Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy remains a critically acclaimed superhero movie and a classic fan favorite. The actors’ performances were lauded, but what really impressed the viewers was the director’s use of practical effects.
Nolan is known for avoiding special effects and computer-generated imagery as much as possible, so most of the stunts in his Batman films were realistic. In fact, the director labeled one of the most intense scenes in the film as his proudest moment because it was genuine.
Christopher Nolan Talked About His Proudest Moment In The Dark Knight Rises
A post from Twitter shared a clip from Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises where Tom Hardy’s Bane and his henchmen were trying to hijack a plane. The fan revealed that the “audience erupted into applause” after the teaser was shown on screen.
Christopher Nolan describes this scene as his proudest moment as a director. I’ll never forget watching this for the first time in 2011 as a prologue in front of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE – GHOST PROTOCOL at the Navy Pier IMAX. The audience erupted into applause at the end. https://t.co/bvNINyhSbj pic.twitter.com/vYTnMK8pVO
— Dan Marcus (@Danimalish) February 7, 2024
During his appearance at the Tribeca Film Festival, director Christopher Nolan discussed via Business Insider how they shot the aerial scene in The Dark Knight Rises.
“It was sort of an incredible coming together of lots and lots of planning by a lot of members of the team who worked for months rehearsing all these parachute jumps. I was amazed at what the team achieved using various old-fashioned methods. I was very proud of how that came together.”
The scene was scheduled for a five-day shoot, but the crew managed to finish it in just two. Nolan also obtained permission from the Scottish government to drop a real plane. Stunt coordinator Tom Struthers once stated via Rotten Tomatoes Trailers:
“With Chris Nolan, as much as we can do outside of that lens, where he would like to go, we had them [stuntmen] on the outside of the aircraft shooting through the windows, it was a big thing to come together.”
The Dark Knight Rises became a worldwide success, earning over $1 billion against a production budget of $230 million.
Christopher Nolan On Using Practical Effects On His Films
Christopher Nolan went to extreme lengths to make Christian Bale’s The Dark Knight Rises. He told the NY Daily News:
“Really, your job as director is to ignore the scale of things and just look at the shot that you’re going to put on screen — and how that’s going to further the story.”
No matter how ambitious the scenes, Nolan always finds a way to shoot them using practical methods. He notably avoids going overboard with digital effects and prefers realistic stunts.
“To me, it’s about choice. What I don’t want to see happen is for filmmakers to lose the choice to shoot on film, because it is the best form… [especially] if you’re trying to tell a story that has a naturalistic feel, where you want to show the [film’s] world the way your eyes would see it.”
A really dangerous scene like that of Bane hijacking a plane mid-air and dropping it to the ground for real truly entailed a lot of preparation, caution, and budget. There’s no wonder why the film is so revered.
The Dark Knight Rises is available to watch on Netflix.
