The Dark Night

The Dark Night is a Christopher Nolan masterpiece.  If you haven’t seen this movie yet I recommend you buy this movie at once at watch it.  You will not want to miss this one.  What’s so great about it you might ask?  If you thought that Batman Begins was a great movie than you’re in for a treat.  Unlike most super hero movies these days, The Dark Night has a sense of realness to it.  Impeccable acting performances especially from the late Heath Ledger who played to joker in this film, help bring that sense of reality. 

Acting and special effects aside, there are several other factors that make this movie an instant classic, one of which is the coloring used throughout the movie.  One dominating color through the movie is a dark, bold yet hazy blue.  I think this repeating color alone give the film a mood of a strange unknown lurking here and there.  In the opening credits this color is full screen with the batman symbol barely seen through it and I feel that this color alone sets the mood for the film.  I feel this type of color usage is, as the book puts it, “color to enhance mood.” (pg. 240)  Other than that dominating color, there are some other color usages that make the viewer uneasy.  The most obvious one would have to be the joker’s entire costume.  Clown face paint and a purple suit are very offensive to the eye, subconsciously, and add a lot to the creepy, evil character of the joker. 

The sound effects also enhance the overall mood of the movie.  Of course when you have a superhero movie you are going to get some of the best sound effects like explosions, gun fire, and the whole works, but the sound effects I want to discuss are the subtle ones that really set the mood.  In the opening scenes of the movie there is a single violin note being played but it is a very harsh sounding one that sets you on edge.  This adds when the scene plays out and you see how sick the joker is right away.  “Foreshadowing events,” (pg.297) is definitely what Nolan was going for when he used that violin, and he re-uses it throughout the movie to give it an overarching theme. 

Finally the most important aspect of the movie, as I mentioned before, is acting.  Heath Ledger is definitely an “Impersonator” (pg. 332) type of actor.  If I hadn’t known, going into the theater, that he was playing the joker, I would have never been able to guess it was him.  He literally became a different person for this film, and that is what makes it such a great movie.  Now I don’t mean to belittle the performance of the other actors/actresses in this film because all of the roles where done very well, but his was so good that it’s scary.