NOTE: Reader Cameron Smith has noticed that this shot has been cropped for the DVD version of the film. See his explanation here.
"Dark Knight Quiz #1: What's wrong with this picture?") asked you to consider all the elements a single shot -- the culmination of the film's bank-robbery opening sequence -- and explained what you saw in it, what information it was conveying (and how), and what it implied about the Joker's planning of the bank robbery itself.
This last point is essential because the sequence itself continually asks us to figure out the plan. That's the fun of watching the robbery unfold: This isn't the kind of classic heist movie like "Rififi" or "Le Cercle rouge" where we're in on the meticulous preparation with the robbers and where the suspense and satisfaction comes from knowing what's supposed to happen when, and how they improvise when it doesn't.
As "The Dark Knight" begins, we sense there's a crime being committed, but we don't even know what it is at first. The fun (and I know there will be those who say you can't examine how fun is created, but we'll hope those people aren't wasting their time reading a film criticism blog) comes in putting the pieces together as the crooks go through their paces. The Joker (we suspect, but only learn in retrospect) is introduced from behind, standing on a streetcorner where he is picked up by two other chatty masked henchmen.
There's the question of the silent alarm that, mysteriously, "goes to a private number" instead of 911; the 5,000-volt-protected vault; the armed bank manager who laments the lack of honor and respect in the modern criminal element; the systematically diminishing number of masked participants (and beneficiaries) in the robbery itself; the use of the grenades used to control the staff and customers; the arrival and departure of a bus...
UPDATE: In the Blu-ray extras, director Nolan speaks of this entire sequence, all shot in IMAX, as "The Prologue," and said he considered it vitally important to setting up the scale of the whole movie -- hence the importance of the opening helicopter shot, the swooping down onto the roof of the bank, the crash of the schoolbus through glass double doors (built inside the building itself)... and, of course, this shot that crowns the segment.
So, during this sequence, we discover (through the process of elimination) which of these fellas is the Joker, and we are led to believe that the target of his heist is a "mob bank" -- where, evidently, organized criminals store vast sums of money in cash (some of which, we later learn, is being radioactively marked and traced by law enforcement).
That's not even the beginning of the movie's deliberately contorted plot, but it's what we're meant to take away from this opening sequence. The final shot (below) begins as the getaway bus pulls away from the bank. It starts tight on the side of the bus, a few boards fall away (debris from the wall of the bank) and quite a bit of dust is raised. As the camera cranes back, the Joker's bus pulls around the corner and into a line of schoolbusses that have just made the light at the intersection. We hear the sound of sirens, and see police cars arriving at the scene, coming from the opposite direction. We hear children's voices -- suggesting (to me, at least) that the schoolbusses are actually hired by the district and carrying children, although they appear empty. I rather like the interspersed yellow taxis in the left lane balancing the busses on the right -- just the sort of visual grace note lacking in so much of the rest of the picture.
My thanks to commenters who've pointed out numerous improbabilities or inconsistencies in the shot, and the assumptions behind it. For example: The timing of the busses' arrival on the scene is a little cute. Some have suggested that, at least if the Joker's bus joined the end of the line, instead of inserting itself into the middle, all that dust would have been less distracting to the real bus drivers. (On the other hand, the filmmakers could simply have chosen not to use so much dust! After all, the bus crashed through the glass doors of the bank and there was little dust, and mostly glass, going in; if they hadn't put so much plywood and powder in the exit shot, people like me wouldn't have had the opportunity to be distracted by it.) But, relatively speaking, that's no big deal.
The point I want to make, and it sounds really simple but shouldn't be taken for granted, is that we are inclined to believe what we see in a movie, and every shot represents innumerable choices about what to include, what to leave out, and what to put where. I think this particular shot is a bit of a cheat, and I felt cheated by it the first time I saw it -- not merely because it suggests so many implausibilities (that's a minor distraction in the moment itself), but because it's an important shot that falls a little flat -- a sustained crane shot that pulls back and doesn't show us what we're meant to "see": the bus exiting the bank. This is just one of countless instances in "The Dark Knight" where the movie fails to show what it tells us we should believe. I wanted to shout at Christopher Nolan: Don't explain it in dialog later, don't skimp by shooting or cutting around the main action, just put it on the screen!
That doesn't much bother some fans, obviously, but I think it's the main reason the movie feels slipshod to me. Not that every picture has to meet the standards of Hitchcock or Buster Keaton, but "The Dark Knight" shows so little regard for the integrity of the shot or the sequence. This is just one specific example of what Stephanie Zacharek, was saying, and why I quoted her earlier: "I find Nolan's images (even the ostensibly dazzling ones) disconnected from one another and from any meaningful, overarching whole. I'm baffled that a filmmaker who claims to love Hitchcock would be so clueless about visual storytelling: Nolan relies on a lot of expository dialogue to explain what's going on, which I guess is a good thing, because I wouldn't want to have to figure out what this thing is about based solely on the visuals or the editing."
In her original review, Zackarek went into further detail:
[The movie]... gives us enough multilayered subplots to at least fool us into thinking this is a work of intellectual and moral complexity. But as a piece of visual storytelling, from shot to shot, "The Dark Knight" is a mess. Characters disappear from one locale and show up inexplicably in another, thanks to the magic of editing. At one point, we learn two characters have been abducted, but Nolan doesn't bother to show us who did it or how. (Later, he explains the "who did it" with dialogue -- the lazy way.) At the end, a major character is left hanging, literally, as we are figuratively. If this is genius, give me hackery.
Some of the movie's critics have said that they found the movie's photorealistic style at odds with its fantasy elements, that it's much easier to suspend disbelief in, say, the laws of physics in a world that looks like Anton Furst's stylized Gotham for Tim Burton than in a city that looks exactly like Chicago, because it is.
I think there's a good deal of truth to that. But it didn't have to be the case. Let's back up a little, to the opening shot. "The Dark Knight" begins, rather disconcertingly, not in the dark but in bright daylight. (I see a hint of "Psycho" in the first image.) It's a standard establishing shot, an aerial glide across a very real cityscape (Chicago, as Gotham). It's not flashy, but it's cool the way the camera closes in on the wall of mirror-windows (no helicopter reflection, either!). And then we get the pay-off, the party-popper explosion that starts the movie off with a tiny bang. We expect the bangs will get bigger.
Of course it's preposterous: It's midday, there's downtown traffic on the streets below, and if you were trying to rob a bank unnoticed... well, you'd pretty much be calling attention to yourself. But there it is: We see it all happen in a single shot. No fudging. We accept it because there it is.
Not so with the bookend shot that caps the sequence, which is why I found it a bit of a let-down from the first time I saw it. What's missing? We could come up with any number of ways it could have been shot (and those are the decisions directors get paid to make). But what it lacks, I think, is a sense of cohesiveness and spectacle that, as I said, might have been improved if it had actually shown us the bus exiting the wall of the bank. As it is, it's a small trick -- not the kind of thing you expect a big action picture to skimp on. For a long exterior crane shot, the composition actually feels cramped. I wanted to see what's around that corner to the right -- to see what the Joker was leaving behind.
Yes, that's a matter of opinion, but I hope by "quoting" the shot that I've shown you what my opinion is based upon. I could have done the same thing with any number of events and sequences: the final shot of Rachel and Batman landing on top of the cab (another cheat from a clumsy angle, too close to the previous shot, to disguise a short drop); or the handling of the death of Commissioner Loeb (who hasn't even been properly introduced in the movie yet, though the other two Joker card fingerprint DNA sources have); the assassination attempt at Loeb's funeral; the set-up for the "Lower Fifth" truck chase; the timing and staging of the Two-Face burn sequence, beginning with Harvey Dent rubbing his mug in guzzline in a 90-degree tilt shot... A few well-chosen shots, placed coherently, and my objections might all but evaporate. My suspension of disbelief would be... suspended again. That's what good movies are able to do, and to sustain. It's a high-wire act, and for me "The Dark Knight" keeps tripping up again and again.
Please notice that, although I object to the argument that anything and everything can be attributed to the omniscient Joker because he's a supernatural agent of chaos and therefore can just do whatever he likes, none of the reservations I've mentioned here have anything to do with the character and what he can or cannot do when he's off-screen. They are fundamental filmmaking choices: putting the camera here rather than there, cutting this shot together with that one, putting something into the frame (or the script) or leaving it out.
I wish I could go over every shot in the movie with you (yes, you -- but not you over there, because you'd hate it and think it's a waste of time), to discuss what it's doing from image to image, because that's the kind of analysis I really enjoy. (Not the first time I see the movie -- later, to better understand why I felt what I felt when I was watching it before!) I still may choose an excerpt from one of these sequences to illustrate what I mean. Not that it matters, but "The Dark Knight" is still a new release; it just came out on disc about a month ago...
