BATMAN“THE DARK KNIGHT”

The Origin of Batman

• In early 1939, the success of Superman in Action Comics prompted editors at the comic book division of National Publications (the future DC Comics) to request more superheroes for its titles. In response, Bob Kane created "the Bat-Man.

• Bruce Wayne's first name came from Robert Bruce, the Scottish patriot.

• The character first appeared in Detective Comics #27 (May 1939), and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics. Originally referred to as "The Bat-Man" and still referred to at times as "The Batman", he is additionally known as "The Caped Crusader","The Dark Knight", and "The World's Greatest Detective," among other titles.

• Since the comic book introduction, Batman has been made into a 1960s TV series, several animated TV shows and movies, and several feature films.

HIS STORY• In the original version of the story and the vast majority of

retellings, Batman's secret identity is Bruce Wayne, an American millionaire (later billionaire) playboy, industrialist, and philanthropist. Having witnessed the murder of his parents as a child, he swore revenge on criminals, an oath tempered with the greater ideal of justice. Wayne trains himself both physically and intellectually and dons a bat-themed costume in order to fight crime. Batman operates in the fictional American Gotham City, assisted by various supporting characters including his butler Alfred Pennyworth and the police commissioner Jim Gordon. He fights an assortment of villains such as the Joker, the Penguin, the Riddler, Two-Face, Poison Ivy and Catwoman. Unlike most superheroes, he does not possess any superpowers; he makes use of intellect, detective skills, science and technology, wealth, physical prowess, martial arts skills, an indomitable will, fear, and intimidation in his continuous war on crime.

HIS COSTUME

• Batman's costume incorporates the imagery of a bat in order to frighten criminals. The details of the Batman costume change repeatedly through various stories and media, but the most distinctive elements remain consistent: a scallop-hem cape, a cowl covering most of the face featuring a pair of batlike ears, a stylized bat emblem on the chest, and the ever-present utility belt. Batman's gloves typically feature three scallops that protrude from long, gauntlet-like cuffs, although in his earliest appearances he wore short, plain gloves without the scallops. A yellow ellipse around the bat logo on the character's chest was added in 1964, and became the hero's trademark symbol, akin to the red and yellow "S" symbol of Superman. The overall look of the character, particularly the length of the cowl's ears and of the cape, varies greatly depending on the artist. Dennis O'Neil said, "We now say that Batman has two hundred suits hanging in the Batcave so they don't have to look the same . . . Everybody loves to draw Batman, and everybody wants to put their own spin on it."

HIS EQUIPMENT

• Batman uses a large arsenal of specialized gadgets in his war against crime, the designs of which usually share a bat motif.

• Batman keeps most of his field equipment in a utility belt. Over the years it is shown to contain a virtually limitless variety of crime-fighting tools.

• A typical major exception to the range of Batman's equipment are conventional firearms, which he refuses to use on principle considering that weapon class was the instrument of his parents' murder. Modern depictions of Batman have him compromise for practicality by arming his vehicles mainly for the purpose of removing obstacles or disabling enemy vehicles.

• When Batman is needed, the Gotham City police activate a searchlight with a bat-shaped insignia over the lens called the Bat-Signal which shines into the night sky, creating a bat-symbol on a passing cloud which can be seen from any point in Gotham.

• The Batcave is Batman's secret headquarters, consisting of a series of subterranean caves beneath his mansion, Wayne Manor. It serves as his command center for both local and global surveillance, as well as housing his vehicles and equipment for his war on crime. It also is a storeroom for Batman's memorabilia.

THE CHARACTERS

Bruce Wayne: In his secret identity, Batman is Bruce Wayne, a wealthy businessman who lives in Gotham City. To the world at large, Bruce Wayne is often seen as an irresponsible, superficial playboy who lives off his family's personal fortune (amassed when his family invested in Gotham real estate before the city was a bustling metropolis) and the profits of Wayne Enterprises, a major private technology firm that he inherits. However, Wayne is also known for his contributions to charity, notably through his Wayne Foundation, a charity devoted to helping the victims of crime and preventing people from becoming criminals. Bruce creates the playboy public persona to aid in throwing off suspicion of his secret identity, often acting dim-witted and self-absorbed to further the act. Among the more noted measures he uses to maintain the facade is pretending he is a heavy drinker by claiming his glasses of ginger ale are strong beverages. "Batman," however is the truer representation of his personality.

