The opening scene in The Dark Knight Rises is Christopher Nolan's proudest moment in his career
Topics: News, Film and TV, Christopher Nolan
Charisa Bossinakis
Featured Image Credit: Warner Bros.
Topics: News, Film and TV, Christopher Nolan
If you've ever wondered what Christopher Nolan believes is his best ever shot, wonder no more.
While the filmmaker is the brains behind some of the most celebrated films of this century - Inception, Memento, The Prestige, and the Batman trilogy - Nolan has previously said that the opening sequence to The Dark Rises is a career highlight.
During a panel at the Tribeca Film Festival back in 2015, the director noted that while many heavy action-packed scenes would have relied on CGI, Nolan is pleased he turned to ‘old fashioned methods’ for that iconic shot where we see Bane for the first time.
"I was amazed at what the team achieved using various old-fashioned methods,” he said, via Business Insider.
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"I was very proud of how that came together."
In the opening sequence, Nolan introduces the threequel’s villain Bane, as he hijacks an aircraft that he literally drops to the ground.
The scene, which was filmed in Scotland, was impressively filmed by having a real plane descend from the sky.
And if that wasn't enough, the crew had initially planned to shoot the scene over five days; however, they managed to have it wrapped in two.
He said it's the proudest cinematic moment of his career purely due to the 'pure mechanics' of the shot.
But the lead-up was intense, Nolan revealed.
"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," Nolan said.
In the film’s featurette, special effects supervisor Chris Corbould said the film had ‘relentless action’, while director of photography Wally Pfister said everyone had to bring their A-game.
“We do get a great kick out of doing this action work - to be in Inverness Scotland flying over with an aircraft with four stunt men hanging off an airplane," Pfister said.
Tom Struthers, stunt coordinator, added: “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.”
And the hard work definitely paid off, as the third Batman flick went on to earn USD $1.081 billion (AUD $1.6b) at the box office, with many critics applauding Nolan for not relying on CGI.
Cinema Autosp writer Thomas Caldwell wrote: “Even the elements of the film created with CGI have a photorealistic tactile quality to them; further validating Nolan’s decision to resist digital filmmaking.
"Not that Nolan isn’t a technical innovator as demonstrated by the film’s impressive scenes shot in IMAX and the visceral sound design where every bullet, grind of metal and kick to the head sounds like a mini symphony.”
Now, while Nolan mentioned his proudest moment back in 2015, his attitude might have changed since then.
He's since released the likes of Dunkirk and Tenet, the latter of which saw him blow up an actual 747 plane.
The pure mechanics behind that would have been immense.
He's also due to release Oppenheimer later this year and focuses on how the atomic bomb was created.