NOTE: Reader Cameron Smith has noticed that this shot has been cropped for the DVD version of the film. See his explanation here.
Jim--
This is the kind of film criticism that begins to tax my patience, I'm afraid. Not that I have a problem with shot-by-shot analysis, but when the shot-by-shot analysis comes down to a matter of "this is what I want to see, and I don't," I can't help but begin to wonder what the point is. Maybe it would make you happier to see the bus coming directly out of the bank. Who'm I to say you're wrong for wanting that? Personally, I had no problem with it--We see the bus in the bank, we see the bus exiting a structure, I instinctively read it as "the bus exited the bank". Narratively, no problem. And emotionally, the "punchline" is the disappearance into the line of buses, not the emergence of the bus from the bank, so I didn't feel cheated.
So what do we learn from this? We had different expectations, it met one of ours', the other of us was disappointed. Rinse repeat for much of the movie, I expect, y'know?
"but because it's an important shot that falls a little flat -- a sustained crane shot that pulls back and doesn't show us what we're meant to "see": the bus exiting the bank."
HA! You must've absolutely hated Batman Begins then, where they more than "cheat."
Logic is besides the point in Nolan's batfilms--poignance and emoting the characters have 1st priority. If he could cut together standalone scenes that simply showcase personality traits, like the Dent court room scene, I'm sure he would.
Jim , this is the second time, I think, that you refer to Commissioner Loeb not being introduced into the film until his death scene, but you're incorrect: He's in the Mayor's office when the "fake Batman" is dropped on the rope against the window. I believe he even gets a line.
JE: Mostly he appears as a sleeve next to the mayor's head. He starts to say something and then the mayor tells him and Gordon to get out. For such an important figure (his funeral, with all the cops in formation in the streets, is the occasion for the assassination attempt on the mayor), he doesn't get much of a (re-)introduction before he's killed off. Another commenter reminded me that he was more prominent in "Batman Begins." It still feels odd to me, as I've said elsewhere, that we see Judge Surrillo touch the Joker card, but not the other two intended victims. I thought that was a chilling moment when she turned up the card, and it could have been used to develop mystery and suspense with the other two. My impression is that the choppiness of the storytelling in "The Dark Knight" may have something to do with chopping down the running time (in script or editing stages). Feels like lots of pieces are missing -- then covered, if at all, with clunky patches of dialog...
I wished Nolan had stuck with the original Two-Face origin in which acid is thrown on his face by the mobsters he is trying so hard to put into jail. Unfortunately Nolan killed the character off, he's an absolutely diabolical villain when done correctly, maybe even scarier than the Joker and it would have given Batman an adversary in the third installment of these movies.
Yes, the timing of the buses is too cute for the preceding elaborate set-up of the bank robbery. Maybe Nolan was trying to hard (or not enough), he succeeds brilliantly with the preceding robbery events but fails with the bus sequence. I suppose we are supposed to think that the Joker is so clever, he knew those school buses were going to be there at precisely when he was leaving the scene of the crime.
I was working on a detailed response to the entire "What's wrong with this picture" line of inquiry when I realized a very easy answer... it's cropped! I reviewed my Blu-Ray version of the film and was amazed to see that it is very clear that the bus leaves the doorway of a bank, thus explaining the wood and dust. The bank robbery (like many scenes from the film) were shot in the IMAX format and aspect ratio (1.44:1). The 35mm print of the film (and DVD release) cropped those scenes to match the 35mm footage from the rest of the film (2.35:1 aspect ratio). The Blu-Ray release presents the IMAX footage in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio which reveals more of the original IMAX footage. While this may not invalidate your argument, I would argue that the cropped 35mm presentation of the film would lend itself to being more confusing. Having viewed the Blu-Ray version a couple times, I did noticed that the scenes filmed in 35mm (2.35:1) felt better composed than the IMAX shots, as Nolan had to frame them for multiple aspect ratios.
JE: I just checked the Blu-ray version and you're absolutely right! There's more wrong with that picture than I had suspected. I hadn't seen the IMAX or Blu-ray versions -- and my computer doesn't have a Blu-ray drive, but I'd actually bought a Blu-ray disc and just took a look at it. Thank you (and I mean this sincerely) for actually looking at the MOVIE. It does temper my objections, but I still think it was a poor idea to start in so close on the bus in the first place. This is yet another reason why. Too bad regular DVD viewers are going to be cheated further. To think, some people don't think it matters where the edge of the frame is. It does!
@ Cameron Smith & Jim: I saw TDK opening day in IMAX but didn't remember this particularity. Funny thing, because, when I got my hands on the 2-disc "Special Edition" of TDK, I was furious: the IMAX sequences are available, but only as a special feature, separate from their context in the movie, whereas Blu-ray customers get the full movie with IMAX scenes and all.
To this I say: bullshit (my review is linked below), as DVD technology has allowed for multiple versions of the same film on one disc for years (I guess I'm spoiled, having indulged in 3 versions of Terminator 2 on the 2001-released Ultimate Edition DVD). There's no way the disinclusion of that footage, at least as a "toggle" option, was necessitated by video/audio quality control. Like the separate releases of the theatrical and unrated cuts of Miami Vice, it boils down to laziness and greed. Or, in other words, a cheat.
http://actionfilmscomedies.suite101.com/article.cfm/dvd_review_the_dark_knight_special_edition
Jim,
Now, I clearly see where you're going with this.
Cameron makes an interesting point about the framing and aspect ratios make sense to me.
But this argument does not make up for his editing flaws. The most egregious to me was the cut from the scene in which The Joker is taunting his Gotham PD interrogator (Detective Stephens according to IMDB) about the number of his friends he's killed to another scene. When we cut back to the GPD, Joker now has Stephens hostage and demanding his phone call. What's this about?
What troubles me is that Nolan is capable of much more. "Memento" was a dense work with subtle details in many shots. A scene-by-scene dissection (I've seen one and know there are several excellent "Memento" fan sites out there) is useful to peel the onion away and examine it's layers. And it holds up to such scrutiny. The thing is, Nolan himself has said that the answers are ALL IN THE FILM. (As opposed to Richard Kelly admitting even he doesn't have all the answers to the questions posed in his (IMHO) sloppy "Donnie Darko"). My point is, Nolan is -- self-admittedly -- capable of better filmmaking.
Now, if I only can figure out where you're headed with Quiz 1.5...
a couple of thoughts:
Jim, you don't like comic books or comic movies, you said that in your review of Iron Man, are you surprised that you didn't like Dark Knight or something? The movies been out for almost six months, and you're still devoting all this time to discussing something that you didn't like and weren't disposed to liking in the first place. My guess would be that you didn't think you were going to like it going in.
If you had high expectations that were dashed i'd understand. if you were a huge batman fan, and felt like this movie somehow sold him out, i'd understand. But since you aren't i gotta ask again, why devote all this energy to something you don't like and weren't ever going to like? And i don't buy the whole "that's what critics do" line, if the Rat movie who's name i can't spell from 2007 taught us nothing it's that critics work best when they're celebrating good things, not picking on bad things. That doesn't mean you shouldn't voice your opinion when you don't like something, it just means that it might be good to criticize and then let it go. If you're gonna harp on something, harp on something you like, try and show others why you value it, like you did with Donnie Darko. If you keep attacking something people like, they just tend to start ignoring you.
While we're on the subject though, do you even like blockbusters at all? You wrote one of the nastiest positive reviews i've ever read for Iron Man, where you seemed to be saying that liking these types of movies are beneath you, but you'll make an exception this time. And you like Spielberg, but come on that doesn't count, he's beyond those sorts of categories. If blockbuster don't tend to be your thing, why even take the time to write about them?
It's like, say i don't like musicals from the sixties, why would i spend a lot time thinking about the sound of music? It seems illogical to me, and a waste of energy.
I can only conclude that you thought that The Dark Knight was a particularly bad blockbuster. because, as a rule blockbusters tend to be populist and are rarely perfect. And "phenomenon" movies, the kind that tend to make the most money in a year, tend to be rife with imperfections. Did you write a whole bunch about how much you didn't like Pirates of the Carribean 2? Or Spider-Man 3? Or Shrek 2? Or any of the other top movies of the last twenty years?
i'm curious, how many of the top films of the year, going back to 89, the year of the first Burton Batman, how many of them do you think are good movies? How does TDK stack up against them? Does Dark Knight not belong in the same company as the Jim Carrey Grinch movie?
I'm sorry if i'm harping on expectations, but i'm really curious what it was you expected to see. Correct me if i'm wrong, but your tastes seem to run towards smaller, idiosyncratic movies. TDK isn't either of those.