Alfred Pennyworth• Alfred serves as Batman (Bruce Wayne)’s tireless valet,

assistant, confidant, and surrogate father figure. In modern interpretations, this has gone to the point where Alfred was Bruce's legal guardian following the death of his parents. He has sometimes been called "Batman's batman.” Alfred also provides comic relief, as his sometimes sarcastic and cynical attitude often adds humor to dialogue occurring between himself and Batman. Alfred is a vital part of the Batman mythos, and appears in most other media adaptations of the character.

Jim Gordon

• Gordon is the Police Commissioner of Batman's home of Gotham City. He shares the hero’s deep commitment to ridding the dark and corrupt city of crime. In Golden and Silver age comics and on the 1960s Batman television show, Gordon fully trusts, and is even somewhat dependent on Batman. In most modern stories, he is somewhat skeptical of Batman's vigilante method but recognizes the necessity of Batman and the two have a mutual respect and tacit friendship.

Harvey Dent /Two Face

• Two-Face was once Harvey Dent, the clean-cut district attorney of Gotham City and an ally of Batman. However, Dent goes insane after Sal Maroni throws acid at him during a trial, hideously scarring the left side of his face. Dent adopts the "Two-Face" persona and becomes a crime boss, choosing to bring about good or evil based upon the outcome of a coin flip.

The Joker• Though many have been related, a definitive back-story has never been

established for the Joker in the comics, and his real name has never been confirmed. He himself is confused as to what actually happened; as he says in The Killing Joke, "Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes another... if I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice! Ha ha ha!"

• The first origin account, Detective Comics #168 (February 1951), revealed that the Joker had once been a criminal known as the Red Hood. In the story, he is a chemical engineer looking to steal from the company that employs him and adopts the persona of Red Hood. After committing the theft, which Batman thwarts, he falls into a vat of chemical waste. He emerges with bleached white skin, red lips, green hair and a persistent grin.

• Throughout the evolution of the DC Universe, interpretations and incarnations of the Joker have taken two forms. The original and currently dominant image is of a highly intelligent psychopath with a warped, sadistic sense of humor. The other interpretation of the character, popular in the late 1940s through 1960s comic books as well as the 1960s television series, is that of an eccentric but harmless prankster and thief. Batman: The Animated Series blended these two aspects, although most interpretations tend to embrace one characterization or the other.

• The Joker commits crimes with comedic weapons such as a deck of bladed playing cards, an acid-squirting flower, cyanide-stuffed pies, exploding cigars filled with nitroglycerin, harpoon guns that utilize razor-sharp BANG!-flags, and a lethally electric joy buzzer. His most prominent weapon is his Joker venom, a deadly poison that infects his victims with a ghoulish grin as they die while laughing uncontrollably.

• The Joker is portrayed as highly intelligent and skilled in the fields of chemistry and engineering, as well an expert with explosives. From his first appearance onward, he has been consistently portrayed as capable of hijacking broadcasts - usually news programs - of both the television and radio varieties.

Gotham City

• The birth of Gotham City is one shrouded in both mystery and mysticism. Millennia ago,

an evil warlock was buried alive beneath what would one day become the central island of Gotham. It is alleged that while the warlock laid in a state of torpor, his evil essence seeped into the soil, poisoning the ground with his dark, corruptive touch. By the warlock's own reasoning, he claims that he fathered the modern spirit of Gotham City and has even taken to calling himself Doctor Gotham.

• During the 1950s, Gotham evolved with the changing times, particularly in light of the paranoia perpetuated by the Cold War. Various bomb shelters were erected all throughout the city. By the 1960s, Gotham City planners began an ambitious project called the Underground Highway. Beginning at Fourth Avenue, they began building an actual subterranean thoroughfare designed to link with the subway system. They only managed to complete two-hundred yards worth of tunnel before budget cuts forced them to abandon the project. In later years, the unfinished highway became a haven for the homeless and even a few criminals such as Killer Croc.

• Gotham City had suffered the results of a magnitude 7.6 earthquake in an event commonly referred to as the "Cataclysm". With hopes for rehabilitating the broken city, the United States government declared it a No Man's Land, which effectively quarantined the entire island city. Eventually, thanks in no small part to the financial and political machinations of Lex Luthor—dipping his hands, as ever, in both legitimate and illegal means to achieve his goals—Gotham City was released and rebuilt, and rejoined the United States.

The Feature Films

• Batman (1989) - Directed by Tim Burton

• Focuses on Batman’s nemesis, the Joker.

• Tim Burton’s first feature film.

• Tim Burton’s style still blossoming but still really comes through.

