In what may be the best casting decision by Christopher Nolan since picking Heath Ledger as The Joker, Anne Hathaway has been chosen to play Selina Kyle AKA Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises. Now at least we know what Batman is rising over.
Hathaway beat out Keira Knightley, Rachel Weisz, Blake Lively and Natalie Portman for the role, all who would've been great choices in their own right. Tom Hardy has also been picked to play Bane...
Anne Hathaway to Play Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises
Sara Hammel
Wednesday January 19, 2011
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20458850,00.html
Showing posts with label Christopher Nolan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christopher Nolan. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Comic-Con 2010: In search of the next Christopher Nolan
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-comiccon-directors-20100726,0,591133.story
Comic-Con 2010: In search of the next Christopher Nolan
Studios increasingly are embracing outside-the-box directors to the fanboy genre. Witness Kenneth Branagh's 'Thor' and Michel Gondry's 'Green Hornet.'
July 26, 2010
When the big studios commit big bucks on their big franchises, the list of directors deemed equal to the task suddenly can grow very small.
Just as different baseball teams consistently hire the same managers again and again, studio executives fall prey to familiar-is-good thinking, repeatedly shortlisting identical names for their high-profile movies, be it Stephen Sommers (" G.I. Joe," "Van Helsing," "The Mummy"), Martin Campbell ("The Legend of Zorro," "Casino Royale," "Edge of Darkness") or anyone else with a tentpole track record. Their caution is understandable: If you're about to fly in a $200-million movie, you might feel better if its pilot has at least flown before.
But moviegoers, it seems, don't mind a little inexperience, as long as the results are interesting and original. And Hollywood is taking notice.
In the last few years, the studios increasingly are embracing newcomers to the fanboy genre, an outside-the-box way of thinking that was on prominent display at the just-concluded Comic-Con International in San Diego.
Kenneth Branagh, whose last directing gig was an arty adaptation of the Anthony Shaffer stage play "Sleuth" and who specializes in bringing Shakespeare to the screen, came to the convention to present footage from his "Thor," next summer's massive comic book adaptation from Marvel Studios and Paramount. Michel Gondry, perhaps best known for his hard-to-categorize narrative odysseys ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," "Be Kind Rewind") introduced scenes from his "Green Hornet," a glossy Sony Pictures reworking of the popular radio serial opening next January.
You could find comparable examples all around Comic-Con. Edgar Wright, the low-budget auteur of the British indie film "Shaun of the Dead," just completed his first pricey studio movie, Universal's graphic novel translation of "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World." Jonathan Liebesman, a favorite filmmaker in the discount genre world ("Darkness Falls," "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning"), is finishing up Sony's sci-fi thriller "Battle: Los Angeles," even though Liebesman's previous film, "The Killing Room," went straight to video. And Duncan Jones, whose last project was the acclaimed Sundance Film Festival debut "Moon" (domestic gross: $5 million), is wrapping up work on Summit Entertainment's time-travel drama "Source Code."
It's no secret that the studios are hoping that somewhere in this mash-up they might have found the next Christopher Nolan, who moved from cerebral art-house movies ("Following," "Memento") to global blockbusters ("The Dark Knight," "Inception") as if Mt. Everest were no harder to scale than a sand dune. (It doesn't always work out that way: Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain" was better received that his "Hulk.")
With virtually every studio making some comic book, graphic novel or board game adaptation, Hollywood executives realize they must find a way to split their films from the teeming pack. Not that long ago, they turned to over-the-top visual effects. These days, though, it's more their filmmakers' style: Warner Bros. sold "Inception" not on the basis of its star, Leonardo DiCaprio, but on the brand name of its director.
When Gondry called Neal Moritz about directing "The Green Hornet," the producer said his reaction was simple. "Wow, that's a crazy idea." Having lost Stephen Chow ("Kung Fu Hustle") over creative differences, Moritz not only needed a new filmmaker but also wanted someone who could make the movie feel distinctly personal.
"We were trying to do something different," Moritz says. "It was really a relationship movie between Britt Reid and Cato," Moritz says of the characters played by Seth Rogen (Reid eventually becomes the Green Hornet) and Japanese pop star Jay Chou. "Visually, Michel is one of the best, and he knows visual effects better than most directors." (In fact, the famous "bullet time" look from the "Matrix" movies first gained prominence in a 1998 vodka commercial Gondry directed.)
Gondry actually had tried to make "The Green Hornet" some 14 years ago, when the project was at Universal. "We had an awesome script," he says, "but it was just too weird" for the studio. "But I always had this ambition to do a family movie with some sort of a twist."
Gondry said that working in a new genre forces filmmakers to do their best work. "I always try to do something that is unfamiliar to me," he says. "I always put myself in a situation where I have to react and be on my toes. I do my best work in a panic state."
Branagh says that despite appearances to the contrary, he's already made a movie much like "Thor": his initial directing gig in 1989. "My first film, 'Henry V,' was a dark adventure with an epic battle," Branagh says of the historical war story, "and had a reckless young man at the center confronting his past. So this didn't seem that unusual to me."
Having translated so many Shakespeare plays to the big screen, Branagh says he isn't worried about how he will be compared to others in the superhero genre. "Everything I've done has been done by somebody else before, usually brilliantly," he says.
"Thor," a story of a god banished to Earth, seems especially well matched to Branagh in part because the comic book character speaks as if he were a Stratford-upon-Avon actor who spent a lot of time reading the King James Bible. So just as Branagh can make iambic pentameter easy to comprehend, he can turn Thor (played by Chris Hemsworth) into both poet and action star.
At the same time, Branagh's training as both an actor and director may help him elevate the story. "It's a classical structure," he says. "We go back quite intentionally to myths, and Norse myths in particular, which Shakespeare also pilfered from."
It was certainly a graduation, though. The director's 2006 "Magic Flute" movie had about 500 visual effects shots. "Thor" has some 1,500. "Sleuth" took about six months from conception to completion, while "Thor" was three years in the making.
"Moon" director Jones says he's not sure if his leap to "Source Code" was a "natural progression," but he thinks it was an essential step. "I think that directors are just as likely to be typecast as anyone else," he says. "And I wanted to see if I could stretch into something a little bit different."
The obvious difference between a contemplative, independently financed feature with a small cast ("Moon" was basically Sam Rockwell by himself) and a splashy studio movie with a sprawling ensemble ("Source Code" stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Vera Farmiga) and crew is the vigilant oversight.
"You have a lot more people a lot more concerned about how the money is going to be spent," Jones says. But within that environment, Jones says he is hopeful he can make a movie that has both the action moviegoers seek and the character development he looks for as a filmmaker.
"I'm not only a huge fan of Chris Nolan but a huge fan of his career," Jones says. "If I can somehow have a similar trajectory to my career, I'd be more than happy."
john.horn@latimes.com
Comic-Con 2010: In search of the next Christopher Nolan
Studios increasingly are embracing outside-the-box directors to the fanboy genre. Witness Kenneth Branagh's 'Thor' and Michel Gondry's 'Green Hornet.'
July 26, 2010
When the big studios commit big bucks on their big franchises, the list of directors deemed equal to the task suddenly can grow very small.