I could be a jerk about it and say you're an elitist who doesn't like anything popular, or i could be another kind of jerk and say that your tastes are refined and that you look closer than everyone else and so you see better than everyone else. But neither one's true (i hope), what i think is true is that this movie obviously isn't made for you. Not every movie is made for ever person.
I get how annoying it is when everyone seems to like something that you don't. But surely you're used to feeling that way by now? Based on the reviews of yours that i read at Eberts websight, you dislike things alot more often then you like them. You must constantly be seeing movies that you hate, and lots of them make money, but none of them seemed to have bothered you this much.
What happened with this movie that made it so much more irritating than every other movie that you expected to dislike, didn't like, and then made lots of money?
I have to wonder if you're doing this because the film's so popular. Why not just take the film as it is and not start complaining that this is or isn't what you want to see in it? Look, just imagine what it would look like to Nolan.
It's an excellent film, but it has flaws. So does Citizen Kane. Get over it.
It's this over-studying of film and making it into unnecessary nitpicking that made the medium so boring anyways.
It's simple about the buses. The wall breaks, the bus stops, the Joker's bus gets in-line. Also notice how he timed it? Isn't that how he killed the last mobster? Could it be that he knew how long it would take the police to reach the bank and thus knew he'd be fine? And could it be that he knew when then the streetlights would stop the bus he was hoping to edge over out of the frame?
Just like a real heist?
As a former FBI agent, I say it's not only plausible, but actually common.
Neil.
PS: Nitpicking killed the movies. It was a very good film, not perfect but certainly one of the best films I've seen in recent years. Stop nitpicking.
PPS: Sorry if I'm double-commenting, it said there was an error earlier and I'm re-trying.
Parenthetical guy:
You say:
[i]But this argument does not make up for his editing flaws. The most egregious to me was the cut from the scene in which The Joker is taunting his Gotham PD interrogator (Detective Stephens according to IMDB) about the number of his friends he's killed to another scene. When we cut back to the GPD, Joker now has Stephens hostage and demanding his phone call. What's this about?[/i]
I'll admit there are a couple of odd cuts in the film, but I don't think this is one. I think the movie makes it very clear: We see the Joker clutching a piece of broken glass; he mocks Stephens, and Stephens acknowledges that the Joker is looking for a fight; the Joker mocks him (and his friends) further, and Stephens relents and decides to beat on Joker; we cut to Stephens's comeuppance, as Joker has used the glass to take him hostage.
yea it was cropped. You can click my name to check out the full video on youtube
For what it's worth, now that I see what you were getting at, I totally agree. I'm embarrassed to say I didn't even realize the bus was exiting the bank the first time I saw the movie. I thought we had jumped to another scene and the Joker had gassed the bus with a bunch of kids on it, and I didn't understand why. Now I realize, it was just a poorly framed shot that was supposed to be a continuation of the previous action. Yes, I also agree that the continuity was terrible in this movie in general. The kidnapping of Harvey Dent, and also the coin toss in the hospital, and somehow Dent survives, it didn't make sense to me. Why leave that scene out? What was the motivation? Many more confusing plot elements that were not explained visually.
Maaan, Jim!
The shot is a little cheat. How dare you invoke Hitchcock here? His films were full of them, and he would've been stunned by your banal examination of refrigerator logic that simply doesn't matter when you're mid-film.
The mark of bad film criticism: You have written so many words on the topic of this one shot and they've been totally useless, because you've still failed to at all get across to me what the enormous problem with the shot is. Extremely inefficient of you. If this shot had been another film, you would've been pleased by its efficient transfer of information... why in the hell do we need to specifically see the bus pull out of the specific wall of the bank? REALLY? This is the kind of thing that ruined your enjoyment of the movie?
JE: Josh, I have never felt less efficient in my life. I chose one example -- ONE EXAMPLE -- of the kind of directorial decision that I feel is pervasive in the film, that I felt in nearly every single moment (I only suggested my other problems with it in terms of inconsistency), but I think my concept backfired when I asked people to make their own observations before I offered mine. I wanted viewers to use their own eyes and ears first, but I didn't set it up sufficiently. I think Hitchcock would have picked this film to death -- beyond anything the birds were able to do to Tippi Hedren -- because of it's failure of VISUAL logic. I'm not talking about plot (though that invariably figures into it). Hitchcock shot a shower-slaughter scene without ever showing a knife piercing flesh; he showed a dockside apartment with a huge painted backdrop at the rear of the set. But his style is nothing like Christopher Nolan's. And he knew where to put the bloody camera in Every Single Shot.
Well, Jim, I see what you're saying.
You intensely apply logic to films and demand perfection from each shot. Me... not so much.
I couldn't stand the editing and sloppy direction of "Quantum of Solace". The action sequences were incomprehensible blurs made more incomprehensible by the hack editing. At best, it felts as if the editor had ADD. And then are errors that defy logic beyond all reason such as guns being fired from point blank range.
So it's not like I don't understand you. And it's not that I see these things and ignore them. If that was the case, go ahead, compare me and my fellow TDK-fans to supporters of intelligent design.
It's not that we don't see them. It's not that we just flat out don't care. It's that we don't care enough to let the movie be ruined by them. We might if they were more obvious and less on-the-fence leaving no room for sheer luck to come into play. But there's nothing there that seems too implausible for me, although me liking the heart of the film - the energy, anguish and intelligence of the writing - helps me forgive little things that, in a lesser film, might have bothered me.
I agree that some of the shots could have been improved to help our believability.
And I've come to realize that, for those who spend their life noticing these things, these things are gonna be a problem.
I'm cool with you not liking the movie cause your reasons are logical. But are they sensible?
If you think long and hard enough about mankind you might come to the conclusion Hal 9000 does or you might turn into the lead character in Mike Leigh's "Naked".
Hell, you might even turn into The Joker, ranting about how nobody panics when everything goes according to plan and for that we all deserve to die.
Thinking too much can lead you beyond reason.
Say what?
Obviously, most people's problem is that they don't think enough. Myself included most the time. And where would we be without rational thought?
But is there nothing that moves you in this film? Is there nothing that moves you beyond these little issues, true as they may be?
I come back to what Ebert says about the average moviegoer. This person is not going in noticing each technicality. This person is not even going in so much to think. They're going in, primarily, to be moved.
Don't like that? Go into detective work instead.
"TDK" does appear to have struck a huge emotional chord... and attached to these feelings observations that I (and others) felt were fascinating.
So, again, I see what you're saying and think you represent a type of filmgoer who will care about these technical hiccups but... there are others of us who feel you are being logical beyond reason.
Ps. I await your post about what dialogue you feel the movie doesn't visually illustrate. I know some off-screen happenings are explained through dialogue, such as the kidnapping... I personally did not care to see the kidnapping. I saw Harvey leave a limo and I hear he never made it home. Alright, I get the point. But I think what bothered you is bigger than nitpicking like that. Though, I do strongly feel much of the heavy stuff that is discussed is shown on screen. We'll see...
Jim,
One other thing strikes me as a bit inconsistent: the film implies (in the conversation between Batman and Dent when Dent is interrogating the one henchman) that many of the Joker's henchmen are asylum escapees (tying back to the plot of the first film, I think). In fact, the ones we get a close look at (the one Dent interrogates, the one with the phone in his stomach) seem to be troubled, to put it mildly. The Joker's incredibly precise plans seem like they'd be difficult for anyone to pull off (figuring out exactly when and where to have the bus back into the bank and then drive out again, for example)--far more so for deranged, unstable henchmen to complete so well.
Secondly, I wonder if we might view the editing, which often leaves out the most improbable parts as gaps, requiring us to fill them in, as similar to what you discussed a while back with The Bourne Ultimatum. I recall you or David Bordwell in an article to which your blog linked making the point that seemingly "realistic" shooting in that film worked to conceal the often highly outrageous stunts and chases. Has Nolan done something similar here, using a seemingly more artistic or documentary-like style with its ambiguity and gaps, but really just to conceal silly blockbuster-type plot craziness?
Would be interested in what you might think of either of these points. And great discussion so far.
Stephen:
I get it. I can infer what happened to Stephens and how he became a hostage.
But I respectfully reassert that this editing at best deprives the audience of a momentary action scene, at worst it shakes us out of the film's flow. We've seen how The Joker can play with this victims. We've seen his irrational, unpredictable, sadistic moments. The cut back to Stephens' comeuppance was so abrupt, it felt to me like the beginning of a "next reel" of film that started a few minutes in... I was so distracted it took me out of the moment. I recall turning and looking at the projection booth (why? I don't know, but like I said, that cut broke the verisimilitude and made me aware of the proverbial "fourth wall").
Why couldn't we have seen in the previous scene The Joker rush the camera in a blur? Or a flash of the glass? Or an off-screen laugh? Or Stephens' off-screen scream? A little something to hint that The Joker had turned the tables?
