Film Studies
2008 Batman The Dark Knight created by Christopher Nolan is a masterpiece in itself, in my opinion one if not the best Superhero films created, with the actor Christion Bale as batman and Heath Ledger as the villainous Joker, it’s hard not to love this film. It is set around a comic book hero batman. The film was not intended to be released as Heath Ledger died shortly after the films producing, however in tribute to his death it was released anyway.
The dark knight begins with a bank heist; the joker takes centre stage with 5 other men who wear clown masks. In the scene the 5 men get slowly killed off as they rob the bank.
In the first clip we can see skyscrapers and other buildings which tell us where we are in the film also known as an establishing shot, it shows we are in a city depicting by the buildings. We know that these clowns are about to do some criminal activity as a window is smashed in one of the buildings. We are then given a medium close up from behind a man who has his mask off suggesting that he is the main protagonist. AS the scene progresses we are told of a joker guy who is a part of this heist, no one knows who he is and they don’t know his intentions. Once the villains enter the bank they shoot of some bullets, this makes the audience quite tense because people start to scream in fright. We are then given close ups on the hostages as they are each given a hand grenade and in order for them to survive they need to hold down the trigger. Also we are given a low angle shot which shows the hostages to be weak and useless and the masked men to be strong and in control. We are the shown a potential hero as one of the bank managers in the other room seems calm about the situation, he then opens fire on one of the clown, killing him. We then are given a low angle shot of the clowns as they scurry away from him however the manager runs out of bullets and he is wounded by one of the masked men. Next, we are put outside the bank safe where two clowns are, one of the guys shoots the other giving us the close up zoom of the killer. After that the money is taken to the centre of the bank and two of the clowns start to talk to each other about who kills who. The audience become confused because we don’t know who the ‘Bus driver’ is until he burst through the wall with a school bus, this gives a comedic effect to the film making the scene less anxious for the viewer. After the bus crashes through the wall we cut to reveal the back of the bus with yet another clown in the back who is now loading up the money. After they load up the money the currently unknown clown gets shot by this clown we have been following. As he is about to leave we cut to the bank manager who is still alive and begins talking to the clown who then starts walking towards the bank manager.
You have included some technical language here and some attempt has been made to analysis how meaning is generated through the camera. You have discussed some emotional responses that could be generated but overall the work is too descriptive.
ReplyDeleteYou should try to expand your analysis and specifically explain how the technique used creates meaning.
For example@
The low angle camera tracks towards a mask in a characters hand. The identity of the character is hidden by the low angle shot but the track to a close up of the mask tells us the mask, or the connotations of the mask will be central to the film. The character then moves forward and the shot transitions to wide shot as he enters the car. Maintaining the anonymity of the character adds mystery and suspense to the sequence.