Just as different baseball teams consistently hire the same managers again and again, studio executives fall prey to familiar-is-good thinking, repeatedly shortlisting identical names for their high-profile movies, be it Stephen Sommers (" G.I. Joe," "Van Helsing," "The Mummy"), Martin Campbell ("The Legend of Zorro," "Casino Royale," "Edge of Darkness") or anyone else with a tentpole track record. Their caution is understandable: If you're about to fly in a $200-million movie, you might feel better if its pilot has at least flown before.
But moviegoers, it seems, don't mind a little inexperience, as long as the results are interesting and original. And Hollywood is taking notice.
In the last few years, the studios increasingly are embracing newcomers to the fanboy genre, an outside-the-box way of thinking that was on prominent display at the just-concluded Comic-Con International in San Diego.
Kenneth Branagh, whose last directing gig was an arty adaptation of the Anthony Shaffer stage play "Sleuth" and who specializes in bringing Shakespeare to the screen, came to the convention to present footage from his "Thor," next summer's massive comic book adaptation from Marvel Studios and Paramount. Michel Gondry, perhaps best known for his hard-to-categorize narrative odysseys ("Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," "Be Kind Rewind") introduced scenes from his "Green Hornet," a glossy Sony Pictures reworking of the popular radio serial opening next January.
You could find comparable examples all around Comic-Con. Edgar Wright, the low-budget auteur of the British indie film "Shaun of the Dead," just completed his first pricey studio movie, Universal's graphic novel translation of "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World." Jonathan Liebesman, a favorite filmmaker in the discount genre world ("Darkness Falls," "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning"), is finishing up Sony's sci-fi thriller "Battle: Los Angeles," even though Liebesman's previous film, "The Killing Room," went straight to video. And Duncan Jones, whose last project was the acclaimed Sundance Film Festival debut "Moon" (domestic gross: $5 million), is wrapping up work on Summit Entertainment's time-travel drama "Source Code."
It's no secret that the studios are hoping that somewhere in this mash-up they might have found the next Christopher Nolan, who moved from cerebral art-house movies ("Following," "Memento") to global blockbusters ("The Dark Knight," "Inception") as if Mt. Everest were no harder to scale than a sand dune. (It doesn't always work out that way: Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain" was better received that his "Hulk.")
With virtually every studio making some comic book, graphic novel or board game adaptation, Hollywood executives realize they must find a way to split their films from the teeming pack. Not that long ago, they turned to over-the-top visual effects. These days, though, it's more their filmmakers' style: Warner Bros. sold "Inception" not on the basis of its star, Leonardo DiCaprio, but on the brand name of its director.
When Gondry called Neal Moritz about directing "The Green Hornet," the producer said his reaction was simple. "Wow, that's a crazy idea." Having lost Stephen Chow ("Kung Fu Hustle") over creative differences, Moritz not only needed a new filmmaker but also wanted someone who could make the movie feel distinctly personal.
"We were trying to do something different," Moritz says. "It was really a relationship movie between Britt Reid and Cato," Moritz says of the characters played by Seth Rogen (Reid eventually becomes the Green Hornet) and Japanese pop star Jay Chou. "Visually, Michel is one of the best, and he knows visual effects better than most directors." (In fact, the famous "bullet time" look from the "Matrix" movies first gained prominence in a 1998 vodka commercial Gondry directed.)
Gondry actually had tried to make "The Green Hornet" some 14 years ago, when the project was at Universal. "We had an awesome script," he says, "but it was just too weird" for the studio. "But I always had this ambition to do a family movie with some sort of a twist."
Gondry said that working in a new genre forces filmmakers to do their best work. "I always try to do something that is unfamiliar to me," he says. "I always put myself in a situation where I have to react and be on my toes. I do my best work in a panic state."
Branagh says that despite appearances to the contrary, he's already made a movie much like "Thor": his initial directing gig in 1989. "My first film, 'Henry V,' was a dark adventure with an epic battle," Branagh says of the historical war story, "and had a reckless young man at the center confronting his past. So this didn't seem that unusual to me."
Having translated so many Shakespeare plays to the big screen, Branagh says he isn't worried about how he will be compared to others in the superhero genre. "Everything I've done has been done by somebody else before, usually brilliantly," he says.
"Thor," a story of a god banished to Earth, seems especially well matched to Branagh in part because the comic book character speaks as if he were a Stratford-upon-Avon actor who spent a lot of time reading the King James Bible. So just as Branagh can make iambic pentameter easy to comprehend, he can turn Thor (played by Chris Hemsworth) into both poet and action star.
At the same time, Branagh's training as both an actor and director may help him elevate the story. "It's a classical structure," he says. "We go back quite intentionally to myths, and Norse myths in particular, which Shakespeare also pilfered from."
It was certainly a graduation, though. The director's 2006 "Magic Flute" movie had about 500 visual effects shots. "Thor" has some 1,500. "Sleuth" took about six months from conception to completion, while "Thor" was three years in the making.
"Moon" director Jones says he's not sure if his leap to "Source Code" was a "natural progression," but he thinks it was an essential step. "I think that directors are just as likely to be typecast as anyone else," he says. "And I wanted to see if I could stretch into something a little bit different."
The obvious difference between a contemplative, independently financed feature with a small cast ("Moon" was basically Sam Rockwell by himself) and a splashy studio movie with a sprawling ensemble ("Source Code" stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Vera Farmiga) and crew is the vigilant oversight.
"You have a lot more people a lot more concerned about how the money is going to be spent," Jones says. But within that environment, Jones says he is hopeful he can make a movie that has both the action moviegoers seek and the character development he looks for as a filmmaker.
"I'm not only a huge fan of Chris Nolan but a huge fan of his career," Jones says. "If I can somehow have a similar trajectory to my career, I'd be more than happy."
john.horn@latimes.com
Thursday, July 29, 2010
'Inception' review: Leonardo DiCaprio and Christopher Nolan blow our minds
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/2010/07/15/2010-07-15_inception_review_leonardo_dicaprio_and_christopher_nolan_blow_our_minds.html
Inception
'Inception' review: Leonardo DiCaprio and Christopher Nolan blow our minds
Elizabeth Weitzman
Friday, July 16th 2010
'Inception' star Leonardo DiCaprio is about to blow your mind - not with the gun - in one of the best mind benders ever made.
When was the last time you had your mind blown by a movie? Because when "Inception" ends and the lights come up, you'll be sitting in your seat, staring at the screen, wondering what the hell just happened.
Of course, it won't be the first time director Christopher Nolan has shaken us out of the apathy that modern moviegoing induces. "Inception" blends the blockbuster enormity of his "Dark Knight" with the indie insights of "Memento" to create an all-encompassing experience that makes most other summer films seem mediocre.
Like "Memento," this is one you'll need to see several times, backwards and forwards, to fully grasp. And since part of the fun is Nolan's insistence on keeping us unmoored, you won't find any spoilers here.
But the basics are these: Leonardo DiCaprio is Dom Cobb, a futuristic thief who specializes in rifling through people's brains while they dream. Though this is not a job without risks, his new assignment is about to raise the stakes.
When a mysterious businessman (Ken Watanabe) asks Dom to change- rather than simply steal - the thoughts of a competitor (Cillian Murphy), Dom's colleagues (including Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page) balk. They'd have to travel deeper into the recesses of their target's subconscious, which poses extreme danger for everyone involved. But Dom has been a haunted man since his wife (Marion Cotillard) died, and this mission may be his best chance to find some peace.