I think part of Jim's point is that these type of moments -- brought on by editing, aspect ratio cropping, laziness, whatever -- takes us out of the moment. For critics like Emerson, it then ignites some stream-of-film-criticism-thought-process. For me, I just felt like the projectionist goofed and wondered what I missed. (It wasn't until I saw the film again on an airplane that I realized it wasn't an error). The bottom-line is that we stopped enjoying the movie and became preoccupied with something else.
Call it nit-picking, whatever.
A healthy suspension of disbelief is required for film-lovers like us. As I said in another post, we all have to draw that line somewhere. And we all we all draw that line somewhere different.
I liked TDK, I didn't love it. But I don't have to love a film to enjoy it. And I just don't want to be shaken from my enjoyment by questionable editing, distractingly implausible plot points(ex: lead shotgun shot being magnetic or surviving an atomic bomb in a lead-lined refrigerator in Indy IV), any more than a cellphone ringing a row behind me.
Hey, Jim.
The problem is that most people look at the Joker as either black or white. He's either telling truth or falsities. He's either chaotic or obsessive compulsive. The Joker is all of those and none of those. I know that you wish to keep this relegated to the world of cinema but I truly believe that the comic book medium will lend a helping hand. In the comic book: Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Earth, Batman enters Arkham Asylum and making his way through it winds up in the Joker's cell. A doctor tells Batman 2 things:
1.) That the Joker may not be insane. Rather he has a form of super-sanity.
2.) The Joker makes up who and what he is on a day by day basis the moment he wakes up.
My wife wrote an article for her school's masters program and suggested that the Joker is not the villain of TDK, but rather the hero.
In explaining the implausabilities (sp?) of the film, it seems people have a tendency to nitpick. Titanic was a larger monster than TDK, yet I don't here people talking about the problems of Titanic. The same can be said of other films.
Citizen Kane is mostly considered the greatest film by people because of what took place off screen as well as onscreen.
So what happens is that when a lot of articles pop up critiquing TDK, it comes across as a select group trying to poke holes in TDK just for the sake of doing it. In addition, people wonder why this wasn't done by a majority of other critics when TDK was released. Also, fanboys are entirely protective of their films.
Think about it, fanboys (myself included) will undoubtedly see Heath Ledger get nominated for an Academy Award. Possibly, TDK may get nominated for Best Picture. For fanboys, that helps to legitimize the superhero genre as well as the comic book genre.
Are there inconsistencies and implausabilities in TDK? Yes.The same with other films. Going into TDK requires a level of suspended disbelief. For myself, I can believe that the Joker had the timing planned out as well as Danny Ocean planned his casino robbery. If the mob has their hand in everything, why can't the Joker have his hand in the people who drive school buses?
Just my thoughts for now. I do welcome feedback.
JE: I agree completely that the Joker is capable of telling the truth AND lying at the same time. That's one of the things I hope to get at with this thread...
Jim, thank you. For (at least) two things.
One, thank you for giving me a little bit more permission to be disappointed in TDK. I walked away from it having seen a completely different film than any of my friends seemed to have seen. I thought it was cold, detatched, unmoving, poorly thought-out, ethically and politically shallow and (worst of all) unexciting. My friends just thought it was awesome. Keep in mind that I love comic book movies and action films, so it's not the genre I have issues with. But I also love Kubrick and Lynch films, so I've seen dark, detatched and cold done by the best.
Two, thank you for placing the responsibility back on the director to establish (and even moreso to maintain) the suspension of disbelief - something Kubrick mastered.
Nolan's technical capacity for quality has been mentioned, and you offhandedly mentioned the taxicabs placed (never accidentally, as you've said) on the opposite side of the shot you've been dissecting. I wouldn't be surprised if part of the reason why this shot doesn't register on as many radars as it should is because the psychological structure of the shot leads you subconsciously to fill in the gap in buses (without consciously questioning) with the new bus, since the moment the "imposter" bus begins to pull out of view we see two similarly shaded cabs with a black sedan of a gap in between. If we're going to grant Nolan his technical ability, it seems like we'd have to recognize his use of the gap between the cabs if we're to acknowledge his conscious use of the cabs to begin with.
Maybe the daylight bank robbery (which he had objections about) was deliberately chosen by the Joker to show his audacity to the mobsters and the cops and the Batman. The bus as getaway vehicle is brilliant because its an unassuming vehicle at this time of day in this part of the city. How many cops check yellow school buses for this sort of thing? The Joker knew this and used a similar getaway after blowing up the hospital.
JE: I'm so glad you said that. If the shot had been a little more open, and smoother, and I'd seen the bus slip into the line (perhaps at the end) with a little more finesse and less dust, I would have loved it. I think the Coen Bros., for example, could have timed and choreographed it perfectly, so that it was giddy fun and unreal and totally acceptable at the same time. I can imagine (as I've said) the David Fincher of "Zodiac" executing the shot in a cooly meticulous way that could have been comparably satisfying. But, remember, I picked this as ONE MINOR EXAMPLE of a misconceived shot I thought represented at least a hundred others in "The Dark Knight." It bothered me because I found it anti-climactic at the end of this boffo opening sequence. At least now, after this discussion and what has come to light, I better understand why I felt that way: the composition was cropped and the director chose to shoot it in a single shot that I felt was unsatisfying.
I always saw the shot as not having anything to do with exiting the bank, bur setting up the Joker as a product of the city of Batman. I connect it more to the first shot of the Joker, were the camera tracks in on him on the sidewalk. He says so himself he exist because Batman exist and could not exist without him. I always saw that shot as if though he just materialized right there and the bus shot supports that by letting him disappear in an improbable hole in the chain of buses. By beginning the shot close to the bus it's a reverse mirror of that first shot.
I always saw the shot as not having anything to do with exiting the bank, but setting up the Joker as a product of the city of Batman. I connect it more to the first shot of the Joker, were the camera tracks in on him on the sidewalk. He says so himself he exist because Batman exist and could not exist without him. I always saw that shot as if though he just materialized right there and the bus shot supports that by letting him disappear in an improbable hole in the chain of buses. By beginning the shot close to the bus it's a reverse mirror of that first shot.
I'm far from thinking Christopher Nolan is any sort of genius, but I think he learned a lot about how to make an action picture between Batman Begins and this one. I'm also too big a Batman dork to engage in this conversation.
Hey Jim, just wanted to say that I'm really enjoying your "Dark Knight" articles. I'm actually a fan of the movie myself, but any movie this popular really needs to be taken down a peg once in a while.
I don't find myself agreeing with you on this particular point, but it does remind me of some of the complaints I have with "Dark Knight." And I think it's because at times, maybe, the movie was JUST TOO BIG for Nolan. He's spinning so many plates that occassionally there are some weird omissions. Most glaring for me is the dinner party scene where the Joker storms in... it just sort of ends without explaining what happened to all the innocent partygoers. That kind of stuff isn't enough to ruin the movie for me, but I do wonder if Nolan was a little daunted at times by the size of the movie's scope (not to mention budget).
Jim-
On this topic you stike me more as a film critic that a movie lover. You seem to be desperate to prove that all those who love this movie are wrong. A great movie allows you to suspend disbelief and just enjoy. This is a great movie.
Roger Ebert has this ability - to just enjoy a good/great movie rather than criticise a film.
Jim,
It seems to me that you are analyzing a film you did not like in order to come up with confirmatory evidence of why it is dislikable. In doing so, however, some of your "evidence" as well as the examples you cite from Ms. Zackarek, are a bit shoddy. Is it really a valid criticism to complain that a character is left hanging, literally or figuratively, in a movie? I think we can all name dozens of movies where the fact that a character's fate is unknown is considered a stroke of genius by the writer.
In addition, to complain that is objectively wrong to not show an abudction of two characters is one of the more bizarre criticisms I've ever heard. If it is just plain wrong not to "show" the crimes being committed, then I think we have to dismiss the entire work of nearly every mystery/thriller ever created by the likes of Agathie Chistie and Alfred Hitchcock. It is my guess that if the actual kidnappings were shown, there would be complaints about how uneconomical the filmmaking was.
It appears that some of these criticisms are suggesting that it is invalid to ever, in any context, make such artistic decisions as a writer, when such artistic decisions are made in numerous films I am sure both you and Ms. Zackarek soundly endorse.
While I appreciate some of the efforts you make to illustrate flaws/inconsistencies in this film, some of these criticisms strike me as examples of starting with a conclusion and then looking for evidence to support the conclusion, instead of the other way around.
Jim,
I've pretty much killed an entire morning reading through this thread and I think I understand what you're getting at.
