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Skripkina, Svetlana (2015)

Confronting Darkness: An Exploration of Tone, Heightened Reality and the Function of Ambiguity in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy

Bachelor thesis | Engelse taal en cultuur (BA)
The 21st century film iteration of Batman was created by Christopher Nolan who reimagined the character and his story in The Dark Knight Trilogy by adopting a darker, grittier, more serious tone. This thesis will explore how the shift in tone moved the films away from fantasy into what might be termed a heightened reality, thereby allowing for the creation of a more complex, Batman-orientated narrative. Moreover, this thesis will demonstrate how these changes deepened the superhero genre and brought to the foreground the ambiguous, morally gray nature of the main protagonist, which resulted in the redefinition of how a superhero can be presented and understood, and lifted the ‘superhero film’ above being mere escapist entertainment.
Batman
The Dark Knight
Tone
Heightened reality
Ambiguity
Heroes
Superheroes
Christopher Nolan
Author
Skripkina, Svetlana
Faculty
Faculty of Humanities
Supervisors
Newton, Michael
ECTS Credits
10
Language
en