No synopsis could possibly do justice to the complex universe Nolan fashions as we go deeper into each visually ornate, emotionally intricate dreamscape. Granted, not every element works perfectly; Cotillard's storyline feels underdeveloped, and the action could have been tightened up. But the ambition on display is so huge, and the filmmaking so intelligent, you'll emerge feeling as if you've just watched an entire season of the greatest sci-fi series never made.
With "Inception," Nolan acknowledges that no one could create a movie as exciting, as unexpected, as startling as the dreams we invent for ourselves. But it's evident by now that he's never going to give up trying.
Inception
'Inception' review: Leonardo DiCaprio and Christopher Nolan blow our minds
Elizabeth Weitzman
Friday, July 16th 2010
'Inception' star Leonardo DiCaprio is about to blow your mind - not with the gun - in one of the best mind benders ever made.
When was the last time you had your mind blown by a movie? Because when "Inception" ends and the lights come up, you'll be sitting in your seat, staring at the screen, wondering what the hell just happened.
Of course, it won't be the first time director Christopher Nolan has shaken us out of the apathy that modern moviegoing induces. "Inception" blends the blockbuster enormity of his "Dark Knight" with the indie insights of "Memento" to create an all-encompassing experience that makes most other summer films seem mediocre.
Like "Memento," this is one you'll need to see several times, backwards and forwards, to fully grasp. And since part of the fun is Nolan's insistence on keeping us unmoored, you won't find any spoilers here.
But the basics are these: Leonardo DiCaprio is Dom Cobb, a futuristic thief who specializes in rifling through people's brains while they dream. Though this is not a job without risks, his new assignment is about to raise the stakes.
When a mysterious businessman (Ken Watanabe) asks Dom to change- rather than simply steal - the thoughts of a competitor (Cillian Murphy), Dom's colleagues (including Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page) balk. They'd have to travel deeper into the recesses of their target's subconscious, which poses extreme danger for everyone involved. But Dom has been a haunted man since his wife (Marion Cotillard) died, and this mission may be his best chance to find some peace.
No synopsis could possibly do justice to the complex universe Nolan fashions as we go deeper into each visually ornate, emotionally intricate dreamscape. Granted, not every element works perfectly; Cotillard's storyline feels underdeveloped, and the action could have been tightened up. But the ambition on display is so huge, and the filmmaking so intelligent, you'll emerge feeling as if you've just watched an entire season of the greatest sci-fi series never made.
With "Inception," Nolan acknowledges that no one could create a movie as exciting, as unexpected, as startling as the dreams we invent for ourselves. But it's evident by now that he's never going to give up trying.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Eddie is Riddler in new Batman
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/bizarre/article2048300.ece
Eddie is Riddler in new Batman
By GORDON SMART and JESS ROGERS
12-17-8
FUNNYMAN EDDIE MURPHY will play The Riddler in the next Batman movie, The Sun can reveal.
The Beverly Hills Cop star, 47, has been signed up by British director CHRISTOPHER NOLAN to reprise the role played by JIM CARREY in 1995’s Batman Forever.
The surprise move follows speculation linking Pirates of the Caribbean star JOHNNY DEPP to the part.
The film, set for a 2010 release, is being developed under the working title Gotham.
Execs have also signed up rising Transformers star SHIA LABEOUF, 22, to play Robin.
CHRISTIAN BALE will return as Bruce Wayne, while MICHAEL CAINE will again play Bruce’s assistant Alfred.
Meanwhile, Brit RACHEL WEISZ is said to be up for the Catwoman role.
Insiders also revealed to The Sun the flick will end on a cliffhanger over whether Batman survives a blast at Wayne Towers.
Nolan had been tight-lipped about the future of the Batman films after being rocked by the January death of HEATH LEDGER — tipped to receive a posthumous Oscar for his role as The Joker in Batman Returns.
A film insider said: “Chris wasn’t sure if he wanted to do another movie but as soon as he decided to, he got the wheels in motion.
“Eddie’s a fantastic addition. Everyone’s excited to see what he does as the Riddler.”
g.smart@the-sun.co.uk
Eddie is Riddler in new Batman
By GORDON SMART and JESS ROGERS
12-17-8
FUNNYMAN EDDIE MURPHY will play The Riddler in the next Batman movie, The Sun can reveal.
The Beverly Hills Cop star, 47, has been signed up by British director CHRISTOPHER NOLAN to reprise the role played by JIM CARREY in 1995’s Batman Forever.
The surprise move follows speculation linking Pirates of the Caribbean star JOHNNY DEPP to the part.
The film, set for a 2010 release, is being developed under the working title Gotham.
Execs have also signed up rising Transformers star SHIA LABEOUF, 22, to play Robin.
CHRISTIAN BALE will return as Bruce Wayne, while MICHAEL CAINE will again play Bruce’s assistant Alfred.
Meanwhile, Brit RACHEL WEISZ is said to be up for the Catwoman role.
Insiders also revealed to The Sun the flick will end on a cliffhanger over whether Batman survives a blast at Wayne Towers.
Nolan had been tight-lipped about the future of the Batman films after being rocked by the January death of HEATH LEDGER — tipped to receive a posthumous Oscar for his role as The Joker in Batman Returns.
A film insider said: “Chris wasn’t sure if he wanted to do another movie but as soon as he decided to, he got the wheels in motion.
“Eddie’s a fantastic addition. Everyone’s excited to see what he does as the Riddler.”
g.smart@the-sun.co.uk
Saturday, September 13, 2008
‘DARK KNIGHT’ EXCLUSIVE
http://splashpage.mtv.com/2008/09/08/dark-knight-exclusive-michael-caine-says-johnny-depp-is-the-riddler-philip-seymour-hoffman-is-the-penguin/
‘DARK KNIGHT’ EXCLUSIVE: Michael Caine Says Johnny Depp Is The Riddler, Philip Seymour Hoffman Is The Penguin
Published by Casey Seijas on Monday, September 8, 2008
It’s one of the biggest — and most hotly debated — questions in fandom…which actors (and characters) will director Christopher Nolan enlist as a villain for his third “Batman” film? Rumors have abounded since the release of “The Dark Knight,” and Nolan has remained fiercely tight-lipped. But now, has one of his main players revealed some of the biggest casting news of the decade?
In an interview with MTV News conducted just hours ago at the Toronto Film Festival, Michael Caine — there to promote “Is There Anybody There?” — seemed to confirm rumors that the next installment of the “Batman” film franchise will feature two very well-known names playing the roles of The Riddler and the Bumbershoot Bandit, The Penguin. “They’ve already got them in mind,” said Caine, when asked who he’d like to see take up arms against the Caped Crusader. “It’s Johnny Depp as The Riddler. And The Penguin is Philip Seymour Hoffman. I read it in the paper.”
So Caine is like the rest of us, reading gossip in the tabloids, right? Except for one thing…according to the actor, he confirmed the news through the studio itself.
