Nolan Talks Batman Begins
Director Christopher Nolan talks about Gotham, Batman, sequels, plus so much more.
Batman Begins director Chrstopher Nolan recently spoke to ComingSoon.net about the various aspects that went into creating the highly aniticipated film.
Q: How much of his anger is really under control by the end of this film?
Nolan: "Well, I think when it's harnessed, and that is a form of control, that doesn't mean it's not there and it doesn't mean it's suppressed - it's channeled and it's harnessed. And that to me is what keeps him as a character frightening to his opponents and all of us to some extent."
Q: What was your inspiration for the look of Gotham City?
Nolan: "We tried not to be too specific. When Nathan Crowley, my production designer, started discussing the look of the film with me, we immediately rejected any reductiveness. The driving force was not to, "OK, they've done an art deco city, we'll do a modernist city," nothing like that. We wanted something that reflects the reality of a large modern city which is a tremendous variety of architecture. A tremendous variety of periods in which things were built. We wanted a history to the place as well as a contemporary feel. What we ended up doing , is that the way that we approached Gotham as an exaggeration of New York, an exaggeration of a modern American city was to look at interesting geographical features of the cities of the world. A lot from New York, some from Chicago, a lot from Tokyo because of elevated freeways and monorails. From Hong Kong we took the walled city of Kalhoon is the basis for the narrows which is this kind of walled in slum. So what we really did was putting together the elements that let you exaggerate all the socio-economic factors that feed into Gotham as an exaggeration of the modern American city drastication and so forth."
Q: Can we expect sequels?
Nolan: "Well, I enjoyed making this film very much. So, I would be open to it. But I wouldn't want to jump into it straight away."
Q: What is the next comic book character that you would like to tackle?
Nolan: "I don't know what I want to do next. My brother is actually working on a screenplay that is based on a comic called "The Exec" that you know we're quite excited about. But I really don't know how I'll end up choosing my next project it just kinds of happens."
Q: If you were to come back for a sequel, have you given any thought to the story? Like what we see in the last scene?
Nolan: "Yes, for me it was just a way to send the audience out with a sense of possibility and sense of excitement and where this character could go. I certainly share that sense and we've certainly talked in vague terms about how you could follow on from this film, absolutely. But at the same time, it's very important that this film stand on it's own."
Q: Did you give Bale direction on expression through his mask more?
Nolan: "Yes, to a certain extent, but he was also very specific in what he wanted to do and he drew from a lot of certain influences that I agreed with in terms of the graphic novels. A lot of what he was able to turn into performance comes from that material."
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