Christopher Nolan interview about The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight (2008) film posters :

















Interview of Christopher Nolan on Film The Dark Knight :
Christopher Nolan, the director of The dark Knight, speaks about his bigger and darker film with Christian Bale and Heath Ledger. So here an exclusive interview of him with Christian Bale and Heath Ledger are given below.


You once said you had no intention of doing a sequel to Batman Begins...

I certainly didn’t have any intention and I was quite surprised to find myself wanting to do it. The way in which Batman Begins ended was intended not as much as sequel bait, but to create a level of excitement at the end of the movie and imagining how things might continue in this film. Ultimately we just got caught up in that process of imagining how you would see a character like The Joker through the prism of what we did in the first film.

How is The Joker seen through that prism?

It’s indescribable really. Not to sound evasive, because it actually is quite difficult to explain, but all I can really say is he’s not doing any particular thing, he’s just inhabiting the character in very much the way I’d hoped from a psychological perspective. It really created something that I think is going to be quite terrifying.

How did you cast Heath Ledger?

I was looking for someone who was completely fearless as a performer. Obviously I wanted someone with great talent, but when I met with him and talked with him about the way I was looking at the character, it became very clear that he wasn’t afraid to take on such an iconic character, which is a tall order. He has his work cut out for him.

Were there any reservations about following Jack Nicholson?

None at all to be honest. And that was very important to us deciding to do it. I certainly knew that story-wise, who the character is was going to be very different and it was always going to require a very fearless performance from someone not afraid to put forward his own interpretation. And he’s been totally up for it from the get-go and we’ve been very impressed with the results.

How is this film going to be different from Batman Begins?

This film follows on very directly from the first film and there is a sense for Bruce Wayne and Batman that they’re a little more developed; he’s a more fully formed character, more confident and a little more relaxed with what he’s doing and who he is at the beginning of the story. I think by the end of the story he’s tested once again but in a very fresh way. So there’s definitely been a maturing of the character when we pick him up. Batman Begins was very much about him finding his feet as Batman and then these jumps straight in with a more fully formed persona that is tested in different ways.

Does the success of the first film mean you push this film bigger or darker?

I was very much given the freedom to make the first film the way I wanted so there isn’t any sense of me being more freed up in this film since I was given an enormous amount of freedom to explore in the first film. I’m certainly enjoying a similar freedom here but I think the story inherently is darker. As soon as you introduce a wildcard element like The Joker, an anarchic, destructive element, you’re going to get a darker story. There is probably a sense in which the film is darker but I think it’s a very natural progression. It’s not a question of doing this time what we wanted to do last time, it’s simply the way the story’s going.

What are the challenges of a production of this size?

You get a lot more used to it. Certainly you know how well things are going to work; you know the pitfalls, so you pace yourself and you probably have a more accurate view of how it’s going to feel to do a production of this length. Between a seven-month shoot and pre and post-production, you’re signing up for a two year, two-and-a-half year project.

How much CGI do you use in the film versus actual stunts?

It’s a balance. One of the things about stunt work is that the use of visual effects can help with the safety aspects. There’s a point at which the technologies meet and one enhances the other, but we try and use as much traditional stunt work as possible as a basis for the action, because I think that makes the most tactile and exciting reality. But you also do want to push the scope of things to a point where it’s necessary to then enhance the visual effects to expand things. We try to use the visual effects to add on to traditional film techniques rather than completely replace them.

So there is a lot more action in this film?

We shot a lot of chase stuff in Chicago over a period of about a month so there is a bit of a sense of being a kid in a candy store, but there’s also a sense after a month of being a kid who’s eaten too much candy. The nice thing about the performers we have in the film and the characters we’re trying to deal with is there’s an interesting balance for me as a film-maker between characterisation and dialogue and the action, so we don’t do too much of any one thing. One thing can become boring when you do it for too long.

Why Maggie Gyllenhaal and not Katie Holmes?

Maggie was a real find for us and we needed to continue the character that Katie Holmes had established in the first film and Katie didn’t want to come back because of a scheduling conflict. Maggie in some ways has a certain physical similarity but she brings a certain fresh perspective to the character. As with all the characters in the film, they’ve matured somewhat, they’ve moved on from the first story and I think Maggie is bringing a really amazing talent to the character which is fun to watch.

How is it writing with your brother Jonathan Nolan?

It’s certainly great to work with someone who you’ve known your whole life and who you trust and there’s very free dialogue back and forth. I wouldn’t say there were any particularly obvious cons that come to mind. You argue over things, but you do that with any writer so it’s actually very nice to have a close relationship with people you work with because, creatively, it’s a very intimate relationship. I think the fact that we’re brothers helps. We certainly have a very quick and easy understanding of each other having worked together as much as we have now and it makes communication very easy if we both trust each other.

How easy was it teaming with Christian Bale again?

I don’t think either myself or Christian worry about making the process easy for ourselves. It’s really about who’s best for the job, but he’s an extraordinarily talented guy so, as with Michael Caine, if you can work with them again, you want to. So I don’t think it’s so much about security, it really is done for the project and done for wanting to work with the person best for the job. He’s such a fantastic actor and certainly with these three films it’s been extraordinarily obvious that he’s the right guy for the part of Batman.

Which one you think between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, is better movie? Tell to us.

People who read this post also read :