The Dark Knight The Gotham Aesthetic... Or Lack Thereof.

[Fitzwilliam]

I wasn't happy with the look of Gotham in The Dark Knight. I feel that an opportunity was missed to have what is in my view, and ideal Gotham... A meeting point half way between the claustrophobic, dirty, grimy gritty Begins' Gotham, and the clinical, crisp fresh Gotham of TDK.

Gotham in TDK was more like Metropolis. It was clean and gleaming all the time. The streets were virtually pristine. Whenever we saw the docks they were in daylight, and it has to be said, they looked good even for docks.

The hospital, GPD, the bank... All were well kept and spotless. This is not reflective of a city that needs to be saved. In this film, Gotham is a Phoenix rising from the ashes, and just beginning to recover. Where was the continuity from Begins? TDK IS the sequel. I know much has been made of the monorail and Wayne enterprises etc. But apart from those, it's a COMPLETELY different looking city. We don't know how long has passed since the events in Begins, but don't forget that the Narrows was dessimated! And the city at that time was falling apart. It shouldn't be so perfect all of a sudden IMO.

Gotham is New York at Night, and Metropolis New York by day... And I have to be honest, it didn't come across that way... Which is disappointing, as in my view Gotham should always be one of the central characters in Batman films, and the city was devoid of a personality of its own in this film.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVED The Dark Knight, but this aspect is one thing I felt left down by...

**EDIT!!!** I forgot to put in a poll option for Batman The Animated Series!!! The Dark Deco look was BY FAR my favourite portrayal of Gotham in ANY medium!!!!! Ah no!!!


So I guess the question is... Was Gotham good enough, and which Gotham is better?

 

[LegendaryCaleb]

i liked the feel of gotham for TDK...its the more "realistic" approach of gotham...it was pretty good!
at least theres no ******ed neon lights everywhere*yikes*

 

[Bowl of Wrong]

Agreed. I felt the city lacked any real personality. Gotham isn't supposed to be any ordinary town, not when it's citizens dress up as bats and run around in purple suits and painted faces to commit their crimes. As such, the city should reflect this warped nature, not just look very generic. Not that I want gargoyles on every building, but there is a happy medium Nolan could've reached without compromising his vision I think.

 

[TheDarkKnight08]

I loved Gotham in TDK. It feels grander and much more epic. With ripping on previous ones (with the exception of BF and B&R) this Gotham fot its Batman much more than the previous.

That's just me, though.

 

[hatebox]

The point of TDK (and Begins)was to ask "Hey! what if these extraordinary characters and events took place in our world? How would that play out?"

Therefore the 'real-world' look was necessary and deliberate. Besides, if you saw begins you must surely have expected continuity in TDK?

 

[Fitzwilliam]

The point of TDK (and Begins)was to ask "Hey! what if these extraordinary characters and events took place in our world? How would that play out?"

Therefore the 'real-world' look was necessary and deliberate. Besides, if you saw begins you must surely have expected continuity in TDK?

Yes but where was that continuity!? It was totally absent! I don't mind the change in colour scheme, I actually liked it... But they were like two completely different cities!!!

And I agree with you. I think the point was to put them into our world... But name one American city which is that clean and crisp and pristine?! Seven took place in our world, Heat took place in our world, and they didn't take place in unrealistically perfect looking cities.

 

[TheDarkKnight08]

Yes but where was that continuity!? It was totally absent! I don't mind the change in colour scheme, I actually liked it... But they were like two completely different cities!!!

And I agree with you. I think the point was to put them into our world... But name one American city which is that clean and crisp and pristine?! Seven took place in our world, Heat took place in our world, and they didn't take place in unrealistically perfect looking cities.

Well, we didn't really see much of Gotham in BB as much as the Narrows and where Bruce was training. Only in some shots. I did feel there were some similarities between the 2, especially with the shots of Bruce undercover in BB.

 

[Fanticon]

i'm with the begins look...i wanted it to resemble that just a little while still opening it up a bit more with tdk...but every time i mention this every one jumps on my s*** so whatever...

