1st Opening Analysis: The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight Opening Analysis

The scene begins with an establishing shot of the city and slowly tracks towards a skyscraper, for the duration of this track however the sound of a slight ticking can be heard in the background along with music that is slowly building in volume to create tension for the audience. Eventually we are shown a window breaking on the skyscraper and are abruptly cut to a shot of two masked men in the interior of the skyscraper; the sound of the broken window can be heard continuing on until the one of the masked men loads the grappling hook again. The shot starts with a close up before immediately cutting to a medium high angle shot, this is used to build the tension as the amount of cuts between shots slows as the man loads the grapple hook, and this is used to emphasis the slower tempo of the action sequence.

The scene then cuts to reveal a man with his back towards the audience although his intentions are made clear to the audience as he is seen with a mask of clown in one hand to show that he is part of the plan with the others in the skyscraper and a bag to show his intentions to help them steal what they desire. An enigma is created for the audience as we are not yet able to see who the man as he is also hunched over to hide his facial features, however, we are shown clear details of his mask so that we know where he is during the opening. We can assume that he is the leader of the whole group as his placement in the shot is at the very centre and extra time is placed on this specific character.

The group in the office building attach a bag to their zip line and then proceed to zip line down to the roof themselves. As they go down the camera fallows them out the window and then quickly tilts down to show the way down to the street to create a feeling of vertigo upon the audience, as it does the soundtrack suddenly makes a large boom noise and as it cuts again it carries on as we see a long shot showing the clowns zip lining with the street beneath them. It cuts again to show them landing safely on the other side.

We see the other group in the car, a total of three people wearing clown masks. Throughout we don't see a single one removing their mask to reveal who they are, the lighting contrast between the outside and the interior of the car is used to show the audience their malicious intent and that they are all criminals. It cuts to a close up of the one of the clowns, however, the other two are still visible in the background, and they are talking about the plan of the heist and mention a specific named character known as "The Joker". The two clowns in the front are the only ones talking, although, you can still see the third clown on the edge of the shot to remind the audience of his presence there as well. 

Following that there is a parallel action as the other group of criminals on the roof continue their conversation about "The Joker" and helps us know a little bit more about this character, this is also used to emphasise the importance of this character.

 






The shot then cuts to the group leaving the car and walking towards the entrance of the bank, the camera is following the third clown who is the only one yet to talk or mention anything to do with "The Joker". There is then a match action shot of the criminals entering the bank and firing warning shots to create a panic among the civilians at the bank, however, they miss one man along the way towards the front desk, and are shown to be an important part of the opening scene.

 






The camera is hardly kept at a single position after the gun is fired to keep up the speed and tempo of the situation. The focus then cuts between the group in the main hall and the group on the roof to show the coordination between the two groups and that they must trust each other with their lives, however, it is a short lived thought as once the clown in charge of disarming the silent alarm gives the all clear he is disposed of so that the cut between them gets bigger, this shows the audience that even though they are working together they are all alone on this job.

 The silent third clown (who still has yet to speak) is shown giving the civilians grenades to keep them under control. The timing between shots once again pick up to keep up with the tense feeling of the situation as the group in the hall are shown to feel under control of the situation, however, have still failed to notice the man at the desk near the entrance. The now one man clown from the roof is shown to have entered a room containing the vault door, the music then goes mute for a second to focus on the vault and that can be heard is once again the ticking of a clock before picking up volume again as it cuts to the clown drilling the vault and once again to the group in charge of crowd control. The following shot is a medium shot of a clown beating a hostage and keeping things under control, but once again cuts to the man at the desk with a close of him turning in the direction of the criminals, the music picks for the duration of this movement to show that the man is going to retaliate and defend the back, it then cuts back to the medium shot of the clown being shot in the back by the man, cutting to the silent clown scrambling for cover with the man out of focus in the background to show that the silent clown is focused more on getting to cover from the man before dealing with him as a threat, the music picks up in volume to create the sense of panic during the evolved situation.

The silent clown is shown to scramble for cover as it cuts between the clowns keeping low while running and the man fires his shotgun at the clown. The silent clown meets up with another clown hiding before being asked "He's out right?" remaining silent he gives a nod of confirmation, this makes the clown stand up to return fire but is immediately shot down, the man with the shotgun realises he is out of ammo and is gunned down by the silent clown and the music stops to show the situation is still in the clowns favour. The clown that was shot them gets up from the gunshot and heads to meet the clown in the vault. Once he opens the vault he explains his task of removing the previous clown on the roof and that the other was told similar before gunning him down and collecting the money.

Once collected the clown points the gun at the silent clown claiming that "I'm betting the Joker told you to kill me soon as we loaded the cash." The audience was probably expecting his continued silence, however, replies that he was tasked with killing the bus driver, the clown is confused at the statement before being run down and killed by a bus crashing into the bank.

As the final clown left begins to enter the now money filled bus he is stopped by the man who survived his shot and begins to insult him and his methods, although, the clown walks up to him and places a grenade of gas in his mouth all while the music tempo and volume picks up, the clown takes his mask off to reveal that he is in fact "The Joker", the one who planned it all, the music volume and tempo drops again once he does.

He leaves him behind and drives off down the road using a row of school buses full of children as a type of camouflage from the police who are only just arriving. The opening uses this to create an enigma as to why he needs all this money and what his plan is, this in turn draws the audience in as they are intrigued to find out the whole story. This whole opening sequence was created with the purpose of building up the Joker and how he acts towards people and how he plans to spread terror across Gotham, even when he is silent and still wearing his mask, the other characters share their thoughts on him and how he acts and looks and this in turn creates his character to audience eve with out having to physically see him in the opening. The choice to not include any titles in the opening is probably due to the producers feeling that including the titles may steer the audiences focus away from creating the Joker that the audience expects. This film is made from an already established universe and a dedicated fan base that has large expectations when their favourite comic book characters come to life on the big screen, this is why the opening is important when it comes to creating a Joker that fans are proud of, the idea that he tells his own men to kill each other and then run off with all the money himself shows the fans and the audience that this Joker is similar to the original as he is meant to be insane and only really feels that he can cause chaos which they pulled off successfully.