“Bruce needs to be broken down and taken to this place”: Christopher Nolan Missed a Key Element From Christian Bale’s Escape From the Pit in The Dark Knight Rises
Christopher Nolan kicked off his Dark Knight trilogy with 2005’s Batman Begins. The film delved into the origins of Bruce Wayne as a child, confronting his fears and slowly growing up to be the vigilante we know as Batman. The trilogy became the most celebrated superhero trilogies of all time, exploring the characters’ eccentricities in a grounded and nuanced way.
Batman faces off against Bane in The Dark Knight Rises
By the time The Dark Knight Rises rolled around, the character had suffered a great loss and had become a recluse. A disillusioned Bruce Wayne was thrown into an underground prison by Bane. Instead of Nolan, his brother Jonathan Nolan came up with this interesting idea that harkened back to the first film where a young Bruce Wayne fell into a well.
The Symbolic Open-Air Prison in The Dark Knight Rises Was Jonathan Nolan’s Idea
Bruce Wayne’s escape from the underground prison in The Dark Knight Rises
After delivering two amazing Batman films, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan had a high bar to achieve with the last film in his trilogy. The Dark Knight Rises had to bring a huge narrative shift for Christian Bale‘s Bruce Wayne after The Dark Knight‘s harrowing events led to Bruce Wayne becoming disillusioned and reclusive.
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This makes Batman incapable of facing off against Bane in their first encounter, and he gets dumped into an underground open-air prison. The idea of Bruce falling into a ‘pit’ (where he has to face his fears and insecurities yet again) came through Nolan’s bother Jonathan Nolan.
The director wanted Bruce to be broken down and taken to a place that reflected his failure. Nolan later realized how the underground prior was the perfect place for Bruce’s fall and his eventual rise after moving on from his insecurities. Nolan said (via Christopher Nolan Art & Updates on X),
It was Jonah who came up with this idea of this underground prison, open to the sky, too, which is just a phenomenal idea. I had told him that Bruce needs to be broken down and taken to this place and it’s got to be somewhere exotic. It doesn’t work if you imagine it in a building but as a hole in the ground, as a pit, then it has resonance, like being trapped at the bottom of a well.
Fans also pointed out the visual resemblance of the open-air prison and the well from Batman Begins. The film’s timely lesson of falling in life so that one can pick themselves up is reflected yet again in The Dark Knight Rises as Bruce grows stronger and escapes from the prison as the film progresses. Here are some of the reactions,
I always loved the visual symmetry of Bruce falling into a pit in BATMAN BEGINS and then climbing out of one in THE DARK KNIGHT RISES. https://t.co/OYpppZqz9D pic.twitter.com/03Z1B6MlRD
— Dan Marcus (@Danimalish) May 19, 2024
The symbolism in this scene has a deep psychological resonance. It closes the circle in Begins when Alfred says to Bruce “Why do we fall?” Without help and without the rope. It’s up to us to rise from the darkness, to face our fears and overcome them.
— Jo-c (@thejosephtm) May 19, 2024
Rises is a symbolic movie.
— maxarus (@maxarus) May 19, 2024
Only now realizing the pit is harkening back to when Bruce fell into a well as a kid
— Colby Conrad (@ColbyConrad) May 19, 2024
Amazing
— Spideyrolan (@Spideyrolan) May 19, 2024
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As fans have pointed out, The Dark Knight Rises deconstructs Bruce Wayne yet again by harkening back to his past and building himself up yet again. The character needed to be put through the wringer so that he could go through a mental and spiritual transformation to improve himself and be the Batman that the world needs desperately with Bane wreaking havoc on Gotham.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt Believes The Dark Knight Rises Has the Perfect Ending
Joseph Gordon-Levitt as John Blake in The Dark Knight Rises
Christopher Nolan ended his Dark Knight trilogy on a rather ambiguous note with Bruce Wayne presumably hanging up his cape and cowl after defeating Bane and living a normal life with Selena Kyle. He leaves his Batman essentials and the Batcave to Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s John Blake, seemingly hinting at him, taking on the moniker of Batman.
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In an interview with Cinemablend, Gordon-Levitt stated that Nolan delivered the perfect conclusion to a three-arc narrative through the trilogy. The moral that Batman is more than a man, but a symbol of justice and hope while also hinting at another man becoming Batman, makes it a perfect ending. The actor said,
I think Nolan very much thought of that movie as a conclusion, and there’s a theme that runs through all three of those movies that begins in the first movie, runs through the second movie and it concludes in that moment where he says that Batman is more than a man, Batman is a symbol… I think that’s the perfect ending to that story.
While The Dark Knight Rises was considered inferior to the first two films, it has since been re-evaluated and has seen a resurgence in recent years. The symbolic nature of the film and deconstruction of what it is to be Batman makes it a compelling watch, delivering a resonant ending to the trilogy.
Fans can watch The Dark Knight Rises on Max.
The post “Bruce needs to be broken down and taken to this place”: Christopher Nolan Missed a Key Element From Christian Bale’s Escape From the Pit in The Dark Knight Rises appeared first on FandomWire.
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