his shares in the Wayne Corporation, of which time and dialogue is often spent mentioning. Even the stylized Batmobile of the comics has been replaced by the practical, tank-like Tumbler and Batpod, which allow Batman’s adventures to be placed further in a sense of tactical realism (McGowan, 2009). By making sure that these unrealistic elements are explained within the film, Nolan clearly grounds Batman in the real world and establishes the circumstances by which this normal city has a superhero.
This emphasis on reality and grounding of the world of The Dark Knight extends even further to its chief villain – the anarchic Joker. While in its source material, the Joker is a gangster who was chemically disfigured into having permanent clown makeup, The Dark Knight establishes that he is simply an unhinged character with a Glasgow smile who puts on the makeup as part of an affectation (Camp et al., 2010). He is not superhuman, just infinitely resourceful and calculating, often performing his schemes through intricately-planned heists and crimes. Instead of the clown-based gadgets he would typically employ, his toys are reduced to improvised explosives and the like, focusing on chaos and preparation rather than fancy gadgets to get his point across. By adapting the character in this way, Nolan further grounds the film’s reality and the superhero mythos of Batman by making the Joker’s mental illness and methods something plausibly found in the real world.
The choices Nolan makes in creating the world and the look of The Dark Knight allows him to place a greater focus on reality than image, though image is still a significant element to the film. Lighting is typically very muted, with matter-of-fact coloration on everything to give it a drab, grayish hue. Colors are desaturated and timed, with nothing standing out as being particularly bright – the brightest and boldest colors we get are from the purple suit and bright makeup of Heath Ledger’s Joker. However, this boldness is still comparative to the rest of the film; these hues are still incredibly downplayed. Here, Nolan establishes the darkness that casts a pall over Gotham City, creating a city in desperate need of a hero (which Batman feels he can provide). At the same time, however, this restraint of color in Nolan’s image, along with its muted sharpness, creates a more naturalistic feel to the look of the film, allowing the audience’s sense of verisimilitude to continue unabated.
Despite this focus on reality, there is still an incredible use of montage throughout The Dark Knight. Nolan’s editor, Lee Smith, creates an often dreamlike sense of time and space throughout the film and some of its more presentational sequences. In one sequence, following the death of Rachel Dawes and the burning of Harvey Dent’s face, several images and elements are juxtaposed: first, there is the destroyed building where Gotham firefighters are attempting to put out fires, while Batman solemnly stands above the rubble in an overt parallel to the destruction of 9/11. Secondly, there is Alfred’s reading of Rachel’s letter to Bruce, while the audience hears Maggie Gyllenhaal’s voiceover of the text of the letter overlapped with these images. Thirdly, we see Harvey Dent’s recovery in the hospital, along with Batman’s eventual visit and return of Harvey’s lucky coin, found in the rubble and now scarred on one side (just like Harvey).
This montage is, ostensibly, about Rachel’s relationship to the two men, and Alfred’s desire to protect Bruce from the uncomfortable truth of Rachel’s decision to marry Harvey. As we hear the voiceover, and Alfred reads on intently, Nolan makes the audience privy to the truth, while Alfred also intends to hide that same truth from Bruce. Rachel’s optimism about her love for Harvey Dent, and her reservations about Bruce continuing to need Batman, are juxtaposed with Harvey being in critical condition, while Batman forlornly remains unscathed – Rachel does not get what she wants, and no one is happy. Rachel’s voiceover provides context for this montage, as the recovery efforts in the rubble and Harvey Dent’s rehabilitation are symbolic of what they have suffered both in their fight against crime in Gotham and their fight for Rachel’s heart. This is one of the few overt instances of montage in The Dark Knight, as Nolan uses this act-breaking event to allow the characters to re-evaluate their relationships to each other, placing the image over reality momentarily.
Other moments of montage most certainly happen in the film, most notably in the very end sequence, in which Batman must take the fall for Harvey Dent’s crimes in order to preserve the man’s legacy and maintain Gotham’s soul. During the final minutes of the film, several images are juxtaposed: Gordon’s speech to the public mourning Harvey Dent, Gordon and Batman’s conversation about what will happen to Batman, Gordon smashing the Batsignal, Alfred burning Rachel’s real note, Lucius destroying the cell phone sonar device, and so on. These initial images are overlaid against Batman’s speech, which not only applies to their present situation but to all these future situations shown in montage; Alfred burns the note as Batman talks about hiding the truth, Lucius destroys the device as he discusses restoring faith, Gordon smashes the Batsignal as he mentions having to cut ties to the police. A second, separate moment of montage happens immediately afterward, as Gordon explains to his son that they have to chase Batman because “he’s the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now” while Batman runs from the police and flees on his Batpod. Directly juxtaposing these two specific moments allows a further bond between Gordon and Batman’s characters to be illustrated, as well as the specific buildup of Batman’s mythic nature in time for the film’s close. Through this, Nolan is able to cap the film off with a specific moment of image, allowing presentationalism to creep into his reality-based film just a bit in order to establish the comic book nature of Batman he has spent most of the movie refuting. It is through these spare moments of montage that Nolan is able to maintain the larger-than-life nature of these superheroes while still grounding them in reality.
