How To Perfectly Introduce A Villain

Every guy gets a share, five shares is plenty

Six shares. Don't forget the guy playing the job. He thinks he can sit it out and still take a slice

I know why they call him the Joker. The Dark Knight has cemented itself as one of the foundational pieces of media in the modern

superhero landscape. This intricately plotted, deeply character-driven story propelled the genre to never-before-seen heights. Director Christopher Nolan's masterful filmmaking

is perfectly shown across every frame of the film's four-minute and 47-second opening scene

A sequence so well choreographed that it might be called perfect. And here we go

One word defines the ambition behind Nolan's superhero magnum opus, Scope. Coming off the back of the franchise resurrecting Batman Begins

Nolan and company had the grandest of ambitions for their sophomore effort

They wanted to take the canvas that they established with Begins and extrapolate it out to be a crime epic worthy of the likes of Heat

Once Upon a Time in America, or The Godfather. And against all odds, they succeeded

And this is nowhere more on display than in the opening shot of the film

Nolan spared no expense in bringing an epic scale to the project by attempting something

that had never been done before. Shoot full sequences on 35 millimeter IMAX cameras

For those that don't know, this is what the IMAX ratio of 1, 4, 3 to 1 looks like

And this is what the rest of the Dark Knight in traditional widescreen ratio of 2, 3, 9 to 1 looks like

The IMAX aspect ratio has more room for compositional elements on the top of and bottom of the screen

When Nolan decided to shoot 28 minutes of the film in IMAX

there were only four cameras that could even shoot the IMAX format in the world

But he believed it would be absolutely necessary to capture the sense of scope and visual spectacle

he was looking for in order to propel the film into being an epic

The scene opens with two criminals in clown masks breaking a window out of a high rise and firing a zip line at a nearby building The tension soundtrack and illicit activity immediately sets up a dramatic tension that harkens back to classic

crime capers. The city of Gotham is nothing if not synonymous with crime, and this film

cements that idea right out of the gate. We quickly move to a wide shot of another criminal

waiting on a street corner, holding a duffel bag, and carrying a clown mask. We next intercut

between the criminals on the roof ziplining across a cavernous expanse onto the roof of

the adjacent building and the three criminals in the truck discussing how many men are involved

in the heist. We also learned that this project has been set up by a mastermind named the Joker

Unlike many superhero and comic book movies today who cram the running time to the gills with cameos

Easter eggs, and setups for future projects, this opening's mention of the Joker services

the character in a distinctly different way. It immediately sets up the Joker as someone bigger

than street level. Nolan directs this sequence superbly. The audience understands the geography

of what's happening, how many people are involved, and what they are doing. This is doubly impressive

when considering that all the characters are basically wearing the same mask. Normally

you just give close-ups on the faces of the actors to help an audience track who's who

but with everyone wearing ostensibly the same clown face, that's a tall order to accomplish

quickly. Nolan relies on the voices of the actors and the staging within the frame to communicate

importance to the audience. As the criminals exit the truck and enter the bank, we focus on the final

clown holding the duffel bag. Without giving the man any additional identifying markers or dialogue

Nolan is reaffirming that the man and the bag are important. When the criminals storm into the bank

we follow them with multiple sweeping steadicam shots, giving the scene movement and excitement

from a visual standpoint. It puts us with them, storming the facility

Next, the duffel bag clown opens his bag, revealing that it's filled with grenades and explosives

As a bank teller triggers a silent alarm, and the criminals on the roof notice that it wasn attempting to call the cops but a private line that can only mean one thing organized crime We get a quick insert of iconic character actor William Fichtner bank manager looking apprehensive

And then we follow the duffel bag criminal as he hands out grenades to the bank hostages and employees

William Fichtner pulls out a sawed-off shotgun, stalks towards the bank robbers, and starts screaming

You have any idea who you're stealing from? You and your friends are dead

This serves two purposes. It serves as a payoff to the setup of the phone call line

and it cements that this institution isn't owned by a corporation. It's backed by criminals

It also firmly distinguishes that the criminals we've been following aren't a part of organized crime

They're an outside element coming into an already corrupt ecosystem. The truck driver and the duffel bag clown dive behind a desk

and when the driver asks, He's out, right? the duffel bag clown thinks for a split second, then nods, Yes

As the driver stands up, he's hit with a shotgun blast, sending the duffel bag criminal into action

It's apparent that the additional focus and emphasis placed on this clown

in the opening shots were for a good reason. Him falsely identifying the number of shotgun shells the bank manager had left was a tactic

He wanted the driver to be shot. But why? Is he working with an ulterior motive supplied by the Joker

We cut to the vault room where the driver and the rooftop criminal have a small exchange

The rooftop criminal confesses that he killed his fellow zipliner and that the Joker told him to do it

To which the driver retorts, Funny, you told me something similar. We jump cut to moments later when they've loaded millions of dollars into nine duffel bags

The truck driver says, I'm betting the Joker told you to kill me as soon as we loaded the cash

To which the other criminal responds, No, no, no, no, I killed a bus driver

Acting as a setup for the highly unexpected and perfectly staged shot

where a bus careens through the front of the building and kills the truck driver

This is a tonally perfect adaptation of the Joker's goofy antics from the Silver Age appearances

but evolved to put into Christopher Nolan grounded and more realistic world The static camera serves to accentuate the absurdity of this violent act After loading the bus killing the driver and having an

interaction with the bank manager, the duffel bag clown unmasks, revealing himself to be the Joker

This opening serves as both an introduction to the character of the Joker, the world of Gotham

and how those two puzzle pieces fit together. And just to make sure the audience can track what's

happening, the Joker is introduced three times in the scene, visually twice and verbally once

This goes back to the idea of the scope that Nolan is working at. He's not going to just give his

villain one hero shot. He's going to construct a whole scene that acts as both a character

introduction, world introduction, and film introduction. This prologue sets up the emphasis on choreography, action, and the unreliable narrator that is the Joker. It's a marker that as

the film progresses, the Joker is going to be orchestrating events and pulling the strings of

multiple factions of people. It also brilliantly illustrates that the Joker isn't some aloof

criminal watching these events from a penthouse. He's a man with his boots on the ground

carrying out the dirty work just as diligently as he planned it. You can't rely on anyone these days. You gotta do everything yourself, don't we

The Dark Knight uses this opening to create a sense of scale and scope that no other modern

superhero film rivals. One of the primary reasons for its narrative success is because of the fact

that the film actually has an opening scene, a bite-sized chunk of narrative to pull the viewer

in. It has an opening shot that's significant. It has a style and a point of view that so many

superhero films just can't afford to because they're attempting to squeeze themselves into

an overarching narrative of multiple films. It's action-oriented and filmed on a scale literally

never attempted before in the history of cinema. The Dark Knight has stood the test of time

regardless of the fact that there are literally tens of superhero films released a year

The prestige and narrative propulsion that people connect to from this film

flow directly from this opening