I only saw TDK once (but I'd like to go back and give it a closer look now), and was somewhat disappointed with it. I remember that while some individual scenes stuck with me (the Joker sticks his head out of the police car, Joker Taunts the partygoers, Joker makes pencil "disappear") and some recurring themes amused me (Joker changes story about his upbringing) something was a bit lacking. My first mental review was "Batman Begins was a lot more satisfying."
That said…
The common trope: “why can’t critics just relax and enjoy the film” drives me a little nuts. Yes, superficially, it might seem like a close reading will always produce negative feelings since the detection of “flaws” in any work of art is inevitable given enough scrutiny. But the solution, “Don’t worry your pretty little head about things” just seems so darn unsatisfying to me.
I think those who roll their eyes at the sort of filmic exegesis (“close-reading”) being done on this forum are missing the point. For some, with certain films, mulling over the minutiae of a given piece of cinematic art is, itself, the point of watching the movie in the first place- or, if not the point in the first place, a nice additional layer of enjoyment tacked on at the end. I would argue that this process even results in more fun from the film, since, even if the movie was not enjoyed in the theater, the discussion of it afterward is great fun. Even a bad movie might make wonderfully enlightening commentary and analysis. (It’s not without reason that one of my favorite books of film reviews is Ebert’s “Your Movie Sucks.”)
I would suspect that Jim, despite feeling a bit disappointed in TDK, finds it a fascinating and enjoyable topic for discussion. In a sense, this forum has redeemed it- not necessarily as a work of art, but as an interesting cultural artifact.
The way I experience this process, and from what I see the way you do as well, Jim, is that I watch a film for the first time with active attention, but without too much conscious concern for detail. By the end of the movie I have an overall emotional impression of it, but only a vague sense of where that emotional impression comes from. Then, as hours and days pass, I mull over what I have seen and try to get at the “why” of how I’m feeling.
Finding that “why” is often my ultimate goal of any future close-reading.
For those who don’t enjoy the disputation, know that the process of going through a film shot-by-shot is just one of many ways of looking at a film. There’s an equally valid way of approaching a film the same way a surfer approaches a wave- that is, as a giant wall of sensation. Another common way to enjoy a movie is to latch on to certain elements- a given performance, perhaps or the cinematic “tone” of a movie- and consider the moments that are not exemplars of those elements as less worthy of attention (filler, perhaps?) How many people do you know that enthuse about a movie simply because “so-and-so was so cute” or “that cinematography looked way cool?” These are the “elements” folks.
But looking at what’s up there on the screen, in its entirety, is neither nit-picky, nor is it the “right way” of approaching a film. It is ONE way.
When it comes to editing in TDK, the issue may be the overlong script.
TDK clocks in at about 150 minutes and still feels rushed, right?
It's possible that early drafts of the script -- or even the shooting script -- contained many of the "missing scenes" and "missing shots" that are being discussed.
I think it's likely that Nolan shot many of these scenes and shots like the Joker disarming the detective, etc. It's possible he even shot scenes twice: once without dialogue, and once with more exposition, so that he could choose in the editing room which version he would use (pure speculation, but it's how I shoot no-budget movies.)
When it was time to edit TDK, Nolan found he had shot a movie clocking in at 170 or 180 minutes. Too long for a summer blockbuster that has to show 3 times per screen per night. So he had to drop the silent versions of scenes and use the exposition-heavy version instead. And he had to start scenes/shots late and end them early.
I suspect somewhere there's a 3-hour roughcut of TDK in which we DO see the exterior of the bank before the bus comes crashing out. Where we see the Joker disarming the detective. Where we see a lot of characters leaving and arriving instead of just magically appearing wherever they need to.
A couple seconds here, a couple seconds there. I once had to trim an 8-minute short film to 3 minutes and a 70-minute movie to 27 minutes. In both cases, I had to delete more than 50% of the content. I got real avant-garde real fast.
Evidence? Nolan cheerfully admits the bank heist is an homage to Michael Mann's "Heat," which is about 170 minutes + 11 deleted scenes. I suggest that ALL of TDK is an homage to "Heat." It's just "Heat" shorn of 20-30 minutes, leaving it jumbled.
A longer "director's cut" may appear in the future. At about the time sales for the standard version have started to wane.
Four entries focusing on a single shot is a bit much, don't you think? You don't like the movie - we get it!
JE: If that's what you get from four entries focusing on a single shot then, no, you don't get it at all. "Don't like" does not come before "the movie."
Jim,
I know you've stated that you appreciate the opening shot of this sequence more than the closing shot (of the school buses) because the gliding establishing shot shows the audience exactly what is happening and doesn't seem to cheat. However, I also found this opening shot awkward and unsettling.
When I saw TDK in theaters on opening night, I was really expecting greatness or something close to it, having really liked Batman Begins, but once I saw how the movie opened, I got a little worried. It's not the entire shot that bothered me, but simply how the audience is plunged into the heist taking place. I had a blast gliding above Chicago, but the fun was cut short when the window blasts open and then quickly cuts to a shot inside the building looking out. It felt rushed. The transition between the first and second shots of the film immediately threw me out of the film. It was one of many small problems in the film that I really tried to ignore but couldn't. Almost as distracting as the portrayal of Harvey Dent's burnt face.
What do you think about the opening shot (weird blue-fire shot aside) as a whole?
Cutting in close to the bus creates more movement on the screen. If Nolan had pulled back, the movement on the screen would have seemed less immediate.
The tension of the whole bank robbery is built around the fact you think there's going to be some major explosion or some gruesome death. But it's a fake-out. As the bus pulls out, the sound of it backing out builds, we see the bus moving furthering the build, and then release as we observe a clever getaway. This is standard stuff especially with the crane shot that concludes it.
Emerson, maybe your problem with this sequence that it is average stuff in a film that has been so hailed. I wouldn't say it's horrible. But the tension preceding it does work in establishing how creepy the Joker is, and the finish doesn't draw attention to itself.
And to explain the line of busses, maybe the joker's men are driving them? If the Joker was able to get a bus for himself, why wouldn't he be able to rig up the line?
On another note, I felt that TDK exploited the stereotypical tough image of the African American male to show how tough the Joker is. When he slams the guys head on the pencil and grips the African American crime leader, it felt like Nolan was saying, "See, he's so bad, he can even bring a black man to his knees." This happened twice in the film. Both times the characters acted like they didn't know what hit them. And no one else who faced the Joker was as blubberingly helpless.
JE: Interesting points, Shawn. Yes, the punch-line is the popped grenade in William Fichtner's mouth that doesn't explode. Instead, the "explosion" is the bus pulling out.
You say: "it is average stuff in a film that has been so hailed." You are absolutely correct, and that is indeed why I brought it up. It's NOT horrible. It's a mediocre moment in a movie full of them, and I'm arguing that it should and could have been much better executed. Last year I went on and on and on about what made certain moments and images in "No Country for Old Men" so thrilling. I wish I could do the same for "The Dark Knight," but in terms of directorial talent there's just no comparison.
I didn't read the "pool cue" scene the same way as you did, but I wondered why it was in the film. I think all it does is provide an alternative "origin story" for the Joker, to contrast with the one he tells at Bruce Wayne's party. You need both to know that he's mocking the whole idea. Other than that it's a throwaway scene. Why does the black mobster collapse and die instantly if he's just received the same kind of mouth wound that the Joker has? (We don't actually see what happens to him -- we just see others flinch.) The scene ends with the Joker telling two others to fight it out with two pieces of a broken pool cue. As far as I can tell, none of this figures into the film again. I guess they didn't want to cut it because of the slash-mouth story, but they sure dispose of it as quickly as possible after that.
The biggest problem with The Dark Knight is that it has too many stories, sub-plots, and characters. All the stories seem to be unrelated, which makes the film confusing and boring. It is basically a series of vignettes; I would even call it the Batman version of New York Stories or Paris Je T'aime.
A story will begin and we actually get interested in it. All of a sudden the story just ends, and a new story starts. We start to feel involved with the new story, but than that one ends too and another new one starts. There are way too many endings in The Dark Knight; when you think the film is over, a new story starts.
The first story for instance has to do with the mob and their extortion of money. It is an interesting story and I felt involved with it. But it just ends and we never see what happens to the Chinese guy that was at the center of it. All of a sudden a new story begins which involves the love relationship between Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes. When the love story between Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes ends and Rachel is killed by the Joker, a new one begins involving The Joker wanting to destroy a ship. The ship, Rachel, and the mob extorting money have nothing to do with each other. Watching The Dark Knight feels like watching many different movies. This is just bad writing.
There are many of other problems with the film. Christian Bale is wooden as Bruce Wayne. As Batman, he is equally uninteresting. Batman's growling voice is almost incomprehensible and totally unnecessary.
Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman do nothing.
There are too many tedious sections; I think it was Steve Rhodes that pointed this out.
It takes itself too seriously and is pretentious.
