‘The Dark Knight’ was released in 2008 and was directed by Christopher Nolan (Memento, Batman Begins, Inception). It starred Christian Bale as the main character of Bruce Wayne/Batman and joining him in the cast were an array of brilliant actors. Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Aaron Eckhart played other main roles and Heath Ledger’s portrayal of The Joker won him an incredible thirty-four awards from film associations and award companies all over the world. The dark action and thriller movie won just under ninety awards in total and its elements of dark humour mixed with lots of action meant that the film appealed to a mass array of film watchers.
‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl’ was released in 2003 and was directed by the virtually unheard of Gore Verbinski (The Ring, Mousehunt, Rango). Pirates of the Caribbean saw Johnny Depp playing the main role of Captain Jack Sparrow, whose character, Depp has said, is based on rock and roll legend Keith Richards. An all-star cast join Depp with Orlando Bloom playing innocent blacksmith Will Turner, Keira Knightley playing the spoilt daughter to the Governor of Port Royal and Geoffrey Rush playing cursed Captain Barbossa. The film won thirty five awards and was received well by the general public with pirate movies generally absent from cinema for at least ten years.
The first scene from ‘The Dark Knight’ lasts for about five minutes and gives the audience an idea of the type of film it is and what can be expected. The audience also see the villain of the film for the first time. The film opens with a panning shot over some sky scrapers so immediately; the audience know the location where the film is to be set. Assuming that the audience know basic ideas of Batman, they will know that the city is Gotham City. We see men with clown masks obviously preparing to do something illegal, as the mask is a way for them to hide their identity and also create fear out of something usually perceived as happy and joyful (the clown face). Three of the five men saunter into a bank with guns – their intention is clear. The other two are on the roof disabling the alarm system. It comes across as a very stereotypical bank heist. They threaten the people in the bank and made them hold onto grenades. However, there is an immediate twist, the bank robbers start killing each other off as soon as one person has done the job they set out to do. The first to be shot is the one that disables the alarm. They all use the excuse of ‘one less share’ and after a rebellion from one of the bank workers, the remaining two load money into big bags and pile them ready to be taken. One of the robbers threatens to shoot the other but before he can, a bus comes through the wall and runs him over. The one remaining bank robber walks over to the rebellious bank worker who is continuing to threaten him even though he is in a lot of pain. The robber puts what looks like a smoke grenade in his mouth and takes off his mask and so the audience see the Joker for the first time.
The scene where we first see the main character from 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl', Captain Jack Sparrow, is about eight and a half minutes into the feature. The audience see him standing in the crows nest looking out over the sea where land is nearby. He looks cool and in control but the audience soon learn that he is on a small boat by himself and that boat is sinking. He tries to use a bucket to get rid of the water but he interrupts himself when he sees the corpses of pirates hung as an example by the powers of th land he is near. He takes his hat off to them and salutes them as a sign of respect. From this the audience learns that he too is a pirate and from this, the audience are made aware of the risks that the character takes coming to this land. His boat sinks just as he comes into port and he is able to step off the crows nest onto the dock. He encounters a dock master, asking for a docking charge and his name. Sparrow offers him more in an effort not to have to tell him his name and he accepts with the line: ‘Welcome to Port Royal Mr Smith.’ This suggests to the audience that Sparrow wants to stay as unknown as possible. He then walks down to the lower dock where he encounters two men dressed in an almost military uniform who try to keep him off the dock. Sparrow’s responses to the speech of the two officals is humourous and instantly makes the audience like the character. However, the two officials come across as likeable too due to their air of stupidity. In their argument over whether one of the officials has seen the notorious pirate ship, The Black Pearl, Sparrow is able to sneak quietly onto the deck of the Interceptor – a vessel belonging to the powers of Port Royal. When the officials catch up with him and ask of Sparrow’s purpose in Port Royal, he tells the truth and then cleverly words an argument about whether or not he is telling the truth in a successful effort to confuse them. This tells the audience that Sparrow is clever and good at using his wit to get out of tricky situations.
Mise-en-scène is an important element to all films and each element offers something different to films. There are five elements of mise-en-scène: costume, hair and make-up; lighting; facial expressions and body language; setting and props; positioning of characters or objects in a frame.
