Telling The Story Through Music

Movie: The Dark Knight

Director: Christopher Nolan

Original Music: Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard

Production Company: Warner Bros. Pictures

Scene: End and Credits; Time Stamp: 2:21:00 (from the original cut)

Introduction

This paper aims for a deep analysis of a scene from the movie “The Dark Knight”, explaining the relationships between the sonic and visual layers of the text, diving deep into the intricacies of: “Why the Music?”, “What the Music”? and “How the Music?” when put in the context with visuals and perceiving it as a whole thing, not something separate from the scene.

Section 1; The Scene

As the strings of Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard start to soar, Gordon tells his son that they'll have to chase him because he's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now, so we'll hunt him. Because he can take it because he's not a hero." As he leaps onto his Bat-pod, escaping the police, and riding off into the night, we're led to believe that Batman will go on to do what he does, without the need of thanks or appreciation from the city, because it's his duty. The scene justifies the meaning of a true hero as the protector of Gotham, The Dark Knight who takes upon himself the crime that he did not commit for the betterment of the Gotham City.

Section 2; The Score

The score begins with the “string ostinatos” on the D minor 2nd inversion chord establishing the basis of the ending theme which has a feeling of glorious purpose. Certain chords and bass lines are going above and below the ostinato creating complex textures harmonically. Before the Dark Knight hops on his Batpod, we experience beautiful strings not doing much but doing just enough as required to uplift the story and to support the story of the moment. We keep on listening to the same ostinatos throughout but what makes them interesting is there is a development in the orchestration, the different voicing among the string sections throughout the ostinatos makes us not feel bored, and each time we get to experience something new out of the same.

The moment he hops on his Bat-pod, Hans tries to make momentum in the score by introducing some percussion elements with a blend of Taiko Drum, Orchestral Toms, and Synthetic Cinematic Percussion Strikes layered together, giving accents on particular beats to emphasize those moments, and at this point, one should not care about the possibility of it being played live, as film music is all about telling the story of the movie and not something about the orchestral live concert setting. To make it even more dramatic, Brass Swells was an important aspect of the movie and just those two notes (D and F) set the narrative of the movie as it's already there you don’t need much to explain the feeling of the moment. There is not much harmonic structure or intricate counterpoints in the music, it’s quite simple, and that simplicity makes it the true version of how one would be at its best version.

Section 3; Putting it in Context

A. Is the music fitting in with the scene?

First Act (The Opening):

The scene opens with a conversation between Batman and Gordon. It is important to take care, not to take away the integrity of dialogues with the sort of music that outshines the purpose of the scene, and that’s something really important aspect when it comes to Film Scoring which we call “Scoring under the Dialogues”.

Before we move any further let’s talk about “Scoring under the Dialogues”:

Most Screenwriters will just pick the appropriate words to convey the story which just talks to the point and as a composer for film, you have to do the same thing, don’t pick the wrong words, don't pick too many words. Scoring a chasing scene is different than scoring a conversation. There are a lot of good opportunities in movies for music to outshine but also some scenes where the main objective is to score under the dialogue where we just need to have the sort of music that is not the main focus but maybe wanting to uplift that particular scene through sonic timbre or orchestral exotic harmonies at the backend. In the areas where we want the music to overdo it, we want it well because there are a lot of good opportunities for that in a movie. There is a great opportunity in this for the composer to make his/her music pronounced.

Scoring Under the dialogue is very important as it's not the number of instruments or the size of the orchestra you are using but it is about how far the character is from you/camera (the audience) if the character is close enough you can play with the score easily but if it's far away which is making the dialogues unclear or low sounding which is obvious, then you might want to check with your mixing engineers to make sure that the final mix sounds as natural as possible. The other crucial thing is to notice the surroundings if there are a lot of voices already in the background you might not need to be creative with your music because the audio spectrum is already filled and you have very little room to showcase your music.