Another way in which Nolan focuses on reality more than image is his use of a wide depth of field in his work (provided by cinematographer Wally Pfister) (Heuring, 2008). According to Bazin, a greater depth of field has many applications for those who want to bring their audience into a deeper verisimilitude; for one, “depth of focus brings the spectator into a relation with the image closer to that which he enjoys with reality” (Bazin 54). As our sense of sight has a greater sense of depth perception, using a depth of field synonymous with that sense creates the sensation of a more realistic-looking film. Nolan’s work is replete with wide vistas, layered composition, and wide depth of field that allows the audience to make choices about what they want to look at, which fits in greater with this sense of reality:
“While analytical montage only calls for [the spectator] to follow his guide, to let his attention follow along smoothly with that of the director who will choose what he should see, here he is called upon to exercise at least a minimum of personal choice. It is from his attention and his will that the meaning of the image in part derives” (Bazin 54).
For example, in The Dark Knight, many establishing shots are used of the sprawling vistas of the Gotham cityscape, as the camera glides from place to place giving an overhead view of the city (this also applies to the long shots of Hong Kong during the scenes where Batman ‘extradites’ Lau). Here, the audience is given a vast number of things to look at, with several things being given emphasis at once to give the audience that aforementioned sense of choice. It is through these shots and Nolan’s overall use of depth of focus that the film is more ‘realistic.’ Nolan provides the choice of image that the audience can absorb, therefore there is less emphasis on that image.
Despite Nolan’s use of montage in critical moments in The Dark Knight, the majority of the film is still presented in a realistic, representational way that allows the audience member to believe most ardently that the events of the film could theoretically happen. Bazin notes that “montage by its very nature rules out ambiguity of expression”; that being said, Nolan provides quite a bit of ambiguity in his images, particularly of the nature of Gotham City through these open-ended wide shots (Bazin 54). Apart from these stylistic flourishes, Nolan’s film is extremely straightforward – full of exposition both filmic and dialogue-based, to let the audience know exactly what they need to know to make sense of the winding, complex character interactions and the schemes cooked up by both Batman and the Joker to save or destroy the soul of Gotham, respectively. At times, the dialogue even tends to hold the hand of the audience to absurd degrees – see Nolan’s recurring motif of the ‘commenting cops,’ wherein the action beats of a chase through Gotham city are narrated by the cops currently in pursuit (e.g. “Is that a bazooka?”). All of these touches and more are meant to provide the audience with a distinct sense of place and time, often focusing not on the strength of single images but the use of subtle montage in editing to sell the feeling of events passing in real time. This is accompanied by an accurate sense of real and rendered sound; in short, sound seems to come from the events and things happening on screen without much artistic juxtaposition (apart from the aforementioned moments of montage).
In conclusion, Christopher Nolan’s status as the auteur of The Dark Knight places the responsibility for the film’s emphasis on reality squarely on his shoulders; based on Bazin’s original argument, it can be said that Nolan favors reality over image in his film (although moments of image are found through the use of montage). Characters created with a comic-book presentation in mind are grounded by making their motivations and methods easily explainable in reality. Great depth of field is used to simulate real human sense of sight and to provide the audience with options for what to focus on. Furthermore, other filmic elements such as editing, sound and lighting are used to simulate a realistic world in which costumed heroes and villains do battle. These are all deliberate attempts to make this superhero movie more realistic than is expected for this genre, and it is with this in mind that Nolan can be said to favor reality above all else in his direction of The Dark Knight.
References
Bazin A (1999). The evolution of the language of cinema, from N/A, Film theory and criticism:
introductory readings. Pp. 43-56. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Camp, M., Webster, C., Coverdale, T., Coverdale, J., & Nairn, R. (2010). The Joker: a dark night
for depictions of mental illness. Academic Psychiatry, 34(2), 145-149.
Heuring, D. (2008). Batman Looms Larger. American Cinematographer: The International
McGowan, T. (2009). "The exceptional darkness of The Dark Knight." Jump Cut: A Review of
Contemporary Media 51.
Nolan C. (2008). The Dark Knight. Warner Bros. Pictures.
