Blog #21 Cinematography Analysis: The Dark Knight
Continuing on with my analysis of the Christopher Nolan trilogy, this week we’re looking at The Dark Knight, the second film in the trilogy and by far the most quoted and popular. If I had to use one word to describe this film, I would use this: explosive. The film gets the pacing spot on and it does this by starting slow… then exploding into action.
I’m going to explore the cinematography of this film and try to add as much new material as I can here, even though this film has been analysed to death. Here it is:
Darker and moodier - the film continues on from Batman Begins and is slightly darker and moodier than the first film of the trilogy. Some scenes are dark in both films but in this one, they really when for it when they lit low-key scenes. Just look at the frame below of the bomb scene. They weren’t afraid to underexpose when they wanted to send a message.
Bomb scene
2. Light from above - most of the light sources in this film notably comes from above. It’s streetlamps by night and the sun/room-lights by day. The backlighting in this film is subtle, which means the film walks a fine line when balancing exposure between the bright sunlight and still wanting to keep the character the main focus of attention in the film (it uses a hairlight more often than a backlight). It manages this balance in most of the shots by having a bright key light do the heavy lifting. See this image below for the balancing act (it looks like they used flags to keep the background light focused directly behind the actor).
Bruce Wayne - hair light and key light
3. Explode into action - in the very beginning of the film, the first shot we see is of a skyscraper. It has glass windows and we slowly dolly in to it. The pacing is slow and everything, from the music to the foley, is calm. Then, suddenly, we see a window smash open and cut inside, where a robber wearing a clown mask is holding a grapple gun, which he fires onto a nearby rooftop.
Next scene shortly after, we see a man stood by the side of the road, holding a bag over his shoulder and a clown mask in his left hand. There is a slow dolly in when… action! A pickup truck pulls up and he jumps in quickly. They drive off together. The film has now gotten your full attention.
Calm before the storm
4. Green accents - like a lot of films in the mid 2000’s, putting green accents in your frame was a must-do. Blame David Fincher for that.
Green accents
What I really liked about the use of green accents in this film is that they are motivated. In a lot of films from the era, they would throw them onto the background with little to no reason. But in this film, they are motivated, i.e. you could imagine there are some green surfaces in the (repurposed kitchen) meeting in the frame above, causing green light to fall on the background.
5. Movement - the film uses a misture of tripod, dolly and handheld shots to communicate the scene. The handheld ones are used a lot in the fight scenes, which communicates the harshness of the brutality. The tripod signals calm and a recalibration of the pacing. The smooth dolly shots in and sideways communicate a thoughtful conversation between the two characters. Everything is carefully planned and reasoned - the speed is always proportional to the importance of the shot and the decision to go handheld or not deliberately communicates an underlying message.
Those are my thoughts on the film. There are so many good performances in this one, it’s an action packed rollercoaster. A perfect second step after first installment.
Thanks for reading and if you’ve any comments, let me know down below.
Good luck out there.
-D.C.