Specialist Research

CHAOS VERSUS ORDER: “According to the philosopher, Ly Tin Wheedle, chaos is found in greatest abundance wherever order is being sought. It always defeats order, because it is better organised.” — Terry Pratchett

Chaos vs order is a darker take on good vs bad. Using it in a film allows you to have two sides, in the same way to good against evil, but without being predictable or self righteous about it. While the most traditional films have an order to good figure and a chaos to evil figure. However these two can cross over. For an example, a group of good people fighting for the right thing that cause chaos to restore order, against a corrupt government (the order figure) that have already created chaos to gain order. A different  take on the subject is that true goodness is often seen as the balance between the two forces, and both order and chaos are portrayed as evil due to the fact that both can be achieved in extreme ways.  Order can sometimes be called law, this is associated with civilization, authority, rules, protection, the status quo, tradition, and, when stretched to its extreme, mindless obedience, fascism, and abuse of power. It’s quite common to depict what happens when Order takes their laws and oaths just a little too far, but also don’t be surprised to see The Good King portrayed positively. When they have powers associated with them, it’s often leadership, The Virus, Brainwashing, and the power to bind with rules and oaths. When used as a villain, he’s likely to say “We Have Reserves.”

What I’ve done for my research is to look at books that focus on film production and looks at representation in films, then use them books as your sources of information. By researching into what film critics and theorists talk about how directors in general portray both chaos and order in-keeping with what my essay will be based around.

Nolan had a completely different outlook when he took on the role of directing the next Batman franchise. He removed the campiness and a lot of the colour from films like “Batman and Robin”. This was done to give a gritty, dark take on a character that had become something of a joke. Not just making Batman a serious character again, but changing the entire landscape of super hero movies.

One thing that Batman Begins and the trilogy as a whole doesn’t often get credit for, is being the first superhero film to really raise the bar for the kind of acting talent that could be attracted to a comic book movie. A star studded cast of, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Gary Oldham, Morgan Freeman and Kate Holmes. For the time it was seen as controversial for Nolan to add the darker tone to a comic book character which was seen as for kids. Nolan completely rubbished that idea. Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy has produced a wide and contradictory range of political viewpoints,Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008) have been interpreted as conservative affirmations of and warnings against post-9/11 militarism, while The Dark Knight Rises (2012), in the wake of global economic crisis, has been reviewed both as right-wing repudiation and radical fantasy of the Occupy Wall Street protests. The nature of the films political ambivalence has been equally contested, appearing to represent the contradictions and dilemmas inherent in the character of Batman or symptomatic of Hollywood’s tendency towards apoliticism. A review of the body of academic criticism surrounding Nolan’s franchise provides a useful indication of trends in contemporary film scholarship. With the films containing those political issues it again only furthered the the realness of the character and the films themselves. You look at super hero movies in a pre Batman Begins World. They’re all too out there. Hero’s and villains getting powers from science experiments gone wrong or a chemical radiation. Nolan’s Batman had that true feeling that no hero had really had up until this point. A human protecting a city in chaos.

In an interview with BlackTree TV, Nolan was asked if it was always part of the plan to make a trilogy to which he answered “its a complicated answer… when I went to make the first film it was very important to not even mention another film… so okay we put everything we have into Batman Begins… Then when people responded to it… then you react to that and you say yeah I wanna see who that Joker is going to be so then you find yourself drawn into continuing the story”.Watch the full interview here

The cost to make all three of the movies is a combined $580million with The Dark Knight Rises taking top spot. A lot of money in production costs, however when the films hit box office they made it all back and more over the course of all three films. Warner Bros obviously had faith in the idea that Nolan had set out for the franchise to supply him with such a large budget, which increased film on film.   

The Art and Making of The Dark Knight Trilogy was released in 2012. The book provides in depth details for a lot of different areas of the films,

1. Screenplay – how the concept of the films was born with Nolan & David Goyer, writing the scripts, and taking inspiration from the comics when crafting the story.