“When Christopher [Nolan] said we were going to do ‘The Dark Knight’ next, I didn’t what that meant in Batman terms,” related Caine, who plays Bruce Wayne’s loyal butler, Alfred Pennyworth. “I said, ‘What’s the story?’ and he said The Joker. I said, ‘Oh, s–t! How are you going to top Jack [Nicholson]?’ He said, ‘Well, I’ve cast Heath Ledger. And I went ‘Ha! I couldn’t top Jack, but if anyone could, maybe Heath could.’ And he did.
“I was with [a Warner Bros.] executive and I said, ‘Are we going to make another one?’ They said yeah. I said, ‘How the hell are we going to top Heath? And he says ‘I’ll tell you how you top Heath — Johnny Depp as The Riddler and Philip Seymour Hoffman as The Penguin.’ I said, ‘S–t, they’ve done it again!’” [Laughs]
While rumors of Depp and Hoffman have been hot topics around the upcoming film for quite some time, this is the first instance of one of the film’s stars speaking about the news, as well as Caine citing an albeit unnamed WB executive.
Meanwhile, when asked if he’s spoken to Nolan about the news or the next installment’s script, Caine made mention of Nolan’s vacation, and hinted that, “No. He’s gone. He’ll come back with a script sometime.”
‘DARK KNIGHT’ EXCLUSIVE: Michael Caine Says Johnny Depp Is The Riddler, Philip Seymour Hoffman Is The Penguin
Published by Casey Seijas on Monday, September 8, 2008
It’s one of the biggest — and most hotly debated — questions in fandom…which actors (and characters) will director Christopher Nolan enlist as a villain for his third “Batman” film? Rumors have abounded since the release of “The Dark Knight,” and Nolan has remained fiercely tight-lipped. But now, has one of his main players revealed some of the biggest casting news of the decade?
In an interview with MTV News conducted just hours ago at the Toronto Film Festival, Michael Caine — there to promote “Is There Anybody There?” — seemed to confirm rumors that the next installment of the “Batman” film franchise will feature two very well-known names playing the roles of The Riddler and the Bumbershoot Bandit, The Penguin. “They’ve already got them in mind,” said Caine, when asked who he’d like to see take up arms against the Caped Crusader. “It’s Johnny Depp as The Riddler. And The Penguin is Philip Seymour Hoffman. I read it in the paper.”
So Caine is like the rest of us, reading gossip in the tabloids, right? Except for one thing…according to the actor, he confirmed the news through the studio itself.
“When Christopher [Nolan] said we were going to do ‘The Dark Knight’ next, I didn’t what that meant in Batman terms,” related Caine, who plays Bruce Wayne’s loyal butler, Alfred Pennyworth. “I said, ‘What’s the story?’ and he said The Joker. I said, ‘Oh, s–t! How are you going to top Jack [Nicholson]?’ He said, ‘Well, I’ve cast Heath Ledger. And I went ‘Ha! I couldn’t top Jack, but if anyone could, maybe Heath could.’ And he did.
“I was with [a Warner Bros.] executive and I said, ‘Are we going to make another one?’ They said yeah. I said, ‘How the hell are we going to top Heath? And he says ‘I’ll tell you how you top Heath — Johnny Depp as The Riddler and Philip Seymour Hoffman as The Penguin.’ I said, ‘S–t, they’ve done it again!’” [Laughs]
While rumors of Depp and Hoffman have been hot topics around the upcoming film for quite some time, this is the first instance of one of the film’s stars speaking about the news, as well as Caine citing an albeit unnamed WB executive.
Meanwhile, when asked if he’s spoken to Nolan about the news or the next installment’s script, Caine made mention of Nolan’s vacation, and hinted that, “No. He’s gone. He’ll come back with a script sometime.”
Friday, August 1, 2008
Batman and the "End of 9/11"
http://citystates.typepad.com/ius/2008/07/batman-and-amer.html
July 21, 2008
Batman and the "End of 9/11": Overcoming America's Dark Night in Gotham City
Michael Dudley
One of the "biggest" ideas of the year, according to James Fallows writing in the Atlantic Magazine, is the End of 9/11 as a metanarrative for American politics. For a growing domestic and international constituency, it is no longer tolerable for the very invocation of those events to warrant overriding every principle of American democracy. That moment of thoughtless panic has passed, and appears now to have been a dream of madness. Casting aside principles in the name of the "war on terror" -- to "work...the dark side, if you will", as Dick Cheney put it -- is now being recognized as the path to becoming the very evil we feared.
One of the most potent confirmations of this maturing zeitgeist is the overwhelmingly positive critical and public reception of Christopher Nolan's stunning new Batman film The Dark Knight , which, in its careful use of 9/11 visual tropes takes the viewer on a sometimes traumatic but ultimately redemptive and humanistic journey towards a truly post-9/11 ethic.
Many reviewers have already noted that the film is commenting on the "war on terror," and audiences were surely meant to revisit their own painful memories of 9/11 by the chilling advance posters for the film, which feature Batman standing before a skyscraper in which a gigantic flaming gash in the shape of a bat has been blasted. Cues evoking 9/11 build from the opening frames, which propel the viewer into a dark swirling cloud of smoke and then to an aerial shot flying us towards a glass building, through to a series of escalating depictions of urban chaos and destruction. Buildings implode, thousands of people flee Gotham city on foot, and at one point Batman broods in the foreground while firefighters struggle to contain fires amid twisted steel columns. Unlike any other superhero film ever made, The Dark Knight is set in a world of realism we -- sadly -- know only too well.
This realism is significantly owed to the actual urban locations of the film. Previous incarnations of Gotham City were either fascistic sets improbably dominated by statues or fanciful computer-generated creations that never succeeded in convincing us; here, the on-location shooting in downtown Chicago and Hong Kong goes a long way to grounding viewers and thereby preparing them for the moral arguments to come.
The morality play of The Dark Knight is driven by Heath Ledger's astonishing performance as the Joker, who is not so much a character as he is a force of unknowable, abstract evil. By positioning the villain this way, screenwriters Jonathan and Christopher Nolan have made the Joker the very incarnation of a Manichean view of morality: he is not an evil set apart from oneself that can be destroyed, but rather as a potentiality within oneself that must be resisted by one's predisposition for good.
What makes The Dark Knight so remarkable is that it frames this resistance to evil with nuanced debates about the natures of human moral agency and decision-making.
In an early scene, when Batman's alter-ego Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), discuss the merits of having one strong man take responsibility for defending society against evil, Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) reminds them that when Rome made that choice, it resulted in a dictatorship. For all his wistful temptation for Roman absolutism, however, Dent is a morally principled man who doggedly works within the legal system to put criminals behind bars. So certain is he of his own moral compass that he makes a show of flipping a coin to make crucial decisions -- a coin which is later revealed to have two faces. Wayne admires Dent for his principled, public and fully legal stand and is himself tempted to forsake the lawless vigilantism of Batman and make Dent alone the public face of justice in Gotham.
Between the unaccountability of the Batman and the deontological morality of Dent lies the consequentialism of Commissioner James Gordon (Gary Oldman), a veteran cop whose situational judgments and actions in a corrupt, complex and dangerous environment are criticized by Dent, who once ran an Internal Affairs investigation against Gordon's precinct.
With this moral triad at its core, the film then proceeds to metaphorically -- and not so metaphorically -- demolish the methods, moral vacuity and false ontology of the "war on terror."