There are lots of things that the audience can infer from the opening five minutes of ‘The Dark Knight’ and ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl’ and everything that can be inferred is because of elements of mise-en-scène. Starting with costume, hair and make-up, there are many things that can be inferred. Because of the suits-like attire of the bank workers, the audience know subconsciously that they are a working individual and that where they work probably have a formal dress code. Because the start is set in a city, you assume that the workers live within the city and, like most city livers, take public transport to work. So just from everyday people’s costume, you can begin to imagine what kind of life they have. The robbers too wear suit-like attire. This could be inferred to mean that they are ordinary people, just like those in the bank so that it shows that even normal people are strange and do bad things. The formal attire of the bank robbers could also reflect the state of Gotham society and how it’s getting so that ordinary people are doing drastic things. In this scene, the joker wears the same attire as the rest of the bank robbers though later on in the film, the audience see his usual attire of a blue shirt, green waistcoat and purple suit jacket and trousers. This clashing of multiple colours could be conveying the Joker’s warped and confused state of mind. In this opening scene however, there is nothing to distinguish the Joker from the rest of the bank robbers except until right at the end of the scene where he removes his clown mask to reveal his scarred and made up face. The scars are extensions of both sides of his mouth so it looks like he is always smiling. He covers his face in white make-up and puts black around his eyes so that he looks like a damned clown. It brings fear to his victims as he has taken an innocent and childish character and made it into something horrific. This could convey how his life was turned upside down when he received the scars and how the scars made people see his once charming face as freakish and maybe he believes that because a part of his life has been changed for the worst, others should be too.
In ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl’, the costumes are reminiscent of the 1700s and the Georgian era. The men, like Commodore Norrington and Governor Swann wear tight breeches with long socks, decorative shirts/waistcoats and a long and decorative coat which hides most of the leg. Women, like Elizabeth Swann wear long dresses which are tight around the waist (this is because the corset was a new fashion trend back then) and with a wide, full skirt so that their curves were accentuated. This highlights for the audience how important fashion was for the people of that time and also gives then an indication of the time in which this film is set. The main character of Captain Jack Sparrow has a very flamboyant costume just like the Joker in ‘The Dark Knight’. Because he is a pirate, he will obviously not be very rich and his costume will reflect that. In this film, Sparrow’s costume is a bizarre arrangement of materials and objects that he has picked up from his travels. The audience can infer from his costume that he has been to many places. For example, in his hair is an array of items such as a reindeer bone so the audience learns that he’s travelled a long way. He also has beads and foreign currency. Around his waist is a piece of woven cloth, probably from somewhere like India, so again, the audience are made aware of where he has travelled. The way is in which Sparrow dresses also give away indications of his personality. His flamboyant choice of clothing can be inferred to mean that he is confident, maybe a little cocky, but creative and therefore quick thinking. The quirkiness of his items of clothing shows that he thinks outside the box and could also be inferred to mean that he is not what we think of as a stereotypical pirate.
Because you cannot see the facial expressions of the bank robbers in ‘The Dark Knight’, it makes the audience wonder, as it leaves their facial expression to be imagined and the audience can therefore conclude what the robbers may be thinking or feeling by what is going on around them. These masks are a clever way of leaving things unsaid. They leave their identities and their expressions as a mystery to whoever watches the film. Their confident swagger when they walk and their lack of hesitance to point guns as bank workers suggest that they are a confident group of people and they have a clear idea of what they are meant to be doing. Casual shooting of their colleagues show how they don’t care about the people they are with and that money is all that is important to them. From this, the audience could infer that the men under the masks are all young and naïve men who haven’t really had an experience of the world and so they have been easily persuaded to doing the heist with their greed for money leading them to agree to the job.
When the audience first see Captain Jack Sparrow, it is clear that he has a very determined look on his face though what he is determined to do the audience do not know yet. Because of this, a curiosity from the audience is created. What is Sparrow trying to do? Facial expressions and body language are a key part of any film. The audience of a film can infer so much more from facial expressions than words sometimes and so it’s important to have good actors. When Sparrow looks down to his boat, again, the audience cannot see what he is looking at but it is clear from the expression on his face that there is a problem. Unlike ‘The Dark Knight’ none of the characters in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl’ have masks on so every character’s facial expression is clear to the audience so on that front, nothing is left unsaid. However, Gore Verbinski choses for the audience to see the facial expression before showing what the character is looking at so for a moment, there is an air of uncertainty as to what the character’s looking at. In ‘The Dark Knight’ uncertainty is created by the masks and they hide the bank robbers’ faces.