Does The Dark Knight really deserve the praise it is getting? Would it have received all this praise if Heath Ledger lived?
Jim,
Went to some of your interruptus on "No County For Old Men" and have to say that this kind of autopsy of films can be revealing and thought provoking. So, no, four entries on one shot is not a bit much.
I had similar reactions to TDK but mine were mostly positive. To be fair, Nolan's sequence editing has always been clumsy, so I go in with that caveat. Almost as many continuity errors as Marty and Thelma but with none of the flair or energy. I do find your analysis to be preoccupied with the "realism" (bus drivers being distracted by dust, passersby noticing the glass from the building, etc). Another writer I love, Gregg Easterbrook, points out legitimate criticisms for how it is pretty impossible for the Joker to execute so many of these plans. Yet, those kinds of details are boring and are limited only to the imagination of the people creating the movie. It reminds me of people who try to guess where Anton Chigur came from, what school he went to, if he picked flies off wings, etc. The Joker can muster semi trucks and gallons of gasoline from nowhere, predict where helicopters are going to fly, track down mobsters' hidden locations because...he really is something supernatural in this film. He doesn't have an origin because he's not really a man but his desire to bring out the worst in humans, his nihilism, his anarchy and dynamism are the antithesis of what drive Bruce/Batman.
While you're rewatching segments and sequences from this film, help me with some theme picking of my own. The Joker's musical theme (the electric "buzzing" distortion) hints at a supernatural element (it reminds me of the flies buzzing when Simon "talks" to the Lord of the Flies in the original movie). What's interesting is that in the first half of the movie, the Joker is built up to be this giant force but then suddenly all of these comparisons to a "mad dog" seem to deflate his power don't they? In a way, that climax with the ferries and in the Pruitt Building is about that: unmasking an evil siren (Mephistopheles according to Roger) to reveal the deranged simplemindedness underneath. That's what the ferry scene is about and just about the only time in the film the Joker looks vulnerable when people don't eat each other as he predicts. Admittedly, this is a very confusing and contradictory theme: that the Joker is simultaneously a mastermind seducer of evil and a aimless, easily defeated thing of frenzy. I think the film builds him up and brings him down, but don't know if I like that yet. Anywho, I wanted to see if you noticed the musical theme and references to dogs in the same context as me.
Take care,
Alex
P.S. For the reader who thought that the movie used caricatures of tough black men to prove the Joker's moxy, take a look at the convict on the ferry who tosses the detonator out the window too. At first, I thought it proved you wrong and the movie had an example to counter yours. Until you contrast him with the weenie white guy on the other ferry who feebly puts down the detonator. It's a positive, but similar caricature in comparison.
"it's an important shot that falls a little flat a sustained crane shot that pulls back and doesn't show us what we're meant to "see": the bus exiting the bank. This is just one of countless instances in "The Dark Knight" where the movie fails to show what it tells us we should believe. I wanted to shout at Christopher Nolan: Don't explain it in dialog later, don't skimp by shooting or cutting around the main action, just put it on the screen!"
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this paragraph is what gets down to the basics about your problem with this one shot, that it goes from inside the bank to driving away without showing the initial exit from the bank in between. Personally, I think this middle portion that you so forcefully demand is unnecessary.
I see a bus leaving a bank in one shot and see a bus leaving a building in the next, I simply put two and two together and assume that's the same building the bus left a second ago.
The word that you used so forcefully in the first post was "incoherent." That word is defined in my dictionary as "without logical or meaningful connection." It seems to me that the motion of the bus combined with the dust that you seem to have such a problem with more than connect the two shots leading to only one logical conclusion: that the bus has left the bank and is turning onto the street. The shot of it initially leaving the bank would seem, to me, to be redundant.
If I'm still misreading your problem with the shot, forgive me, but your posts quickly seem to move on to other unrelated parts of the movie. All I'm really saying is, if your goal is to prove to me that the film is downright "incoherent," you’re going to have to find an example that's a lot better than that.
"no helicopter reflection, either!".
But there is! You can see the helicopter on the left hand side when it get close to the building in the Blu-ray version. I'm not sure if it is there or not in DVD though.
JE: I will look for that. You'd think it wouldn't have taken much digital work to remove it.
Have we forgotten that the Dark Knight is a comic book film? Splitting hairs over its visual logic is not only pointless, but counter-productive as well. Simply put, to imply that Nolan's technique of explanation through dialogue rather than visuals is somehow lazy falls completely off the mark with the comic book genre. Frankly, who the hell cares if Batman's landing atop of a cab roof doesn't quite make sense in the world of physical space? It is after all, like a comic book, visually pleasing and somewhat outlandish. I can't help but feel that this behemoth of a complaint is just the result of your distaste with the film's popularity.
JE: See the post "On liking and disliking." I love the way Batman dives out the window and slides down the roof after Rachel, and the flutter of his wings on the soundtrack as they tumble through space. But the last shot of the fall -- a short drop onto the taxi roof -- is anti-climactic, in part because of the angle. It feels almost like a jump-cut. (See the silent movie stunt, where the "hero" jumps from a bridge onto a horse, at the end of "The Fall" -- a black joke that reminded me of this moment in "TDK.") I don't think it's fair to say that, if somebody cares about the art and craft of filmmaking, pointing out something like that is irrelevant or nitpicky. It makes all the difference in the world in that particular scene, at that particular moment, when you're watching the movie.
JE: "Don't explain it in dialog later, don't skimp by shooting or cutting around the main action, just put it on the screen!"
I couldn't even read anymore after that. That is one of the worst commands to a director I've ever heard. It is incredibly generalized, and cinematically ignorant. You cannot expect all the action in a film to be explicit. You might as well go tell Tarantino to include the bank robbery in "Reservoir Dogs" for christ's sake.
JE: Don't be silly. Yes, if you choose to generalize enough you can stretch a statement to absurd, illogical extremes. Do you honestly think that's what I was suggesting? I'm just re-stating one of the ancient rules of telling stories with pictures: Show us, don't tell us. (Watch some early talkies -- especially those based on plays -- and you'll understand why this is considered advice to keep in mind.) "Reservoir Dogs" is deliberately constructed as a "chat-fest" (QT's term) that shows us the characters' reactions to a heist gone bad -- one the audience doesn't see. That's the premise of the bloody movie. It's not designed as a big spectacle, with huge special effects and IMAX helicopter shots and a cast of hundreds. I'll use an equally absurd counter-example: Say Batman dove out the window of Bruce Wayne's penthouse. Then a party guest went over, looked down, and announced: "Whew! It's OK, they landed safely on the roof of a cab" -- but we never saw any of it. There's a gross overstatement of the principle.
Here's another one: A messenger arrives at Pharoah's court with urgent news. Medium shot MESSENGER: "Moses has just parted the Red Sea, thus allowing the Israelites to escape from Egypt and enter the Promised Land!"
i think i understand your frustration, Jim. if no one liked or talked about the movie, i'm sure you wouldn't spend so much time arguing about it. but when everyone says "best movie ever", and you try and explain to them it isn't...well, it can get heated, and i feel for ya (i've had my own similar arguments, since i'm one of the few people alive who hates Grapes of Wrath, Atom Egoyan films, and Pixar movies).
having said that, i adore the Dark Knight, but i can't deny it's many flaws and, yes, filmmaking and storytelling sloppiness. for some reason, though, it's never really bothered me. it's my favourite movie of the last 2 years, and yet it definitely could've been better. as you've pointed out, Nolan sometimes did make little filmmaking cheats, and pretty much every scene Joker's in is a massive plothole. but i accept it, as i have since the first time i saw it and nearly wet my pants. maybe because regardless of it's flaws, it was the culmination of years of loving Batman and waiting for this kind of movie to come out.
oh, and i think something that can work as a slight excuse on Nolan's behalf - working with IMAX cameras, especially for a new director with the hardware and on such a big action film, is a huge pain. i've noticed that most of the time the filmmaking was choppy or sloppy (like the bank robbery you've mentioned), it's been during a scene filmed with the IMAX cam's. maybe it was just too much for Nolan to get a full grip on.
cheers
KZ
Jim,
I understand your reasons for deciding to analyze what does and doesn't work in a movie, and I hope that the torrent of negative reactions doesn't discourage you from continuing with this. I loved "The Dark Knight" --- enough to take a closer look at it and analyze it.