First, Batman practices some "enhanced interrogation techniques" on the Joker, only to learn that he was being manipulated by the Joker all along, with fatal results. Then when Bruce uses an advanced and secret project at Wayne Industries to turn every cell phone in Gotham into sonar-based surveillance devices, his partner in Bat-tech, Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), is appalled, swearing to resign if the machine isn't destroyed. While they agree to use the mass "unwarranted wiretap" just once, successfully pinpointing the Joker and what appear to be his henchmen in a skyscraper on the waterfront, when Batman arrives in advance of the S.W.A.T. team he is horrified to discover that despite its sophistication his technology was incapable of distinguishing hostages from terrorists, something of which only human presence and judgment is capable.
Next, we see the abandonment of Dent's "constitution." The Joker destroys Harvey Dent by disfiguring him and killing Rachel. Traumatized, grieving and seeking revenge, the formerly principled Dent kills five people, including two corrupt cops, but not before flipping his lucky coin -- which by now is as burnt on one side as he is, thus surrendering all his moral choices to an external force: sheer chance.
But it is in the film's gut-wrenching climax that reveals the supposed existential crisis of the "war on terror" for the cruel and dehumanizing proposition it is.
Fleeing the chaos of Gotham city, two crowded ferries break down in the harbor: one filled with ordinary citizens, the other with convicts clad in Guantanomo-esque orange suits. Each ship's crew discovers the boats are filled with explosives, as well as provided with a gift-wrapped detonator. Over the intercom, the Joker reveals the nature of his "social experiment": the detonators are for the other ship's bombs. If the passengers don't blow up the other ship, he'll blow up both of them at midnight.
For 15 agonizing minutes, the passengers argue amongst themselves and the ship's authorities, who are themselves paralyzed but increasingly tempted to destroy their sister ships. The prison ship is held in particular contempt by some of the passengers, who argue that the men on that boat "made their choice" of lawlessness and may therefore be sacrificed -- in other words, it is best to kill them over there before they kill us over here. Unable to make the final fatal decision, the authorities on both boats abdicate responsibility and turn the detonators over to their passengers -- who ultimately refuse to kill out of fear. In the end, the simple recognition of shared humanity and the insistence on retaining one's own moral agency are shown to be the most heroic acts of all.
At the same time, however, Gotham City's moral leaders are undone. Dent is killed by Batman, who then convinces Gordon that, to preserve Gotham's "constitution" -- the public image of Dent and all he stood for -- Batman and all he stands for must instead accept culpability for Dent's crimes. Unilateral, lawless and unaccountable vigilantism are now publicly discredited. The final scenes of the film show Fox turning his back on and walking away from the machinery of surveillance while Batman flees into the night, chased by police and dogs. Gordon, surrounded by press and members of the public then grimly takes an axe to the bat-beacon, cutting off the state's recourse to vigilantism.
Without either Dent or Batman to intervene on their behalf, Gordon and all of Gotham -- and by extension, the audience -- are left to face a complex, dangerous and interconnected world as a community of individual moral agents, guided by Dent's principles of law, fairness and justice -- as well as their own reclaimed humanism. Even in the face of incomprehensible, implacable evil, The Dark Knight reminds us that these are our only anchors, for without them we betray both them and ourselves.
America may still have that chance. At the moment, however, its Constitution has been mauled, and politicians of both parties long ago surrendered their capacities to stop an illegal war and the looting of the nation's wealth. Now, however, The Dark Knight warns against both abandoning our principles out of fear, grief and hatred, as well as abdicating our moral agency to external authorities -- both of which comprised the hallmark moral syndrome of the years following 9/11.
That audiences and critics have embraced this film gives one hope that the days of uncritically turning to leaders promising to save us from our fears are at an end. As James Fallows says, the 9/11 era is over.
We are all Gothamites now.
July 21, 2008
Batman and the "End of 9/11": Overcoming America's Dark Night in Gotham City
Michael Dudley
One of the "biggest" ideas of the year, according to James Fallows writing in the Atlantic Magazine, is the End of 9/11 as a metanarrative for American politics. For a growing domestic and international constituency, it is no longer tolerable for the very invocation of those events to warrant overriding every principle of American democracy. That moment of thoughtless panic has passed, and appears now to have been a dream of madness. Casting aside principles in the name of the "war on terror" -- to "work...the dark side, if you will", as Dick Cheney put it -- is now being recognized as the path to becoming the very evil we feared.
One of the most potent confirmations of this maturing zeitgeist is the overwhelmingly positive critical and public reception of Christopher Nolan's stunning new Batman film The Dark Knight , which, in its careful use of 9/11 visual tropes takes the viewer on a sometimes traumatic but ultimately redemptive and humanistic journey towards a truly post-9/11 ethic.
Many reviewers have already noted that the film is commenting on the "war on terror," and audiences were surely meant to revisit their own painful memories of 9/11 by the chilling advance posters for the film, which feature Batman standing before a skyscraper in which a gigantic flaming gash in the shape of a bat has been blasted. Cues evoking 9/11 build from the opening frames, which propel the viewer into a dark swirling cloud of smoke and then to an aerial shot flying us towards a glass building, through to a series of escalating depictions of urban chaos and destruction. Buildings implode, thousands of people flee Gotham city on foot, and at one point Batman broods in the foreground while firefighters struggle to contain fires amid twisted steel columns. Unlike any other superhero film ever made, The Dark Knight is set in a world of realism we -- sadly -- know only too well.
This realism is significantly owed to the actual urban locations of the film. Previous incarnations of Gotham City were either fascistic sets improbably dominated by statues or fanciful computer-generated creations that never succeeded in convincing us; here, the on-location shooting in downtown Chicago and Hong Kong goes a long way to grounding viewers and thereby preparing them for the moral arguments to come.
The morality play of The Dark Knight is driven by Heath Ledger's astonishing performance as the Joker, who is not so much a character as he is a force of unknowable, abstract evil. By positioning the villain this way, screenwriters Jonathan and Christopher Nolan have made the Joker the very incarnation of a Manichean view of morality: he is not an evil set apart from oneself that can be destroyed, but rather as a potentiality within oneself that must be resisted by one's predisposition for good.
What makes The Dark Knight so remarkable is that it frames this resistance to evil with nuanced debates about the natures of human moral agency and decision-making.
In an early scene, when Batman's alter-ego Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), discuss the merits of having one strong man take responsibility for defending society against evil, Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) reminds them that when Rome made that choice, it resulted in a dictatorship. For all his wistful temptation for Roman absolutism, however, Dent is a morally principled man who doggedly works within the legal system to put criminals behind bars. So certain is he of his own moral compass that he makes a show of flipping a coin to make crucial decisions -- a coin which is later revealed to have two faces. Wayne admires Dent for his principled, public and fully legal stand and is himself tempted to forsake the lawless vigilantism of Batman and make Dent alone the public face of justice in Gotham.
Between the unaccountability of the Batman and the deontological morality of Dent lies the consequentialism of Commissioner James Gordon (Gary Oldman), a veteran cop whose situational judgments and actions in a corrupt, complex and dangerous environment are criticized by Dent, who once ran an Internal Affairs investigation against Gordon's precinct.
With this moral triad at its core, the film then proceeds to metaphorically -- and not so metaphorically -- demolish the methods, moral vacuity and false ontology of the "war on terror."