• When the film opened in June 1989, it was backed by the biggest marketing and merchandising campaign in film history at the time, and became one of the biggest box office hits of all time, grossing well over US$250 million in the US alone and $400 million worldwide and earning critical acclaim for the performances of both Keaton and Nicholson, as well as the film's production aspects, which won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction.

Following Batman

•Several sequels followed including:

•Batman Returns

•Batman Forever

•Batman and Robin

Tim Burton

• He has a very Gothic style. He also has great attention to composition. For example in the beginning of many of his movies, he chooses several shots that have no purpose but to be beautiful shots. Burton also chooses a lot of POV shots and uses shadows to his advantage.

• Burton makes noticeable use of a mixture of saturated and de-saturated colors as well as his use of odd shaped de-saturated things. It seems he uses odd shapes to show uneasiness, in other words instead of showing a normal looking dark castle with a Dutch angle to show possible danger, Burton will show you an odd shaped twisted dark castle at a normal angle.

Let’s examine some of Burton’s more famous films to get a feel for his style...

• Beetlejuice

• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

• Edward Scissor Hands

• A Nightmare Before Christmas

• Sleepy Hollow

• Corpse Bride

• Sweeney Todd

• Coraline

• Frankenweenie

The Dark Knight

• 2008

• Directed by Christopher Nolan

• Focuses on several aspects of Batman’s story including his childhood friend, Rachel, the Joker, Two Face, and Bruce Wayne’s own personal struggles with his alter-ego.

• Is actually a sequel to Nolan’s first Batman feature film, Batman Begins, which told the story of Bruce Wayne’s childhood and transformation into Batman.

• Third film in the series, The Dark Knight Rises, is set to release summer 2012.

Christopher Nolan

•Other films Nolan is famous for directing include:

•Inception

•Memento

•The Prestige

“Good films, the purest and the best, speak through camera work -- composition and flow of images -- as much as through the words spoken by the characters or the “literary” significance of the plot. Style and content fuse to form something new, something individual, a whole greater than its parts.”

•Director, Lindsay Anderson

Composition

• Composition is the way the audience’s eye is manipulated to look around the screen.

• The key notion is that of the dominant, that area of the film image that compels the viewer’s most immediate attention, usually because of a prominent visual contrast.

• for instance the contrast between light and dark, or a dominant color.

• As well, movement in the film almost always creates a dominant, provided that other elements are stationary.

• The degree of density in the texture of the scene is often symbolic; a cluttered scene may be reflective of the chaotic nature of the film’s action; conversely, a sparse scene may suggest emptiness (spiritual or otherwise) and sterility.

Lighting• Directors and cinematographers often use the

archetypal implications of light and dark to manipulate the mood and feeling of their film; the orchestration of light is key in defining tone, setting and character.

• High Key Lighting: bright, even illumination and few conspicuous shadows; comparatively little contrast between the light and dark areas of the shot--used most often in comedies or musicals

• Low Key Lighting: emphasizes diffused shadows and atmospheric pools of light; there is a strong contrast between light and dark areas of the shot--used often in atmospheric thrillers, horror or noir

• High Contrast Lighting: harsh shafts of light and dramatic streaks of blackness

Other Effects of Lighting• The lighting of a subject from above (top lighting) creates a

romantic halo effect, suggesting purity or romance.

• Lighting a subject from below (underlighting) makes the figure sinister and frightening, even if it maintains a neutral expression.

• If a figure is illuminated from behind (backlighting, also known as edge lighting or rim lighting), it tends to create silhouettes.

• When a subject is only half-lit, the other half still in darkness (sidelighting), the director and cinematographer may be suggesting a certain ambiguity, or perhaps a psychological self-division.

• An obstruction in front of a light source, leaving the figure in shadowy darkness, disrupts the viewer’s sense of safety, inciting fear and apprehension.

• The most common arrangement in lighting is known as three-point lighting, where three directions of light are on a scene: from behind the subjects (backlighting), from one bright source (key light), and from a dimmer source opposite the key light (fill light).

Framing

•The amount of open space within the territory of the frame

• Tightly Framed: a close shot--often suggests entrapment or confinement

• Loosely Framed: a long shot—often suggests freedom

• Internal Framing: the suggestion of entrapment by using a neutral object (such as a doorway or window frame) to symbolically “confine” a figure.

Read this article for homework:

•http://whatculture.com/film/tim-burtons-batman-vs-chris-nolans-the-dark-knight.php