 

[Fitzwilliam]

Well, we didn't really see much of Gotham in BB as much as the Narrows and where Bruce was training. Only in some shots. I did feel there were some similarities between the 2, especially with the shots of Bruce undercover in BB.

Yea I know the one you're talking about... When he was by the phone in the hoodie... but the streets were bustling with people... It was like any other American city. I liked that. It was the same when he was in the car with Rachel before they turned off into the underground.

But Think about TDK. Where did you see scenes of a vibrant city bustling with people? The Lamborghini scene? It weaved between a view cars on a street under a elevated train track. The escape from the heist? It just didn't seem like a realistic city... It looked far too utopian for a Batman city.

 

[LegendaryCaleb]

to me it looked like batman begins city except it didnt have an annoying orange tint...but thats just my opinion...
didnt we see more of the narrows in BB also?

 

[Shane Diesel]

I'll take a real city over a studio lot/hangar any day.

 

[Fitzwilliam]

I'll take a real city over a studio lot/hangar any day.

But that wasn't a real city! I mean, chicago is one of my favourite american cities... But even chicago doesn't look that well in real life! It's film magic!

As I said already... Think of the film Seven... When they call to his appartment and chase John Doe in the rain, or when they're doing the bust on the Sloth victim... Or when they're heading down into the brothel... That's real. The city is never given a name, it's a generic american city. Dirty, grimy and depressing (not that american cities are like that, but it was a look for the film). I think Nolan is wonderful, but I'd have loved a Dave Fincher look to Gotham... It's very real, very gritty, and very much the look of a city that needs saving.

 

[Shane Diesel]

But that wasn't a real city! I mean, chicago is one of my favourite american cities... But even chicago doesn't look that well in real life! It's film magic!

WHAT?!?!?!! That wasn't a real city?!?! All that was film magic? Amazing job they did.

 

[deathfromabove]

I'll take a real city over a studio lot/hangar any day.

agreed. although i admit i missed the claustrophobic retro futurism of the narrows a little bit, gotham felt like a living breathing city to me in TDK.

and as far as continuity goes, many of the locations are the same in both movies so i'm not really sure what you mean.

 

[Fitzwilliam]

WHAT?!?!?!! That wasn't a real city?!?! All that was film magic? Amazing job they did.

You know what I meant...

Just because it was filmed on location doesn't mean that it was realistic. It may have had the physical accoutrements of a real city, but it had none of the personality or character of a real city. It was so fake at times that it may as well have been on a set.

 

[Two-Face]

TDK's Gotham didn't bother me that much, I liked blueish feel it than the BB's brownish Gotham.

 

[Rezzo]

I loved the look of Gotham in The Dark Knight.

 

[deathfromabove]

But that wasn't a real city! I mean, chicago is one of my favourite american cities... But even chicago doesn't look that well in real life! It's film magic!

As I said already... Think of the film Seven... When they call to his appartment and chase John Doe in the rain, or when they're doing the bust on the Sloth victim... Or when they're heading down into the brothel... That's real. The city is never given a name, it's a generic american city. Dirty, grimy and depressing (not that american cities are like that, but it was a look for the film). I think Nolan is wonderful, but I'd have loved a Dave Fincher look to Gotham... It's very real, very gritty, and very much the look of a city that needs saving.

i live in chicago and i'm not sure what you are going on about.

and the grimey smokey dirty costantly raining city in peril has been done a thousand times by now. i'm glad pfister and nolan gave us something fresh.

besides the dirtiness the city had in se7en had more to do with the resilvering used in the film processing than the locations chosen.

 

[Fitzwilliam]

and as far as continuity goes, many of the locations are the same in both movies so i'm not really sure what you mean.

Well apart from the change in colour scheme, I feel that there was a lack of continuity in the look of Gotham. In BB with the final scenes with the train rushing towards wayne tower, and in TDK, with the confrontation with the Joker post truck filipping... Both of these were filmed on what was the same location, or at least using some of the same buildings. Compare them, they are drastically different.

