But what of The Dark Knight himself? Empire asks Bale, back in the batsuit for the third and final time, if this film contains even a flavour of Knighfall’s backbreaking storyline. Bale smiles apologetically. “I’m sure you’ve experienced it now,” he says. “The wall of silence where I go, ‘You’re gonna speak with Chris, aren’t you? Right. I’ll let him decide if he’s going to answer that one or not.’”
As it turns out, Nolan won’t answer that one, either, but he will reveal this: “It’s really all about finishing Batman and Bruce Wayne’s story. We left him in a very precarious place at the end of The Dark Knight. His reputation in tatters, on the run. And I think, perhaps surprisingly for some people, our story picks up quite a bit later. Eight years after The Dark Knight. So he’s an older Bruce Wayne. He’s not in a great state.” Nolan laughs. “Not that he was ever in a great state! He’s frozen in time. He’s hit a brick wall.”
Bale expands on this. “It does harken back to that notion that this guy is originated from great pain and he has to address that - but at what point does it become an indulgence? The question is: how long do you allow pain to dominate your life? He has to try to answer that and move on.”
The Dark Knight Rises is also notably the first of Nolan’s Batman films to show his main character operating in daylight. A bold decision; after all, this is hardly the Adam West TV show. “We felt to some degree we’d earned the right to do that with the character,” explains Nolan. “Batman Begins was very much about explaining the logic of the suit, and how it belonged in the shadows, in a position of stealth where he’s able to intimidate people with it as a new entity. And then through The Dark Knight we would bring him out during the magic hour and we changed the suit accordingly so he withstood that kind of exposure. But also the character himself has the reputation now, so he’s able to expose himself more and still intimidate people. And with the third film, we’re just pushing that further…
“But,” he adds, “plenty of it takes place in the dark, too!”
If Hardy is to be believed, Batman’s move into sunlight has done nothing to diminish the power of his presence during their combat scenes. “He does look really intimidating! There’s a three-year-old in me that’s going, ‘Oh my God, that’s Batman! That’s Batman and he’s going to hit me! But I love Batman!’”
He shoots Empire an evil grin.
“The I look in the mirror. And I hit him back. Twice as hard.”
WHY RIDDLER WAS OUT:
Between Nolan and Goer’s decision to cast Bane in the prime antagonist role and its announcement, the rumour mill ground out talk of The Riddler. But Nolan insists that, after Heath Ledger’s Joker, The Riddler was never a contender.
“The world of Batman, indeed the world of all graphic novels, deals with archetypes,” he says, “And there’s a very real sense in which The Joker is an extreme and an absolute and Batman is an extreme and an absolute. So when you’re looking to continue the story - in this case finish Bruce Wayne and Batman’s story, as we see it - then you certainly don’t want a watered-down version of a character you’ve already done. You want a different archetype. What Bane represents in the comics is the ultimate physical villain.”
The Dark Knight Rises is also notably the first of Nolan’s Batman films to show is main character operating in daylight. A bold decision; after all, this is hardly the Adam West TV show. “We felt to some degree we’d earned the right to do that with the character,” explains Nolan.
As it turns out, Nolan won’t answer that one, either, but he will reveal this: “It’s really all about finishing Batman and Bruce Wayne’s story. We left him in a very precarious place at the end of The Dark Knight. His reputation in tatters, on the run. And I think, perhaps surprisingly for some people, our story picks up quite a bit later. Eight years after The Dark Knight. So he’s an older Bruce Wayne. He’s not in a great state.” Nolan laughs. “Not that he was ever in a great state! He’s frozen in time. He’s hit a brick wall.”
Bale expands on this. “It does harken back to that notion that this guy is originated from great pain and he has to address that - but at what point does it become an indulgence? The question is: how long do you allow pain to dominate your life? He has to try to answer that and move on.”
The Dark Knight Rises is also notably the first of Nolan’s Batman films to show his main character operating in daylight. A bold decision; after all, this is hardly the Adam West TV show. “We felt to some degree we’d earned the right to do that with the character,” explains Nolan. “Batman Begins was very much about explaining the logic of the suit, and how it belonged in the shadows, in a position of stealth where he’s able to intimidate people with it as a new entity. And then through The Dark Knight we would bring him out during the magic hour and we changed the suit accordingly so he withstood that kind of exposure. But also the character himself has the reputation now, so he’s able to expose himself more and still intimidate people. And with the third film, we’re just pushing that further…
“But,” he adds, “plenty of it takes place in the dark, too!”
If Hardy is to be believed, Batman’s move into sunlight has done nothing to diminish the power of his presence during their combat scenes. “He does look really intimidating! There’s a three-year-old in me that’s going, ‘Oh my God, that’s Batman! That’s Batman and he’s going to hit me! But I love Batman!’”
He shoots Empire an evil grin.
“The I look in the mirror. And I hit him back. Twice as hard.”
WHY RIDDLER WAS OUT:
Between Nolan and Goer’s decision to cast Bane in the prime antagonist role and its announcement, the rumour mill ground out talk of The Riddler. But Nolan insists that, after Heath Ledger’s Joker, The Riddler was never a contender.
“The world of Batman, indeed the world of all graphic novels, deals with archetypes,” he says, “And there’s a very real sense in which The Joker is an extreme and an absolute and Batman is an extreme and an absolute. So when you’re looking to continue the story - in this case finish Bruce Wayne and Batman’s story, as we see it - then you certainly don’t want a watered-down version of a character you’ve already done. You want a different archetype. What Bane represents in the comics is the ultimate physical villain.”
The Dark Knight Rises is also notably the first of Nolan’s Batman films to show is main character operating in daylight. A bold decision; after all, this is hardly the Adam West TV show. “We felt to some degree we’d earned the right to do that with the character,” explains Nolan.
