Christopher Nolan Discusses 'The Dark Knight Rises' IMAX Prologue

So the viral marketing begins with "Operation Early Bird" (to which Get The Big Picture's David Hoffman covered, click here to read) and the twitter handle "fire rises".  It's no surprise that promoting the heck out of the IMAX Prologue (which will premiere in front of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol next week) will make the internet buzz with praise/scrutiny by comic book fans.  Until then, read up on what director Christopher Nolan has to say about the last installment The Dark Knight Rises.

Entertainment Weekly wrote about Nolan's interview on the prologue and that during a Thursday night screening sneak peek, hosted by Nolan himself, spoke about challenges (and advantages) shooting in the cumbersome IMAX format.  "Any concern that Nolan would be daunted by topping The Dark Knight‘s scope and scale will be eradicated after audiences get a look at what he has in store for The Dark Knight Rises."

Here's a brief description of the prologue and by guess, if you're reading this article I don't have to mention that SPOILERS are ahead: 

There's our introduction to Bane, which happens entirely in the air, "a sequence that also features Game of Thrones actor Aiden Gillen and is unlike anything I think I’ve seen in its go-for-broke ambition.  Nolan introduced the footage by singing the praises of the IMAX format, and expressing his fervent wish in using it to help bring back “the grandeur of the movies”."

The "leaked" CIA documents apparently serve a purpose in seeing the IMAX prologue.  Also, there's been word that Bane's dialogue is hard to understand, except for one moment "when someone asks Bane if he’ll die should his now widely seen mask be removed.  Bane’s reply: “It would be extremely painful — for you.”"

Intriguing...  Here's the first part of the interview that Nolan has with EW:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Like several of your other films, this opening sequence justbegins — we’re in it from the get-go.  Why do you like to do that?
CHRISTOPHER NOLAN: You know, I probably haven’t thought it through intellectually, if you like.  My feeling, particularly on an action film, is you want to be thrown into a situation that somehow takes your breath away early in the film.  I think rhythmically — you know, I view these films as pieces of music — if you start with a bit of a bang, it buys you more time to then calmly move into the story and the characters.  We have a lot of characters in this film, a lot of people to introduce, a lot of catching up to do with the audience.  So I think it was important to really throw something big on screen and then take our time.

How much of the film did you shoot on IMAX?
We shot about twice what we did last time [on The Dark Knight], at least.  Last time we were about 25 minutes [in IMAX].  Obviously, I haven’t cut [the rest of The Dark Knight Rises] yet, so I don’t know the exact running time, but I think we’ll be in the 45 to 50 minute range.  Basically all the actions sequences, and some of the more large-scale other bits of the film that aren’t necessarily action.  We even shot some dialogue scenes and some quite intimate dramatic scenes, which we haven’t done before.  And so some of that will make its way into the film.

Did you ever contemplate shooting the entire film in IMAX?
I didn’t, because the cameras are so loud and so large, it wouldn’t really have been fair for the actors to make them do all the dramatic scenes that way.  Although, I have to say, there were some very intense scenes that we did do in front of this massive camera that sounds like a generator or something, and they really did a spectacular job.

Would you ever shoot a film only in IMAX?
Oh, it would depend on the film.  I don’t like to use ADR sound — I don’t like to record the dialogue afterwards.  And so, unless they could make an IMAX camera that was quiet enough to shoot dialogue scenes, I think I’d always want to go to 35mm,  or 65mm like we did withInception.

With this prologue out there, people who have been anticipating this movie for a while are going to scrutinize and devour it. Are you excited by that? Are you nervous?
I am excited about it.  I’m only nervous about it in that the rest of the film isn’t finished yet, so we’re still in the evolving creative process.  I wouldn’t want the reactions to skew that.  We try to work in a vacuum a little bit.

How much are you finding the film in the editing room? Or do you pretty much know how it fits together in your head?
It’s always different in the editing room.  There’s a lot of discovery and a long process of rediscovery.

Check back sometime next week when the rest of the interview will be published online and you can rest assured that GTBP will be following up on that.

The Dark Knight Rises is directed by Christopher Nolan.  Starring Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman and Anne Hathaway.  The film is set for release 20 July 2012.