Christopher Nolan's ‘Dark Knight’ trilogy : revisioning ‘film noir’ conventions

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between Film Noir and Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy in order to further understand the extent to which one could describe the trilogy as being steeped in the mood of Film Noir whilst shedding light onto the relevance of Noir in contemporary cinema. This is achieved through a thorough examination of the three films in question and the formative aspects of film language within them, multiple cinematic sources, other artistic influences on the trilogy (especially the Noir Batman comic books), established Film Noir characteristics and conventions, together with an array of historical and sociological influences analogising the trilogy’s origins and the origins of its influences with that of Film Noir. In doing so, the concept of Film Noir is exhaustively explored through the interrelated examination of both, its components and Christopher Nolan’s trilogy; whereby, in identifying the aforementioned trilogy as being of the Noir type, the study concurrently asserts its proposition on Noir as being an ethos, presenting a moral and existentialist philosophy as a reflection of the contemporary unrest within the self and society. Therefore, apart from providing a rigorous framework/approach to the analysis of Film Noir which can be appropriated to other contexts, this study provides sufficient evidence that Film Noir is not rigidly bound to time nor space but is rather a product of its milieu; evincing that the Noir ethos can be appropriated across several media/artforms to illustrate the individual and collective existential angst.