Some thoughts on the logic of the shot you've chosen: we know that the Joker is pulling the bus out of the door, because we just saw the bus crashing through and parking where the bank's door was; I'm not sure if it is absolutely necessary to show exactly where the bus is coming from. Moreover, when I first watched the movie, I simply assumed that the bus behind the Joker simply "yielded" to allow the Joker in (a little odd, perhaps, but certainly not impossible). Would a bus-driver call the police because he saw another bus pulling out of a bank? Perhaps he and everyone else figured that there must be some sort of explanation, or that the police or somebody must have noticed by now, or simply was afraid to interfere. Or perhaps the bus-drivers were Joker's henchmen, but driving "legitimate" school buses full of children for the sake of the heist. I imagine there is some explanation, but explaining it in words would just offer us a "plot device," and wouldn't really make the movie any more satisfying to me. And if the police were rushing to a bank robbery, I doubt they would be distracted by dust falling off of a bus. I think the shot works because of what you have identified as "the punch line" --- the sight of the freakishly weird and evil Joker disappearing into a crowd, hiding amidst the citizens of Gotham. It's a motif that's implied later in the film: after shooting Gordon, the Joker disappears into the crowd of similarly-dressed cops running for safety; after escaping from the police-station, the Joker hijacks a cop car; and in the hospital scene, he again disappears into an innocuous-looking bus (which suggests, upon reflection, that he may indeed have some control over the bus companies in Gotham).
I, for one, would like to see you explain some of the other shots in the movie that you felt just didn't work; the one you mentioned of Batman diving after Rachel was something I didn't quite notice when I watched the movie as a poorly filmed one. The problems I had with the movie were more editing one: how on earth did the Joker escape from Batman's penthouse when Batman had already leapt to the ground floor, which would presumably block his escape? That's not a major editing problem per se, since the plot does not hinge on it, but it does defy common sense a bit. How does Harvey Dent know that the man in the ambulance is complicit in the plot to kill Gordon? When does Two-Face kill five people (as Gordon informs us after Two-Face's death), since we have only witnessed him killing three? Is Two-Face dead or simply incapacitated from a fall that failed to kill Batman?
I feel obligated to point out to you ONE MORE IMPORTANT POINT that may or may not help you: most of the favorable criticism of "The Dark Knight" has not been centered around the film-making in terms of shot composition and continuity, but the character-based power of the film. And, in fairness to its construction, there were some things Nolan did with the editing of the film that I thought were excellent ("brilliant" is an irritatingly overused word these days). I know you're busy with responding to these posts so I won't bore you with it now, but if you're curious, I can point some of them out to you.
Looking forward to your next posts!
I think you're being a little too critical in some areas.
The bus criticism is a somewhat fair one. But let's take it further, the bus didn't even appear to sustain damage after busting through a bank wall, which would make it look even more suspicious after the dust washed away in a block or two, if the back of the bus was smashed in.
But let's go even further. How about one of the opening shots of the films, of the thug standing on the corner holding the mask. That's the Joker, apparently in FULL MAKEUP, yet no one notices, on the street?
Yeah, these are a couple of nagging bits along with a few others that take a little bit away from the logic of the film.
However, I don't think we need to see Dent and Rachael kidnapped. I think we've all seen what a kidnapping looks like, and is ultimately inconsequential. We understand how it likely happened, so why not leave it as just that?
A part of film making is choosing what to show, and not just showing everything. As long as the audience can understand it, what is the problem in most circumstances?
You have a film that's over 2 1/2 hours. As a film goer I could understand wanting more, but studio and theater pressures probably dictated that even this running length was a stretch.
The Dark Knight ain't perfect, but sadly, what film is? Considering the source material it's based on, it's understandable that not everything can be shown, or that the Joker's abilities are a bit supernatural. That's how he's always been. If we have to see every step of his plan or every detail of his schemes, it could be quite boring, and an 8 hour movie.
If this "nit picking" displeases you, don't read it. Jim is offering up a close analysis of a film for those that are interested in such a thing, he is not cramming this down any one's throat, nor is denying anyone their enjoyment of this film. I personaly enjoy doing similar readings of films, and if you enjoy being moved or escaping, that's your perogotive and this is Jim's. The beauty of the internet (like television and the radio) is that if you don't like something, you can navigate to another page.
And if nothing else, nit picking criticism has had almost no effect on Hollywood cinema which is heavily workshopped and painstakingly sapped of anything which could offend or insight thought (maybe a a bit hyperbolic, sorry) B.S. like that is propaganda on par with the "liberal media bias."
RadicalEdward - I'm not certain about this, but if I recall correctly, the bus didn't crash through the wall as much as it did the entrance to the bank, which would have been much less well-protected than the concrete wall. I don't think the bus would have sustained major damage against the wooden and glass door (but like I said, I'd need to look at it again to be absolutely positive on this point). Also, I disagree with you that the Joker is a "supernatural" being per se; I think he is just a highly-skilled and thoughtful criminal who is good at anticipating things. I do agree that we do not need to see every detail of his plan, if we can logically surmise what happened (without stretching logic or pulling ideas completely out of thin air).
Jim,
I read that the Blu-Ray version has a DIY commentary function. Given it any thought?
JE: Absolutely. I'm looking into it. I gather it will only be available to those whose Blu-ray players are hooked into "Blu-ray Live" via the Internet, though...
Hey, I gets it now! At first, I'll admit I was a little taken aback by the examination of a SINGLE SHOT for what seemed like the same duration of "The Illiad", but after a second read I really feel that I've grown- not just AGED- as a movie watcher. I'd never call myself a "reviewer"- golly gosh no. I simply ain't got the brains, the smarts, just the pure 'observational whats-it', ya unnerstand. But now that I 'get' how to do this deconstruction thang, by crackey I'ma take a shot at it.
Takin' a look at the film again, I, too, have burning questions about the opening of the film.
1. All of the robbers have masks. Exactly WHERE were they purchased??!! I'm perplexed. I mean, I know I could just take the logical leap they up and bought 'em somewheres... but the question remains and how am I s'posed to sleep NOW? I just think we hadda right to SEE the purchase, ya know? For the sake of realism and such.
B. One of the robbers refers to the Joker as wearing 'war paint'. Is he implying that this is what the Joker calls it? Now how do we know that's not a lie? I say, HEY, this man's clearly not a member up upstanding society and there's this subtle, underlying thing about stealing money that just bothers me. I mean, that's wrong, am I right? Makes me suspicious of what the man has to say, is all. For the love of all that's holy, is it too much to ask that we get to SEE the Joker say that to him? Look it, even before these movies got all 'arty' and insisted on releasing nothing but 'talkies', they knew how to do a flashback!
4. And now the subject of that bus pulling into traffic. Ooh how I hate that bus! Look it, you can all argue as much as ya like, but clearly the 'dust to glass ratio' is just wildly incorrect. Now, I'm relatively young, but I ain't fell of the 'bus' yesterday, ya understand? Look, I'll give it to the director that he DID manage to pull out of some tight holes. I can remember when I first saw the bus coming on screen from my right, my first thought was, 'AM I SEEING WHAT I THINK I'M SEEING?' All I am seeing is two front wheels and you can use fancy physics all ya like, but this is NO WAY the just two wheels positioned only in the front of such a long vehicle is gonna have the traction to move it along so smoothly. And how the HECK is the bus not clearly dragging at the end. But then as it moved along, I was able to relax cuz the bus had other wheels in the back I couldn't see until it pulled out. Well, ya gotta give the director props for getting out of THAT one. But then, the more I thought about it, I'm just plain convinced that this Joker feller ain't ever been issued one of those 'showfer's' license things and this just ruined it for me. I took one look at him and just knew he wasn't no "kid person"- but he's allowed to drive 'em around, huh? That's a lot of hooey! I knew when I came into the theater that I had a wall behind me and one on each side, but it was like another wall was suddenly right in front of me, making me feel like I was just watching a movie instead of feeling like I was 'in' it (not trying to sound sound all rocket-science-y!).
Yes, sir, it clearly makes you a happier movie fan if you REALLY dig deep and question all those elements that some directors try to gloss over with their fancy 'plot devices', excellent writing, compelling characters, and the very best anyone can be offered in terms of talented performers and awesome effects. So to all of you out there who just want to go out there and watch a movie so you can 'enjoy' it, I think you need to take a long, hard look at your lives and ask yourself what the REAL value of a quality film experience is all about- is it REALLY about having a well-produced movie meet your every expectation or is the true value of art not in the process of picking it apart until you manage to see suck the joy completely out of it?
Hope I wasn't too hard on you there.
"The Dark Knight" sucked. I am absolutely sure of it and that's the way it's gonna be until someone tells me different!
What a sad, sad life you must lead. Desperately trying to convince people who like a film that more than you that it's not as good as they think it is. Applying stringent logic when you would ignore such instances in other films. I like your writing Emerson, but your sad obsession to prove people wrong about the Dark Knight is pathetic.
JE: It's only sad if you think the aim of criticism is to desperately try to convince people who like a film that it's not as good as they think it is. I don't believe film critics have the godlike power to persuade people to un-enjoy something they've already enjoyed. I'm trying to pin down my own mixed responses to the film and why I felt the way I did from moment to moment, based on what I saw on the screen. Some comments have helped me understand that better. That's a happy thing, not a sad thing.