First, Batman practices some "enhanced interrogation techniques" on the Joker, only to learn that he was being manipulated by the Joker all along, with fatal results. Then when Bruce uses an advanced and secret project at Wayne Industries to turn every cell phone in Gotham into sonar-based surveillance devices, his partner in Bat-tech, Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), is appalled, swearing to resign if the machine isn't destroyed. While they agree to use the mass "unwarranted wiretap" just once, successfully pinpointing the Joker and what appear to be his henchmen in a skyscraper on the waterfront, when Batman arrives in advance of the S.W.A.T. team he is horrified to discover that despite its sophistication his technology was incapable of distinguishing hostages from terrorists, something of which only human presence and judgment is capable.
Next, we see the abandonment of Dent's "constitution." The Joker destroys Harvey Dent by disfiguring him and killing Rachel. Traumatized, grieving and seeking revenge, the formerly principled Dent kills five people, including two corrupt cops, but not before flipping his lucky coin -- which by now is as burnt on one side as he is, thus surrendering all his moral choices to an external force: sheer chance.
But it is in the film's gut-wrenching climax that reveals the supposed existential crisis of the "war on terror" for the cruel and dehumanizing proposition it is.
Fleeing the chaos of Gotham city, two crowded ferries break down in the harbor: one filled with ordinary citizens, the other with convicts clad in Guantanomo-esque orange suits. Each ship's crew discovers the boats are filled with explosives, as well as provided with a gift-wrapped detonator. Over the intercom, the Joker reveals the nature of his "social experiment": the detonators are for the other ship's bombs. If the passengers don't blow up the other ship, he'll blow up both of them at midnight.
For 15 agonizing minutes, the passengers argue amongst themselves and the ship's authorities, who are themselves paralyzed but increasingly tempted to destroy their sister ships. The prison ship is held in particular contempt by some of the passengers, who argue that the men on that boat "made their choice" of lawlessness and may therefore be sacrificed -- in other words, it is best to kill them over there before they kill us over here. Unable to make the final fatal decision, the authorities on both boats abdicate responsibility and turn the detonators over to their passengers -- who ultimately refuse to kill out of fear. In the end, the simple recognition of shared humanity and the insistence on retaining one's own moral agency are shown to be the most heroic acts of all.
At the same time, however, Gotham City's moral leaders are undone. Dent is killed by Batman, who then convinces Gordon that, to preserve Gotham's "constitution" -- the public image of Dent and all he stood for -- Batman and all he stands for must instead accept culpability for Dent's crimes. Unilateral, lawless and unaccountable vigilantism are now publicly discredited. The final scenes of the film show Fox turning his back on and walking away from the machinery of surveillance while Batman flees into the night, chased by police and dogs. Gordon, surrounded by press and members of the public then grimly takes an axe to the bat-beacon, cutting off the state's recourse to vigilantism.
Without either Dent or Batman to intervene on their behalf, Gordon and all of Gotham -- and by extension, the audience -- are left to face a complex, dangerous and interconnected world as a community of individual moral agents, guided by Dent's principles of law, fairness and justice -- as well as their own reclaimed humanism. Even in the face of incomprehensible, implacable evil, The Dark Knight reminds us that these are our only anchors, for without them we betray both them and ourselves.
America may still have that chance. At the moment, however, its Constitution has been mauled, and politicians of both parties long ago surrendered their capacities to stop an illegal war and the looting of the nation's wealth. Now, however, The Dark Knight warns against both abandoning our principles out of fear, grief and hatred, as well as abdicating our moral agency to external authorities -- both of which comprised the hallmark moral syndrome of the years following 9/11.
That audiences and critics have embraced this film gives one hope that the days of uncritically turning to leaders promising to save us from our fears are at an end. As James Fallows says, the 9/11 era is over.
We are all Gothamites now.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
The Dark Knight
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080716/REVIEWS/55996637The Dark Knight
No joke, Batman
Release Date: 2008
Ebert Rating: ****
Jul 16, 2008
By Roger Ebert
“Batman” isn’t a comic book anymore. Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” is a haunted film that leaps beyond its origins and becomes an engrossing tragedy. It creates characters we come to care about. That’s because of the performances, because of the direction, because of the writing, and because of the superlative technical quality of the entire production. This film, and to a lesser degree “Iron Man,” redefine the possibilities of the “comic-book movie.”
“The Dark Knight” is not a simplistic tale of good and evil. Batman is good, yes, The Joker is evil, yes. But Batman poses a more complex puzzle than usual: The citizens of Gotham City are in an uproar, calling him a vigilante and blaming him for the deaths of policemen and others. And the Joker is more than a villain. He’s a Mephistopheles whose actions are fiendishly designed to pose moral dilemmas for his enemies.
The key performance in the movie is by the late Heath Ledger, as the Joker. Will he become the first posthumous Oscar winner since Peter Finch? His Joker draws power from the actual inspiration of the character in the silent classic “The Man Who Laughs” (1928). His clown's makeup more sloppy than before, his cackle betraying deep wounds, he seeks revenge, he claims, for the horrible punishment his father exacted on him when he was a child. In one diabolical scheme near the end of the film, he invites two ferry-loads of passengers to blow up the other before they are blown up themselves. Throughout the film, he devises ingenious situations that force Batman (Christian Bale), Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) to make impossible ethical decisions. By the end, the whole moral foundation of the Batman legend is threatened.
Because these actors and others are so powerful, and because the movie does not allow its spectacular special effects to upstage the humans, we’re surprised how deeply the drama affects us. Eckhart does an especially good job as Harvey Dent, whose character is transformed by a horrible fate into a bitter monster. It is customary in a comic book movie to maintain a certain knowing distance from the action, to view everything through a sophisticated screen. “The Dark Knight” slips around those defenses and engages us.
Yes, the special effects are extraordinary. They focus on the expected explosions and catastrophes, and have some superb, elaborate chase scenes. The movie was shot on location in Chicago, but it avoids such familiar landmarks as Marina City, the Wrigley Building or the skyline. Chicagoans will recognize many places, notably La Salle Street and Lower Wacker Drive, but director Nolan is not making a travelogue. He presents the city as a wilderness of skyscrapers, and a key sequence is set in the still-uncompleted Trump Tower. Through these heights, the Batman moves at the end of strong wires, or sometimes actually flies, using his cape as a parasail.
The plot involves nothing more or less than the Joker’s attempts to humiliate the forces for good and expose Batman’ secret identity, showing him to be a poser and a fraud. He includes Gordon and Dent on his target list, and contrives cruel tricks to play with the fact that Bruce Wayne once loved, and Harvey Dent now loves, Assistant D.A. Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal). The tricks are more cruel than he realizes, because the Joker doesn’t know Batman’s identity. Heath Ledger has a good deal of dialogue in the movie, and a lot of it isn’t the usual jabs and jests we’re familiar with: It’s psychologically more complex, outlining the dilemmas he has constructed, and explaining his reasons for them. The screenplay by Christopher Nolan and his brother Jonathan (who first worked together on “Memento”) has more depth and poetry than we might have expected.
