“The Dark Knight” is a film directed by Christopher Nolan that carries the key theme of suspense throughout the atmosphere of the film. Christopher Nolan uses cinematography aspects of lighting, camera shots and music to create the atmosphere and show the different sides of the characters presented in the film. This can be shown throughout the social experiment scene.
Christopher Nolan Portrays the Joker as a unique character, the film showed Joker, a criminal whose mind got bored with doing what normal criminals do and his boredom led him to seek out Batman. Nolan used this factor to build suspense throughout the film and made the viewer be uncertain for what’s going to happen, The Joker spends the whole film trying to make a point, that Batman was just as corrupt as him and the rest of Gotham. Nolan showed this through the social experiment scene where the Joker uses the two boats called liberty and spirit. Liberty is the boat fulled with citizens which liberty is the state of being free within society. Spirit is a person’s non-physical part which is the seat of emotions and character. Nolan has used these boat names to show the different sides of the citizens and prisoners where one is free and one is captive from doing something wrong but still has a soul that shows emotion and character. Gotham is corrupt, both from the bottom and the top and how individuals are only out for themselves and not the community they live in.
The director tries to emphasize the importance of law and order and how it is important for a city to function as the Joker is trying to corrupt and change the city. An example of this is when the Joker failed to corrupt the prison mates and ordinary citizens on the two boats in his social experiment, because of this the Joker turned to corrupt the people who have power over the city, Harvey Dent. The Joker manages corrupted Harvey Dent by killing his girlfriend, this is Joker’s goal to everyone and it allows the viewer to see how easy it is to corrupt one person just by taking something or someone they love. Joker calls himself the “agent of chaos” as his only goal is to cause chaos and he doesn’t care if it costs him his life as seen in the Social experiment scene as he laughs while falling to his death.
Costumes are key factors that make the viewer understand how characters present themselves throughout the film. The Joker is dressed in a thin green tie and a green waistcoat, Topped with a purple overcoat, this isn’t an ordinary look as the Joker wants to stand out beyond the rest of the people to try and catch Batman’s eye. The Jokers’ hair is stringy and dyed dark green, his face is covered in cracked white clown makeup and red lipstick surrounding his face. This shows the Joker doesn’t care about his appearance and wants to come across as crazy to show people who see him what chaos is truly like. In the social experiment scene, the characters are represented by their costumes, for instance on one of the boats the prisoners were all wearing orange jumpsuits, this is important as the viewer can instantly tell that they are prisoners as an orange jumpsuit are an iconic prisoner outfit. Nolan has made sure throughout the film to allow the viewer to understand what they are as a character. This is the same with the citizens they are dressed formally as a normal person would on a day out. Nolan has made sure there is a distinct difference in the normal people compared to Batman and the Joker. Batman is dressed in black with a mask on, this shows that Batman doesn’t want to show his identity as he knows he has done wrong and doesn’t want to get caught for it.
Through the aspects of lighting, Nolan makes you realize the true colours of the characters by showing them in different shades of lighting and builds suspense through lighting shades. One type of lighting Nolan used in the film was lowkey lighting. An example of this was when there were different shades of light going over Batman to show he’s conflicted. This is an important message that Nolan tries to present as he’s trying to tell the viewer that even though it seems someone is doing good for them and people around them they aren’t completely innocent as they are breaking law and order, and Nolan uses this to present how important law and order is. For most of the scene, the Joker moves within shades of lighting to show that he is an unpredictable villain and people can perceive him as a good guy when he is trying to cause anarchy but moves within the darker side of lighting as he is a true villain and all he is doing is bad by causing chaos around the city. Another moment when Nolan utilizes lighting is when the boat is fully black but there is lots of light through the windows, this symbolizes that there are innocent people surrounded by danger and helps Nolan build suspense for the plot.
Nolan uses music to convey the suspense in the atmosphere of the social experiment scene. An example of this is when there is a small bell ringing when the lights of the two boats go out, this builds suspense as the viewer doesn’t know what is happening and usually when you hear a siren it is often used when something bad is about to happen or has happened so this prepares the audience for the moment. This is where the music quickly rises when the tension increases as the citizens and prisoners have to make a decision on whether they blow up the other boat or not. The suspense starts to build as you don’t know if one boat will randomly just blow up or not and you have no idea what’s going to happen. Nolen uses the music in this scene extremely well as he starts to flicker back and forward between each boat as the music slowly intensifies.
In conclusion, Nolan has used many great cinematography aspects to build suspense throughout the film and create an atmosphere to show the different sides of the characters presented in the social experiment scene.
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