Opening Analysis

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES: Opening Scene Analysis

Hey guys, firstly I gotta. say that this is one of my favourite films of all time, I mean Christian Bale's Batman was without-a-doubt, the BEST that there's been, The Dark Knight franchise in general was brilliant, the key figures of Alfred (Michael Caine), James Gordon (Gary Oldman), Lucious Fox (Morgan Freeman), even the villains - Bane, Ra's Al Ghul, Two Face, The Joker - were so three-dimensional, that it immersed the audience for 2 and a half hours in the DC Universe

Throughout the entire scene, there is little / no extra audio, as a result, the audience has to focus on the main types of audio (such as speech). Even the brief use of non-diegetic sound such as the plane's engines - when we can only see the plane's silhouette is so subtle, that it subliminally urges the audience the focus and try and understand what's goin on. Furthermore, the use of the chanting during Bane's speech suggests that there is something mysterious about him

Anyway, the opening scene of the Dark Knight Rises quite mysterious, the audience may see a lot, but the scene actually says very little about the film through the use (and one could argue OVER-use) hermeneutic codes. We see a car driving to an unknown location, and through the use of camera angles, the audience becomes distanced from the characters - through the use of establishing long shots; although we do see some close ups of characters, they are hooded or silent - this raises ask several questions: who they are? Why they're being held captive?

Moreover we see an unknown man meeting for a handover, this raises questions of: who both parties are? What is so important about this handover? As a result the audience is left thinking, what is happening next? And what is to come? Then we see a man known as "Dr Pavel" and we find out that the hooded figures what trying to "grab" him, which, again, raises the questions (another use of hermeneutic code) of who are these people? And why is "Dr Pavel" so important?

Skipping ahead, we change setting, from a desolate countryside, to an airplane interior, we see a CIA officer demanding these hood figures to answer his questions, screaming, "Tell me about Bane, why does he wear the mask?" (those that are DC fans know of Bane, but to the average viewer, this is very captivating). Furthermore, the CIA officer threatens to throw people of the plane. The scene reaches a climax when one of the figures speaks in a Vader-like tone and once unmasked, he's revealed (by deduction) to be "the Masked Man" - also know as Bane. Bane is asked "was getting caught part of your plan" to which he replies "Of course," and the audience is left stunned, his tone sounds victorious and yet he's the one being held captive. Also we see an plane flying overhead, the CIA officer then says "Well congratulations, you got yourself caught, now what's the next step of your master plan" to which Bane replies - with apparent pleasure - "Crashing this plane, with no survivors." What follows is a gun fight scene that sees a plane fall out of the sky, with intermittent scenes of Bane and Dr Pavel fake their deaths, by leaving two bodies in the plane.

This scene is full of hermeneutic codes. It raises several questions that, are answered throughout the film.

And that's all on the opening scene analysis, see you at the same time next week.

#1T4TS

Alex