Lighting is another element of mise-en-scène which can subtly convey things to the audience. For example, in ‘The Dark Knight’ the one bank worker who tries to rebel against the bank robbers is always in the light, whether it is sunlight or light form a lamp, he is always in the lighter part of the shot which highlights his good intentions. Even though he is trying to shoot the robbers, he is doing it for the good of the people of Gotham. Also, right at the start of the film when two of the bank robbers are setting up their wire so they can glide across to the bank’s building, the light inside the building they in is dark while it is light outside. This could be used to show the audience that the two people in the building are, in common terms, ‘bad guys’.
In ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl’, not much can be said about lighting being the scene that I am analysing is set outdoors in natural sunlight however there are a few examples of how light can be used to convey something important. When Sparrow is talking to the two officials at the lower dock, there are two ships in the background. One ship, in the shadows looks far bigger and more impressive than the ship in the foreground however the ship in the foreground has the sun shining on it. This could be inferred to the audience that the ship in the foreground is better than it seems and the audience is told soon after seeing the ship that there is no ship that can match its’ speed. So while in ‘The Dark Knight’ lighting is often used to determine good from evil, in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl’ its use is much more subtle and something that the audience really has to look into to understand properly and gage a deeper meaning of the story.
In ‘The Dark Knight’ a lot of the props are used to highlight the personality and intentions of some of the characters. For instance, most of the props used by the bank robbers (guns, van, bags etc.) are dark, indicating their rebellious intensions. However, the main props of the bank robbers are their masks which are white. Clown masks could be used to show how fear can easily be created by innocent things and how nothing is safe from fear in Gotham anymore. The white masks contrasting with the darkness of the other props highlight just how bad the bank robbers really are. Things like lamps which are turned on and bright desks in the bank are used to show the innocent and good intentions of the people inside the bank.
Like in ‘The Dark Knight’, a lot of the props in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl’ are weapons. People like Murtogg and Mullroy (the two officials at the lower dock) are armed with bayonets while Sparrow carries a sword and a flintlock pistol. Large props like ships are scattered throughout the scene which shows the audience that using boats as a method of transport was regular in the time in which this film is set. Things like barrels in the backgrounds of shots add autchticity and the audience begin to feel as though they are part of that world. Small props in both movies make a real difference to locations and how a shot looks. Props in ‘The Dark Knight’ are much more about identifying good and bad while the props in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl’ are much more about giving the film authenticity. There is nothing to be inferred from the props characters own as it can be identified from their costume, the location or the words that they speak.
The way a character is positioned within the frame can be powerful like in ‘The Dark Knight’ when, at the end of the opening scene, there is a close up shot of The Joker’s face. His face is the only thing in the shot and so the audience is forced to look at his face and therefore, at his scars and the horror of his appearance is recognised fully because the audience has no other choice of a visual. The close up allows the audience to subconsciously look into his life. The audience infers that he must have undergone some kind of tragedy to gain the scars and the insane state of mind he is currently in.
In ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl’ a character is often at the side of the shot so that the location is shown to the audience. Because of the way in which Gore Verbinski has chosen to have the character at the side, the audience can then build up in their mind a recreation of the world in which the characters are in. This allows the audience to immerse themselves into this world and therefore, in a way, feel closer to the characters. It is apparent from watching the five minutes of the film I have been analysing over and over, the main focus (whether it’s a character or a prop) is always in the centre of the shot. This is done so subtly that the audience really have to dig a deeper meaning to find it out but from learning this, they can build up a much more in depth version of the story in their mind than someone who just takes what they can see and apply it to the story, not giving it any thought. This is a contrast from ‘The Dark Knight’ as in that movie, you do no really have to think deeply about possible meanings as it is mostly given to you. For example in the shot shown in the above paragraph, everything is revealed, the audience doesn’t have to think about a deeper meaning.
Overall then, the clips from these two films are very different indeed. ‘The Dark Knight uses lighting and props to establish the good and the evil, facial expressions are mostly hidden and the positioning of characters in frames gives a lot away about their past and their personality. In ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl’, lighting is used a lot more subtly to provide deeper meanings to the story, props are used for authenticity, facial expressions are shown fully and before the audience sees what the character is looking at so they provide a small mystery and positioning is used to convey the main subject subtly. However, the two films host one similarity, their flamboyant main characters. They both have strange and wild costumes and outrageous personalities and provide a little bit of madness and humour to each film. Audiences of ‘The Dark Knight’ and ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl’ can infer things about each character purely from their costume and make-up. It is not hard for the audience to pick things up about these characters and so their actions are unpredictable to provide wonder and confusion in an exciting and thrilling story.
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