Two of the supporting characters are crucial to the action, and are played effortlessly by the great actors Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine. Freeman, as the scientific genius Lucius Fox, is in charge of Bruce Wayne’s underground headquarters, and makes an ethical objection to a method of eavesdropping on all of the citizens of Gotham City. His stand has current political implictions. Caine is the faithful butler Alfred, who understands Wayne better than anybody, and makes a decision about a crucial letter.
Nolan also directed the previous, and excellent, “Batman Begins” (2005), which went into greater detail than ever before about Bruce Wayne’s origins and the reasons for his compulsions. Now it is the Joker’s turn, although his past is handled entirely with dialogue, not flashbacks. There are no references to Batman’s childhood, but we certainly remember it, and we realize that this conflict is between two adults who were twisted by childhood cruelty — one compensating by trying to do good, the other by trying to do evil. Perhaps they instinctively understand that themselves.
Something fundamental seems to be happening in the upper realms of the comic-book movie. “Spider-Man II” (2004) may have defined the high point of the traditional film based on comic-book heroes. A movie like the new “Hellboy II” allows its director free rein for his fantastical visions. But now “Iron Man” and even more so “The Dark Knight” move the genre into deeper waters. They realize, as some comic-book readers instinctively do, that these stories touch on deep fears, traumas, fantasies and hopes. And the Batman legend, with its origins in film noir, is the most fruitful one for exploration.
In his two Batman movies, Nolan has freed the character to be a canvas for a broader scope of human emotion. For Bruce Wayne is a deeply troubled man, let there be no doubt, and if ever in exile from his heroic role, it would not surprise me what he finds himself capable of doing.
Cast & Credits
Bruce Wayne: Christian Bale
The Joker: Heath Ledger
Harvey Dent: Aaron Eckhart
Alfred: Michael Caine
Rachel: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Gordon: Gary Oldman
Lucius Fox: Morgan Freeman
Warner Bros. presents a film directed by Christopher Nolan. Written by Christopher and Jonathan Nolan. Running time: 152 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for for intense sequences of violence and some menace).
The Batsuit gets a makeover
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-ca-batsuit20-2008jul20,1,5720066.story
HOW'D THEY DO THAT?
The Batsuit gets a makeover
The 'Dark Knight' hero has tossed the sweaty rubber and molded-plastic costumes of yesteryear and sports a cooler, motocross-style flexi-suit this time around.
By Tom Russo
Special to The Times
July 20, 2008
WHEN "THE Dark Knight" director Christopher Nolan and Oscar-winning costume designer Lindy Hemming considered how they would retool Christian Bale's Batman armor for the new movie, one question leaped to mind immediately: "Why, in 2008, would a superhero put on a rubber suit?" Hemming asks. "Why would he wear something that made him less active and unbelievably, unpleasantly hot? He wouldn't. He'd use all the technology available to be as comfortable as possible."
So when audiences get a look at the new, heavily segmented Batsuit with its Kevlar pecs and abs and exposed titanium-mesh under layer, they should know that this was no George Clooney Batnipple exercise in impishly messing with tradition. Rather, the "Dark Knight" crew was adhering to the creative mandate that Nolan first set on "Batman Begins": Ground the proceedings as much as possible in real-world believability. As costume effects supervisor Graham Churchyard pointedly puts it, "You're supposed to be scuba diving in a neoprene body suit, not kickboxing."
The filmmakers admit they had originally discussed many of the same design ideas for "Begins." At the time, though, they found themselves steered back toward the established molded-latex look by budget considerations, as well as concerns that they were already redefining the character pretty radically. "In the first movie, we spent the money on the car, the Tumbler," Nolan says. "But for the second film, I was intent on spending on the costume." A good six months in the making, the new design was replicated for 25 suits, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"This time we made the suit that Chris really wanted," says Churchyard, who oversaw a team of 40 craftsmen, from sculptors to computerized milling machine operators, in the production's London fabrication workshop. "In 'Begins,' there's that pre-suit that Bruce Wayne gets from [ Morgan Freeman's] Lucius Fox and sprays black. The script tells us it contains Kevlar weave and various layers. But now, it actually does. We've taken the pre-suit to the next stage, really."
While much of the costume development on the last go-round involved research into cutting-edge military and survival wear, the focus on "Dark Knight" was on motocross gear and extreme-sports apparel. (Hemming says it's purely coincidental that Batman races around on a motorcycle in the movie -- although the advent of this "Batpod" did lead directly to a Batpack, modeled on a bat's folded wings, for getting that flowing cape the heck out of the way.) Nolan liked the last Batsuit's overall silhouette, the shoulder line and the look of the cowl, but he wanted something that offered protection with greater freedom of movement. "Christian is so active, and does so many movements that previous Batmen weren't able to do," says Hemming, "it was important to us that he be able to do them even more."
At 30 pounds, the redesigned armor actually weighed slightly more than the "Begins" model, but its 110 component parts better distributed the load and let in a bit of air. "I hate to describe it this way, but the suit's like a big sneaker," Churchyard says. "It has armored elements with carbon fiber running through them, but also semi-rigid areas for flexibility, and mesh panels that allow it to breathe. You end up with these kinds of crumple zones that allow you to bend, to crunch."
Bale half-joked on the last movie that it wasn't difficult for him to get into brooding character when wearing his costume was such a brutally constricting experience. One of the biggest problems was the cowl, which was anchored to the suit's trunk only slightly less stiffly than it had been back in Michael Keaton's caped-crusading days nearly two decades ago. "That 'Begins' image of Batman with his head forward and that big, muscular, panther neck was great as a poster," says Churchyard. "But that's kind of what was stopping him from moving." So, after years of actors having to do "the Batmove," turning their head and shoulders in the same motion, the design team finally figured out a way to section off the cowl. A series of rings seamlessly incorporated around the base allowed it to function as a piece separate from the rest of the costume.
'I could turn my neck'
SUMMING UP the differences between the old Batsuit and this season's model, Bale sounds like he was liberated from something akin to that Bhutanese prison at the opening of "Begins." "For one thing, I could turn my neck," he says. "For another, I didn't get awful headaches just from wearing it. It was an entirely different experience. It was fewer pieces and it didn't require a team of people to get me in and out of it."
Nolan's satisfaction with the outfit is reflected in how visible it is in the movie. In the previous installment, the aesthetic approach was to portray Batman as a shadowy avenger -- minimally lit, always seen at night, and rendered as matte as possible to heighten the effect. Here, he steps into the light. Warner Bros.' publicity images have favored keeping the dark in "Dark Knight," but a recent, brightly photographed "Got Milk?" ad featuring Bale in costume showed every little detail -- and generated much discussion among fans. "A big thing we were after was giving the suit more texture," Hemming says. "Visually, you're getting much more information as to how it works."
"We wanted something that was real, something functional," Nolan says. "In the first film, it was designed to look real, but the mechanics and surfaces of it were not as they appeared. In this film, the suit is as it appears -- and it works."
Times staff writer Geoff Boucher contributed to this report.
HOW'D THEY DO THAT?
The Batsuit gets a makeover
The 'Dark Knight' hero has tossed the sweaty rubber and molded-plastic costumes of yesteryear and sports a cooler, motocross-style flexi-suit this time around.
