Analysis of film number 4 ; The Dark night

The film I will be analysing is the dark night, a Christopher Nolan film, the sequel to ‘Batman Begins’ staring Christian Bale as Batman and Heath Ledger as the Joker.

The dark night is a action film that takes us through the journey of Batman’s quest to destroy organised crime in the city of Gotham, for good, in doing this he attracts the rising criminal mastermind ‘the Joker’ as his enemy.

The dark night was released on the 24^th July 2008 in the UK. With a budge of $185,000,000 the filmed grossed $533,316,061 by 1 march 2009.

The opening scene starts off with a traditional establishing shot. It is a crane shot of the city. A zoom in begins, directing towards a tower block window which tells us we are about to be introduced to the first action of the film. Before the zoom in reaches the tower, the window explodes, smashing to pieces. Straightaway this signals danger and crime, telling us delinquent activity is taking place.

A cut shot to the inside of the building reveals two men masked, loading a zip wire. The fact that they are masked indicates that they are bad people doing an act of crime.

Then a cuts shot to a back shot of the joker (whose face is not revealed) is shown, holding a mask similar too the masks worn by the men in the tower, this telling us that they are apart of the same group.

It is a clear day with bright natural light used, this also telling us that they are ruthless top criminals, committing a serious crime in broad day light. This implying these acts of crime are taking place right in front the eyes of society on a daily basic, without civilians knowing.

A zoom in of the mask shows the audience that it is designed to resemble a clown’s face, which is important to the narrative. The man is also shown to be carrying a large bag which holds curiosity to the audience to know what it contains. A 4x4 car pulls up and he gets in, the car quickly drives away again, telling us, he is not on his own in the crime.

Another cut shot to the men in the building, holding a bag about to leave the building via a zip wire, signalling everyone is working on the same time limit, which again suggests something is planned.

Fast tempo suspense music is used, as the build up to the robbery is under way.

 A close up of the man in the car, all with masks on, loading gins, talking about the joker, tells us they are about to do an act of crime on the orders of someone else. As the men reach there destination, a medium shot of the men looking around the city before they enter the building, suggests they know what they are about to do is not right and they would rather keep in away from the publics eye, keeping it as easy for them as possible. 
 A pan to the left follows them as they enter the bank. A fast paced tracking shot is then used; this is to keep up with action/movement taking place. A cut to the activity on behind the building is shown.  Continuous quick cut shits are use throughout to show all the action taking place in association to the robbery.

The pace of the camera slows down the give focus to one character, implying this character is soon to play a main role/ pans, tracking shots and tilts are all classic of an action film, as they do well to follow the action. As are crane shots, to show the urban city action films tend to be set in.

The music begins to fasten then slows throughout, to create a more jump uneasy edge to the scene; this shows the intenseness and anxiety the hostages in the bank are feeling. The location being a bank, straightaway gives us the answer without having to question why they are in there, as the only possible reason for people robbing banks, is to steal the enormous amount of money that is stored in banks.