When the same locations were used, in BB, those locations were made to look and filmed a certain way to given them a dirty grimy feel. In TDK they were made to look and filmed in a way that made them pristine and crisp and clean... Just because they were the same location doesn't mean that there was a common look between both.

There was a lack of continuity in the aesthetic, not the locations.

 

[hatebox]

The orange look was maintained at street level because that's the effect orange street lights have. TDK just had more aerial establishing shots, hence you thinking there was less orange.

 

[Fitzwilliam]

and the grimey smokey dirty costantly raining city in peril has been done a thousand times by now. i'm glad pfister and nolan gave us something fresh.

But Gotham is supposed to be a grimy dirty city in peril... It's called pathetic fallacy, with the rain etc reflecting the mood. I didn't do film studies, but is it mise en scene?

Gotham is a city struggling to recover from dreadful things, and that recovery is just beginning... I think that Gotham should look like a city that needs a hero vigilante dressed as a bat to do something extreme to save it... In this film Gotham is TOO nice looking! I'd love to live there!

 

[joke]

One of the major gripes with the movie. Nolan, adhering to his realism principle, took out the fantastic gothic element of Gotham and made it too.. ordinary. Too realistic. And no, let's not use hyperbole..

at least theres no ******ed neon lights everywhere*yikes*

Nobody wants neon! But that doesn't mean there isn't a middleground between neon-infested candytown and Nolan's Gotham.

 

[hatebox]

If nothing else I don't why people are complaining about this now. It wasn't as if the trailers... or even batman begins didn't make it completely obvious that this would be the case for TDK.

If you don't like Nolan's 'realism' take that's completely up to you, but you can't say that his Gotham is inconsistent with that vision. Nolan's Gotham isn't some far away, magical place like Burton's was - it's a city that could be in our world.

 

[Fanticon]

I'll take a real city over a studio lot/hangar any day.

don't be ridiculous...begins was shot in chicago and london and even a giant lot/hangar but blocked in a way so that it didn't resemble any recognizable city...along with added digitally enhanced background composites of other cities...TDK took that away a little and in my opinion showed disregard for the Gotham of Begins by blatantly placing it in Chicago without even trying to make us believe it could be some fictional mega city called Gotham...it clearly was Chicago...captured really well i might add, but still only a minor gripe of mine...and when and if the third movie comes along...i've accepted the fact that it'll be more like tdk. it didn't take away from how great the entire film was.

 

[Fitzwilliam]

If nothing else I don't why people are complaining about this now. It wasn't as if the trailers... or even batman begins didn't make it completely obvious that this would be the case for TDK.

If you don't like Nolan's 'realism' take that's completely up to you, but you can't say that his Gotham is inconsistent with that vision. Nolan's Gotham isn't some far away, magical place like Burton's was - it's a city that could be in our world.

Dude... I love the realistic take on Gotham.

The point I thought I had been making quite clearly was that I found TDK's Gotham to be too fresh, clean and pristine. IMO, Gotham is meant to be dank and grimy, it's meant to look like a city in need of a saviour. I wanted more realism, more dirt, more grime.

I said NOTHING about not liking his take on realism, I'm actually astonished at how you could even thing that! In fact, I'd love, out of curiosity, if you could show me where you got that impression. I loved the movie and the take, just not the aesthetic. Aesthetic means the look of something. My point is that a corrupt, morally cripled city in need of a masked vigilante in the real world would not look as crisp and as fresh as TDK's Gotham.

As Columbo would say...

Oh, and one more thing... I think it is stupid and pointless to start complaining about the aesthetic of a film from 1 min and thirty seconds worth of quickly edited shots from a trailer. I prefer to watch a film and to know what I'm talking about before I pass comment. I'm complaining about it now as I've had the opportunity to watch it a couple of times.

And BB Gotham doesn't look much like TDK Gotham... That's actually one of my main points. Please read my posts more carefully.