2. Production Design – building the sets, scouting & dressing locations, designing Batman’s vehicles. Includes some concept art.

3. Cast – casting the characters, insight into the actors’ process. One of the best aspects of the films is that Nolan assembles a very strong cast, even in smaller supporting roles.Obviously, much of the focus is placed on selecting Christian Bale to play Bruce Wayne.

4. Costumes & Makeup – discussion about the costumes of the film, including plenty of costume sketches. Includes detail about the evolution of Batman’s suit, the Joker’s makeup, Bane’s mask, etc.

5. The Shoot: Batman Begins – a chronicle of the 129-day shoot, Nolan’s directing style, filming on location, shooting the Tumbler chase, etc,

6. The Shoot: The Dark Knight – filming in Chicago, IMAX cameras, the hospital explosion, etc.

7. The Shoot: The Dark Knight Rises – filming in Pittsburgh and India, shooting the opening plane sequence practically, destroying a football stadium, etc.
8. Special Effects & Stunts – insight into the stunt work with effects coordinator Chris Corbould. This covers most of the big fight sequences and stunts in the three films and how they were achieved.

The screenplay was done by both Christopher Nolan and David S.Goyer. Here you can see the the synopsis which outlines the basic plot of the film. And as you can tell just by reading that the correlation between chaos and order. Parents killed, chaos. Is trained how to fight, order. Threats to destroy Gotham, chaos. Becomes Batman, order. Nolan and Goyer made this theme obvious from the very start of production and this continued throughout the entire trilogy.

 

 

 

Again, this part from the final script again shows chaos vs order. Ra’s Al Ghul wanting to create order through the means of chaos and Bruce not allowing chaos to take him over and kill. By refusing to execute the criminal its shows again that he is trying to maintain order without causing chaos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For the set design, as I’ve said previously Nolan wanted to change how Batman films were perceived. Previous films bar Tim Burtons two attempts, the others were very bright, and light hearted. Nolan made these films very dark, very merky. Really emphasising the chaotic nature of Gotham during the time period of the film.

I really like this picture taken while filming. The reason I like it is because it again, especially in Batman Begins were a lot of police are corrupt. Look at where all the light is coming from in this picture. The Batmobile. The one true sign of hope in Gotham.

 

Here you can see what I say about the dark feeling. And this picture really personifies the state that Gotham finds itself in, from the over use of wires. My interruption of all of these wire cables is that they represent the different crime organisations fighting for power within Gotham.

The change of the Bat suit was a big thing also. The Bat suit that had ben designed was far more what you’d expect from a Batman character, not bat nipples…

 

As you can see, the Nolan suit has a complete better finish to it. Especially with the matte black tone rather than shinny. “Both Chris Nolan and I wanted to make a different kind of Batsuit for Batman Begins,” remembers costume designer Lindy Hemming of early Bat-erations of the suit. Taking inspiration – like Lucius Fox – from military hardware, the pair worked to construct the garb, although, admits the costumer, “my ideas were a bit over-ambitious”. Perhaps fittingly, its evolution would end up mirroring Bruce Wayne’s innovations on-screen. “I was wanting to do more-or-less what we did when we got to The Dark Knight, which was to transform the heavy rubber suit and make it much more modern.” – This is taken from, Empire Magazine. And again, for The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises the suit was changed, this was done to give Bale more mobility in his neck. Nolan actually went of record saying “I’d been looking for story reasons to re-design the suit and then it occurred to me it was actually very simple, we’d just give it the real reason we did re-design it because he wants to be able to move faster and more flexibly”

Nolan set out to completely change the Bat-mobile to fit in with the trilogies new real World feel.  “I felt that it was very important to design the bat-mobile first before we approached any other aspects of design of the film… And our approach would tell everybody who saw it a lot about what were doing with the whole film which is a more grounded reality in which we’re trying to base this story.” – Christopher Nolan