I'm of the TDK-is- not-that-good persuasion. I showed up expecting to love it. Its semi-coherence distracted me to where when Two-Face made his appearance I started laughing, thinking of this guy:
http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff280/ccaroli/BustMarsAttacks01.jpg
The Joker (we suspect, but only learn in retrospect) is introduced from behind, standing on a streetcorner where he is picked up by two other chatty masked henchmen.
Why doesn't anyone notice him without his mask on? I kept thinking about that for the duration of that telegraph of a shot.
Ali Arikan--
Why would they? This is before he was ever on TV, as far as we know. Some guy standing around in face paint wouldn't incite anyone to call the cops in any city I've been in.
Jim, I think we're all waiting for you to record a commentary track for TDK that we can download. Seriously.
I still don't understand the problem. As Godard said, "The cinema is 24 frames of truth. Every edit is a lie." I found the scene plausible because of its context just as I do with every shot in a movie. Isn't it unfair to isolate it and then blame spacious reasoning? It's almost as if you're saying it defies the laws of physics on par of the bus being upside down. When watching "Transformers," and you cannot tell who is what and where, then, yeah, I see a reason to complain. But I know that there's a bus driving out of a bank. Why? Because the last time you see a bus is going through one! Isn't this Film Editing 101? Maybe you don't think it's a bad movie but just poorly shot? Perhaps it's not Nolan's vision but the DP Wally Pfister you should be complaining about? Or perhaps I've missed some other point you're making?
And I don't know where to begin with not seeing the action you wanted to see. This makes me assume that you have problems enjoying movies adapted from plays because plays tend to indicate action through dialogue rather than showing the action. What would "Doubt" be if you actually saw the "real action"? Implications can be remarkably powerful and spacial implications are what allow most (if not all) cuts in a film to even exist. The illusion of editing exists through the cutting between shots... not by isolating one.
After thinking about this some more, I think I get what you're getting at. The best movies can be understood with the sound off (which would explain to me why the movie didn't do so well in the foreign market). I don't think you used a good example, but I will agree with you that the movie is probably flat-out incomprehensible on mute. I get here that the Joker is getting away. What I wouldn't get is many of the characters' motivations, which, if you don't understand that much, then the movie will definitely be incoherent. So the movie doesn't work in that *style* of showing you what you need to see, I agree. But I would say Nolan chooses a different (but not necessarily *bad*) style here.
JE: I thought "TDK" did great all over the world. Am I mistaken? For all the complaints about leaden expository dialog in the movie, I began to think that none of it mattered, that one thing may just as well happen as another, and that (as in the Joker's hand-held video) all the dialog was just nonsense, so the movie would make no more sense, and no less, with the sound off.
To address the Godard reference in your previous post: a GOOD edit is a lie that tells the truth! And if you only have 24 frames per second to do it in, you'd better choose those frames carefully. Again, the plot and character improbabilities are obvious, but minor in the grand scheme of things. As he showed from the opening shot (real city, hard daylight, clear IMAX), Nolan was going for a kind of urban realism not previously seen in Gotham City. I admire the attempt. But as an action director, he doesn't have the chops -- as I attempt to show in one brief sequence in the movie above, "The Architecture of Gravity" (BTW, I meant that title to be funny, but I'm not sure it reads that way!).
Jim--
The movie did extremely well world-wide, but not particularly relative to its performance in the US. It made about 460 million in the rest of the world, and about 530 in the US. So it made only 47% of its money abroad, as opposed to about two-thirds for most movies that make that kind of money. (http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/)
JE: I wish I could go over every shot in the movie with you
Any chance you be doing a shot-by-shot in Boulder again this year?
JE: I'm not sure what I'll be doing in Boulder this year, but I love attending CWA. It would be great to do "TDK" but there'd be so much back-and-forth it would probably take several months to get through it! I'd hate to try to moderate that discussion...
I am completely new to reading your blog, but I wanted to add to this discussion.
I knew there was something amiss in The Dark Knight, but I could never put my finger on it completely until I read this. While I still love the movie and it is still one of my favorites, I have to agree that some shots really bothered me to the point of asking, "Why is this being shot this way when 'normal' would work?"
The Two-Face shot was one, and the other is when the Joker is hanging upside-down, then the camera "rights" him. While it was a very nice effect, to me, it served absolutely no purpose other than to disorient the viewers. My only other explanation is that he's putting his "spin" on what has just transpired, and the camera seems to agree with him. Or it's just him "turning a plan on its head".
And though I prefer this realistic version of Batman for the emotional depth and clarity of characters, I have to say at some points I miss the bizarre stylization of the original two movies. The realism is admirable, but at times it does make suspension of disbelief difficult to swallow when it's invoked.
Also, because I am a first-timer and haven't reviewed your previous blogs, I want to know if you saw Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween. It's a far, FAR worse offender than The Dark Knight. That movie, unlike Batman, had no solid character development to fall back on, and its editing REALLY bothered me. For his devotion to B-movies and I'd assume Hitchcock, he literally took all the suspense out of scenes that could have been rich with it in his and WERE rich in the original.
His pointless cuts away from the violence, as when he grabs Annie to take her back into the house. THEN, we finally get to the shot inside the house, and she's bloodied and apparently hurt enough to have her bodily functions reduced to groans and faint movements! Zombie repeats this method SEVERAL times throughout the movie, manually removing any hint of what we're supposed to be seeing. That, and he doesn't show Michael during chase scenes. To keep the threat constant, Michael has to be shown at least MOVING to places where his victims just were a second ago, or, better yet, in the same shot with them, over a shoulder several feet away, stalking. Sorry. I've rambled, but I needed to tell someone and hope that you share my rage if you've seen it.
Michael Bay's Transformers was another gross offender for me, but I've taken enough of your time.
Jim, I totally understand where you are coming from, but I completely have to disagree on both philosophical and practical grounds.
From my lessons in film school, and from my own film making experiences, I've learned that offscreen space is just as important, and sometimes more so, than onscreen space. What is more effective when a killer main character shoots an innocent victim? To see the bullet penetrate her brain, or to watch the emotion sweeping through the killer's eyes as he pulls the trigger? Which is more horrible, to see the bullet or to imagine that horror, because no physical amount of actually seeing that horror could equal what we conjure in our own imagination, and to concentrate on the emotion of the character?
And really, Nolan's film is just an extension of that principle. Do we have to see The Joker crack the guard's head into the glass, pick up a shard of glass, and hold it to the guard's neck in order to escape? Is that necessary? Or can we trust the audience to imagine the horror of what just happened?
Do we have to see the abductions take place? Really? Or is it more effective to have them imagine the horror that must have taken place?
Do we have to see The Joker exit Wayne's penthouse? Is that really necessary?
What Nolan has done here is to allow offscreen space to tell part of the story, rather than showing gratuitous scenes that would just downgrade the film into a standard thriller. This frees Nolan up to focus on his characters, because they are the film. Sure, film is based on show don't tell. But it's also based on "show only what you need to" and cut the fat, allowing the audience to fill in the gaps.
As for your whole starting point, of the Bus leaving the building, as has been explained, its an issue of cropping. And I assume that all of your framing problems exist in the IMAX scenes, and boil down to the reality of cropping IMAX down to 2.35/1.
Hi, Jim.
I finally got around to watching the scene in question. And I have to confess I got kinda lost in it. I'm not a movie critic, and I often have to watch something 2 or 3 or 20 times before I extract everything I can from it. I did manage to pay reasonably close attention to the scene of the bus exiting the building, however.
I also confess that I was very excited during the lead up to this movie. I did haunt various internet sites, and so I know that an attachment made of glass and wood was added to the front of the building that was used for the bank robbery.
So now I'm going to speculate a bit. In terms of the film making mechanics, Nolan probably had a set built for the interior shots of the bank robbery - so he could easily drive a bus onto the set through the set's wall. But for the exterior shot, it's highly unlikely the building's owners would have allowed him to drive a bus through the front of their building. So he had this wood & glass thing put on the front of the building, embedded the bus in it, and then drove the bus out for the getaway shot. He can't have the whole front of the building in frame, or you'll see the fact of this addition.
This is based on Nolan's past quotes about preferring not to use CGI (e.g., all the raving about how they arranged to "really flip a real truck" rather than CGI the sequence), and so it's unlikely he would have preferred to CGI the front of the building with the bus sticking out of it, and merge this with footage of a real bus with debris on top driving away.
And I'll repeat what I said before - I don't think Joker needs every bus driver in line to be part of his scheme. He only needs one - the one who created the gap for him to drive into. He might have a second, as a backup if needed. But is it important? Personally, I don't put much stock in the long-term survival of any such bus driver. :)