The Dark Knight Research Presentation

https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=d4rb7h6_1hkmgm9hm

Media Research Project- The Dark Knight (Research)

Websites used

• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468569/
•  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/3557106/Film-review-The-Dark-Knight.html
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/jul/25/actionandadventure1
• http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_dark_knight/
• http://movies.about.com/od/thedarkknight/ig/The-Dark-Knight-Photos/

Print and Broadcast

thedarkknight.warnerbros.com/dvdsite/

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UBP2nXtRRo

Media Representations

who is being represented?   

In what way?

By whom?

Why is the subject being represented in this way?

• Is the representation fair and accurate?
• What opportunities exist for self-representation by the subject?

The Dark Knight consists of a Super Hero protagonist, Bruce Wayne AKA the Batman, he is shown to be a strong and hardworking, yet is lead astray from his working life to bring justice to the criminals of Gotham City.

The villain of the film is the Joker played by Heath Ledger. He is represented in a negative roll as being a psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic who's only goal is to destroy the fabrications of the social order in Gotham City, yet is faced with a barrier when batman decides to team up with the new district attorney and shut down all criminal activities.

The princess, using the theory of Vladimir Propp is Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal), she is the only female portrayed in this film and to be one of the main characters. She is shown to be a damsel in distress however she builds her character by

Furthermore the film also carries a false hero figure, Harvey Dent played by Aaron Eckhart. Dent is portrayed as the "White Knight" as he is the district attorney of Gotham City and uses his connections to put away the criminals of Gotham city.

Media Languages and Forms

 Media Audience

What are the denotative and connotative levels of meaning?

What is the significance of the text’s connotations?

What are the non-verbal structures of meaning in the text (e.g. gesture, facial expression, positional communication, clothing, props etc)?

What is the significance of mise-en-scene/sets/settings?

What work is being done by the sound track/commentary/language of the text?

What are the dominant images and iconography, and what is their relevance to the major themes of the text?

What sound and visual techniques are used to convey meaning (e.g. camera positioning, editing; the ways that images and sounds are combined to convey meaning)?

The main non-verbal structures of meaning in the text is depicted during a meeting of the mob bosses, the joker barges in and offers them a solution to their failures of laundering money, by killing the batman. After receiving negative feedback from the bosses the joker leaves silently, Placinghis card on the table.

The mise-en-scene allows the audience to gather information about the story as it plays. The setting of the film is a fictional city called Gotham City; the filming took place in the streets of Chicago, portraying Gotham City as a more modern and safer city contrasting to the depictions in the previous batman.

There is a significant sound that is only played when the joker is acting out a criminal activity; the sound is played in the opening scene creating anticipation and helps build the dramatic feel, like a coiled up spring ready to burst into action.

The dominant image/ iconography of the text is the joker, he himself creates the action codes in the film with the mise-en-scene adding to the effect, (his costume, his extravagant make-up and his relationship towards the batman). This relates to the themes of the film, as one of the themes is that the joker should represent anarchy and chaos.

In a scene of Harvey Dent lying on a hospital bed after being burnt in several places, one being the left side of his face. The camera is placed to the right side of his thus only showing a medium shot of his right side, creating an enigma code, a sense of anxiety for the audience as they become uncomfortable and anxious as they either feel like looking away from the face of Harvey dent or begin to feel sympathy for him due to his loss.

Narrative

How is the narrative organised and structured?

How is the audience positioned in relation to the narrative?

How are characters delineated? What is their narrative function? How are heroes and villains created?

What techniques of identification and alienation are employed?

What is the role of such features as sound, music, iconography, genre, mise-en-scene, editing etc within the narrative?

What are the major themes of the narrative? What values/ideologies does it embody?

The narrative of The Dark Knight is linear as it consists of a beginning, middle and end. The film also has binary opposition present as there are many characters, some with a positive nature and some wanting a negative outcome. The structure of The Dark knight includesthe theory of Tzvetan Todorov by having equilibrium, disequilibrium and a new equilibrium.

In The Dark Knight a villain is created from a false hero, Harvey Dent to Two-Face.  Two-Face is created after the tragedy of him lying in a pool of oil and it being set alight, and having to live with the loss of his close female friend and colleague.

The joker’s noise as its referred to is to let the audience know that the joker is up to his antics once again and will return to their screens shortly causing more destruction and chaos.

Genre

To which genre does the text belong?

What are the major generic conventions within the text?

What are the major iconographic features of the text?

What are the major generic themes?

To what extent are the characters generically determined?

To what extent are the audience’s generic expectations of the text fulfilled or cheated by the text? Does the text conform to the characteristics of the genre, or does it treat them playfully or ironically?

Does the text feature a star, a director, a writer etc who is strongly associated with the genre? What meanings and associations do they have?

The Dark Knight is classed to be in the fantasy, action genre as the batman is a superhero which makes it lie in the fantasy genre. We can tell that the film is in the action genre at there are many key conventions of the genre portrayed in the film, for example, the violent fighting scenes, and explosions.The major generic convention featured in this text is violence, which tells the audience that isin the action genre.

The iconographic features of the film are the weaponry shown, batman’s gadgets and the joker’s artillery.The characters in the film are generically determined as the audience can easily distinguish who the good characters and bad characters are.

The film features a director who strongly associated with the genre, Christopher Nolan. Nolan has filmed the prequel to the Dark Knight, Batman Begins, Inception and is to direct the latest instalment of his batman series, The Dark Knight Rises. The Dark Knight also features a writer who is not only strongly associated with the text, he is associated with the director too, Jonathan Nolan Christopher’s brother wrote the story and screenplay for The Dark Knight and the soon to be Dark Knight Rises.The dark Knight also features a star, Christian Bale who is strongly associated with the films genre as he starred in Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Terminator Salvation and many more.

Media Institutions

What is the institutional source of the text?

In what ways has the text been influenced or shaped by the institution which produced it?

Is the source a public service or commercial institution? What difference does this make to the text?

Who owns and controls the institution concerned and does this matter?

How has the text been distributed?

The institutional source of the film ‘The Dark Knight’ is Warner Bros. Pictures (presentation), Legendary Pictures (in association with), Syncopy and DC Comics.Warner Bros. Studios was founded in 1918, and Warner Bros. Pictures was founded in 1923 by four brothers Jack, Harry, Albertand Sam Warner.

Warner Bros. Pictures is a commercial institution, this makes a small difference to the film to that if it were a public service, as the institution has built its name and reputation so its audience will know that the text is of good standard and that a lot of money and effort has gone into the production and development of this film and that they will be willing to spend their money on such entertainment.The Dark Knight was distributed around the world in theatres everywhere.

The film is addressed to the mass of Batman/ Super hero fans. The target audience of The Dark Knight is both males and females aged 15-30 social class B, C1. As the audience is of a young generation, they are more technology savvy that the older generation and more importantly, more internet savvy. This allows them to gain more information about the text even before it’s been released, such as Face book groups being made, allowing its users to gain information about the upcoming film or even receive tweets from the various produces or actors about the film. The internet also allow UGC (User Generated Content) Such as various campaigns; the ‘I believe in Harvey Dent’ online campaign.

As an audience member I view the film as a source of escapism and a form of entertainment. Being in the target audience age group has no effect on how I read the film, as I have seen the previous depictions of the film such as Batman (1989), Batman Returns (1992), Batman Forever (1995), Batman & Robin (1997), Batman Begins (2005)and have played one or two of the games. I had no real expectations, only to see who the villain would be and how the actor/ actress would portray them and the late Heath Ledger did a brilliant job.