By Tom Russo
Special to The Times
July 20, 2008
WHEN "THE Dark Knight" director Christopher Nolan and Oscar-winning costume designer Lindy Hemming considered how they would retool Christian Bale's Batman armor for the new movie, one question leaped to mind immediately: "Why, in 2008, would a superhero put on a rubber suit?" Hemming asks. "Why would he wear something that made him less active and unbelievably, unpleasantly hot? He wouldn't. He'd use all the technology available to be as comfortable as possible."
So when audiences get a look at the new, heavily segmented Batsuit with its Kevlar pecs and abs and exposed titanium-mesh under layer, they should know that this was no George Clooney Batnipple exercise in impishly messing with tradition. Rather, the "Dark Knight" crew was adhering to the creative mandate that Nolan first set on "Batman Begins": Ground the proceedings as much as possible in real-world believability. As costume effects supervisor Graham Churchyard pointedly puts it, "You're supposed to be scuba diving in a neoprene body suit, not kickboxing."
The filmmakers admit they had originally discussed many of the same design ideas for "Begins." At the time, though, they found themselves steered back toward the established molded-latex look by budget considerations, as well as concerns that they were already redefining the character pretty radically. "In the first movie, we spent the money on the car, the Tumbler," Nolan says. "But for the second film, I was intent on spending on the costume." A good six months in the making, the new design was replicated for 25 suits, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"This time we made the suit that Chris really wanted," says Churchyard, who oversaw a team of 40 craftsmen, from sculptors to computerized milling machine operators, in the production's London fabrication workshop. "In 'Begins,' there's that pre-suit that Bruce Wayne gets from [ Morgan Freeman's] Lucius Fox and sprays black. The script tells us it contains Kevlar weave and various layers. But now, it actually does. We've taken the pre-suit to the next stage, really."
While much of the costume development on the last go-round involved research into cutting-edge military and survival wear, the focus on "Dark Knight" was on motocross gear and extreme-sports apparel. (Hemming says it's purely coincidental that Batman races around on a motorcycle in the movie -- although the advent of this "Batpod" did lead directly to a Batpack, modeled on a bat's folded wings, for getting that flowing cape the heck out of the way.) Nolan liked the last Batsuit's overall silhouette, the shoulder line and the look of the cowl, but he wanted something that offered protection with greater freedom of movement. "Christian is so active, and does so many movements that previous Batmen weren't able to do," says Hemming, "it was important to us that he be able to do them even more."
At 30 pounds, the redesigned armor actually weighed slightly more than the "Begins" model, but its 110 component parts better distributed the load and let in a bit of air. "I hate to describe it this way, but the suit's like a big sneaker," Churchyard says. "It has armored elements with carbon fiber running through them, but also semi-rigid areas for flexibility, and mesh panels that allow it to breathe. You end up with these kinds of crumple zones that allow you to bend, to crunch."
Bale half-joked on the last movie that it wasn't difficult for him to get into brooding character when wearing his costume was such a brutally constricting experience. One of the biggest problems was the cowl, which was anchored to the suit's trunk only slightly less stiffly than it had been back in Michael Keaton's caped-crusading days nearly two decades ago. "That 'Begins' image of Batman with his head forward and that big, muscular, panther neck was great as a poster," says Churchyard. "But that's kind of what was stopping him from moving." So, after years of actors having to do "the Batmove," turning their head and shoulders in the same motion, the design team finally figured out a way to section off the cowl. A series of rings seamlessly incorporated around the base allowed it to function as a piece separate from the rest of the costume.
'I could turn my neck'
SUMMING UP the differences between the old Batsuit and this season's model, Bale sounds like he was liberated from something akin to that Bhutanese prison at the opening of "Begins." "For one thing, I could turn my neck," he says. "For another, I didn't get awful headaches just from wearing it. It was an entirely different experience. It was fewer pieces and it didn't require a team of people to get me in and out of it."
Nolan's satisfaction with the outfit is reflected in how visible it is in the movie. In the previous installment, the aesthetic approach was to portray Batman as a shadowy avenger -- minimally lit, always seen at night, and rendered as matte as possible to heighten the effect. Here, he steps into the light. Warner Bros.' publicity images have favored keeping the dark in "Dark Knight," but a recent, brightly photographed "Got Milk?" ad featuring Bale in costume showed every little detail -- and generated much discussion among fans. "A big thing we were after was giving the suit more texture," Hemming says. "Visually, you're getting much more information as to how it works."
"We wanted something that was real, something functional," Nolan says. "In the first film, it was designed to look real, but the mechanics and surfaces of it were not as they appeared. In this film, the suit is as it appears -- and it works."
Times staff writer Geoff Boucher contributed to this report.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Ledger's Joker Makes Dramatic Entrance
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080314/ap_en_ot/film_batman_ledger
Ledger's Joker Makes Dramatic Entrance
By DAVID GERMAIN, AP Movie Writer
Fri Mar 14, 2008
This time out, there's no vat of chemicals to explain how Batman's greatest enemy came to be the twisted sociopath known as the Joker.
Heath Ledger's Joker springs full-blown in this summer's "The Dark Knight," the sequel to 2005's "Batman Begins" that was previewed for theater owners Thursday with a clip showing the new movie's opening sequence.
Unlike 1989's "Batman," in which the deranged, disfigured clown appearance of Jack Nicholson's Joker resulted from a dip in chemical goo, "The Dark Knight" starts right in with the bad guy in all his psychopathic glory.
"I believe whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you stranger," Ledger's depraved Joker cryptically tells an accomplice in the opening scenes, in which he pulls off a daring bank robbery.
In an interview at ShoWest, a theater-owners convention where distributor Warner Bros. showed off footage of "The Dark Knight" and the rest of its summer lineup, director Christopher Nolan said it was almost inevitable that the sequel would pit Christian Bale's Batman against the Joker.
"The psychopathic clown, that's an icon to stand with the guy with the ears and cape," Nolan said. "It's just a wonderful visual relationship, and it's a terrifying image."
Long before Ledger's death of an accidental prescription drug overdose in January, the marketing of the movie had focused on the villain's rise to power and his creepy appearance.
There had been speculation among critics and fans that the studio and filmmakers might take a different approach to selling the film in light of Ledger's death, but the marketing has gone on as originally planned.
"I think he'd be very pleased to see we're just moving ahead as is," Nolan said. "If you try to honor somebody, you honor them by respecting their work and putting it out there for as many people to see. He was immensely proud of the work he did on the film. I feel a great burden to present that in an undistorted form."
"The Dark Knight" is due in theaters July 18.
The last time producer Charles Roven saw Ledger was when he showed the actor the very footage that was screened at ShoWest.
Fans have been buzzing over the anarchic style Ledger brings to the role in the movie's trailer, but the actor himself was utterly taken by what he saw of himself on screen, Roven said.
"He was just blown away by his own performance," Roven said. "He said, `Can I see it again?' So he was really, really thrilled."
Bale — reprising his role as the wealthy Bruce Wayne, who moonlights as the emotionally tormented crimefighter — said he watched the footage Thursday with a heaviness of heart over Ledger. But Bale said he hopes the movie will serve as a testament.
"I hope that this can be seen as a celebration of his work," Bale said. "He did a phenomenal job. It was a real joy working with the man. It was a joy knowing him, as well. I liked him a great deal, and I liked also how seriously he took his work."
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