Only a few days ago the prologue was screened to the press in Los Angeles and Chris Nolan himself introduced the footage and expressed his love for the IMAX format. The Los Angeles' Times' Hero Complex was in attendance and had a chance to talk to Nolan about a number of things related to the film.
On embracing Bat-mania-
“It’s terrific, to have people that interested in something. It reminds you that it is a real honor to work on something that means so much to people. I’d love to be able to claim that I invented the whole thing and that’s why they’re interested. I did not. I’ve been given a very precious thing to do my best with, to look after and not to let people down. There’s a certain amount of fear that comes with it and intimidation but it’s also a great privilege. [As for the fans], they want it to be great, they want to go enjoy it and they’re fascinated by it. You know, there’s always controversy regarding things that people will disagree with but hopefully they appreciate the effort of trying to make something good.”
Nolan mentioned that he expects about forty-five to fifty minutes of the finished film will have been shot with IMAX cameras.
On learning about the character of Bane-
“I didn’t know him very well. David Goyer got me a bunch of stuff on him and we looked into him. I only knew him by name, I wasn’t familiar with his back story. He’s a very cool character. And getting an actor like Tom to take it on, you know you’re going to get something very special. Tom is somebody who really knows how to put character into every gesture, every aspect of his physicality in the way that great actors can. He’s a very, very physical actor. He transforms himself and it’s there in every movement. He’s not afraid to look at a character from the outside as well as the inside so there’s a deep psychological branch to the character but also a very, very specific awareness of how he’s going to use his body and his appearance to express that character too. Christian is like that too, very much.”
On the choice of Bane for the film-
“With Bane, the physicality is the thing. With a good villain you need an archetype, you know, you need the extreme of some type of villainy. The Joker is obviously a particular archetype of diabolical, chaotic anarchy and has a devilish sense of humor. Bane, to me, is something we haven’t dealt with in the films. We wanted to do something very different in this film. He’s a primarily physical villain, he’s a classic movie monster in a way — but with a terrific brain. I think he’s a fascinating character. I think people are going to get a kick out of what we’ve done with him.”
On the film taking place eight years after The Dark Knight-
“It will make a lot more sense to people when they see the film. But it’s not a great mystery — it’s the jumping-off point for the film — but it’s hard for me to articulate it. I think the mood at the beginning of the film will make a lot of sense. If I had to express it thematically, I think what we’re saying is that for Batman and Commissioner Gordon, there’s a big sacrifice, a big compromise, at the end of the ‘The Dark Knight’ and for that to mean something, that sacrifice has to work and Gotham has to get better in a sense. They have to achieve something for the ending of that film — and the feeling at the end of that film — to have validity. Their sacrifice has to have meaning and it takes time to establish that and to show that, and that’s the primary reason we did that. It’s a time period that is not so far ahead that we would have to do crazy makeup or anything — which I think would be distracting — but it gave them something to get their teeth into, particularly Christian in terms of [portraying] this guy who has been frozen in this moment in time with nowhere to go. He really has done an incredible job figuring out how to characterize that and express that.”
For the entire interview, including talk about the emotional element of ending the trilogy, head over to Hero Complex. The Dark Knight Rises hits theaters July 20, 2012.
Posted by Dustin Fritschel
