Dark Knight from Beginning to End

New Book on the Making of a Trilogy

Jul. 31, 2012

12:42 p.m.

Even without the Colorado killing spree, The Dark Knight Rises would have been this summer's most talked about movie. But according to The Art and Making of the Dark Knight Trilogy (Abrams), the film wasn't part of director Christopher Nolan's original plan. Coming from the low budget indie world, Nolan arrived in Hollywood skeptical of blockbusters, suspicious of sequels and well aware that the third movie in most sequences is usually a let down. And yet, when he set out to make Batman Begins (2005), Nolan felt that his conception of the Caped Crusader might be a little large for one motion picture, even if the movie ran past two hours. The promising Batman Begins led to the phenomenal Dark Knight (2008) and the fans (and Hollywood powers that be?) just wouldn't be content with such a downbeat conclusion. The Batman almost had to return for a third round finale. Authors Jody Duncan Jesser and Janine Pourroy offer the story's authorized version in the text accompanying their lavishly illustrated coffee table movie tie-in. Nolan and his collaborators have the podium in The Art and Making and tell the story their way, but it's an interesting account nonetheless. Nolan set out to take “the 'comic' out of the comic book movie.” And he certainly succeeded, honing in on the sinister dimension always implicit in the Batman comic books (if entirely ignored in favor of camp in the familiar '60s TV series). Even Tim Burton's cinematic iteration of Batman in the '80s, admired at the time for its darker conception, seems light, even a touch ironic, in contrast to the grim determination of Nolan's vision. The director makes a revealing admission: “I am by no means a comic book expert, and so I didn't feel capable of doing a first draft and coming up with that story myself.” Nolan needed a native to the comic subculture as his guide, and tapped the initially reluctant screenwriter behind the Blade movies, David S. Goyer. Goyer translated Nolan's idea for a human superhero, traumatized in childhood and tragically flawed, into the Batman mythology. It was a fruitful collaboration, and at least in the trilogy's first installment, was more about Bruce Wayne than Batman. The secluded scion of great wealth wrestled with the thirst for vengeance and the desire for good, channeling his raging negative impulses toward positive outcomeseven if Nolan adds a question mark behind “positive outcomes?” and wonders whether the ends can be used to justify the means. The process of developing the Nolan-Goyer Batman is sketched out, including the influence of recent graphic novels and the need to fill in the blanks of the mythic story with believable psychological motivation. The Art and Making is also a gearhead's delight, describing the development of the new generation Batmobile, as much tank as sports car. In keeping with Nolan's desire to maintain the edge of reality in his fantasy, his Batmobile is a working automobile, not a computer-generated simulation. And that fight scene on the ice in Batman Begins? It was actually filmed in Iceland on a frozen surface cracking underfoot rather than against a green screen. Nolan tried to keep an indie sensibility within his hugely budgeted extravaganza. Did he escape the third film jinx? It's hard to top Heath Ledger's terrifying performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight, and the decision to make The Dark Knight Rises into an epic disaster movie resulted in a production bigger, louder and less interesting than its predecessorat least in my book. Will the fans eventually chalk it up along with the third Godfather and Matrix movies? Stay tuned