To support the above lines one can clearly understand this by focusing on the music in the scene. The scene starts with a conversation transitioning into dialogue narration. Now it’s important to note that narration is different than conversation as narration is always centered which makes room for the composer to make his music outshine yet not overpower as we still have the narration. The music of this entire scene is like a rising line graph in terms of music domination starting from the low end (the conversation) where we have very lite music under the dialogue, transitioning into the narration by the dark knight where the music starts to take an ascending curve with much more focus on the score than before and finally, the end where the bat-man hops on his bat-pod where it’s all about the emotions and feeling backed by the cinematic action strikes, strings, and horns.

Coming Back to the Scene:

The music in the opening scene till the moment the Dark Knight hops on his Bat-pod, does a great job by running parallel to the story in the form of String Ostinatos while not stealing away the show through music yet helping to uplift the story of the movie and what the director is trying to convey his message to the audience. It’s worth noticing that the shape of the music in this cue is the shape of an ascending slope and does not have peaks and valleys almost like a sine wave because of the obvious reasons of glorious purpose.

Second Act (The Bat-pod):

As we see him running towards his Bat-pod to continue his journey of The Dark Knight to protect Gotham City symbolizes the duty that he has taken upon himself not as a hero but as the silent guardian and the protector and this was the perfect spot for Hans to introduce those epic percussion strikes as they help to uplift the true meaning of the moment accompanied by the thematic element of the cue having just two notes (D and F) performed by the Brass Section in a way that it’s able to do proper justice to the scene. This combination of Ostinatos under the main thematic motif with the Brass is a typical Nolan sound. Nolan loves to do this in his movies. If we have a look at the original soundtrack from Oppenheimer's “Can You Hear the Music”, it’s not very distinctive as we have the violin ostinatos in there under the main epic French Horn motif which falls from F# to E.

Third Act (Credits):

The camera fades out with a swell in the orchestra followed by the credits accompanied by some different rhythmic patterns but not too different as it would be weird to go out of the box as it's important to connect the dots from the previous cue. As the credits start to roll it’s so interesting to focus on the name of the man himself, the writer and director of the movie “Christopher Nolan”, it’s so interesting because he wants his name to be noticed by the audience with audio emphasis under his name as its evident by the “orchestral rises” (programmed digitally) every time his name appears in the beginning. Concluding Statement: Yes! The music is working and is well-fitted with the scene.

B. Does the Scene require a Batman Theme?

It would not be wrong to have a dedicated theme for Batman in Christopher Nolan’s Batman Trilogy.

The final scene is an appropriate spot and can have a cue of Batman Theme but unlike the other Batman franchises including, Danny Elfman’s Batman (1989) and Michael Giacchino’s The Batman (2022) which have a dedicated theme for Batman. Christopher Nolan’s ideology on Batman is completely different and that’s something what makes The Dark Knight a Christopher Nolan movie.

The cue can serve as an area to introduce a character theme and in this case “The Dark Knight Theme” with a definitive melodic shape or motif.

The theme for The Dark Knight used in this movie does not have a definitive melody but why? It’s the perfect place to have a heroic theme.

Let’s have a look from the eye of Christopher Nolan

Batman does not consider himself a hero, because the place he is coming from is where he thinks that he is responsible for his parents’ death. According to the story, it’s true, as his parents would be alive if he didn’t force them to leave the theater. Deep down in his eyes there lies a guilt of his parent’s death thus he never considered himself as a hero but rather a protector and a guardian. He is one person who wants to finish all of the crime from Gotham City to make it a better place.

Considering the Narrative set up by Christopher Nolan there is no need for a Character Theme as one would call “The Dark Knight” with a definitive melodic shape. The music composed by Hans Zimmer for The Dark Knight theme which has been used in the final scene does not have a melodic shape or a motif to remember as the music does not want to symbolize a hero or a heroic moment. The music has been set up here to give the feeling of triumph and glory.

Concluding Statement: The movie and the scene, in particular, do not require a theme that will be remembered as the narrative is a lot different here as compared to other Batman Movies set up by the director. The music we want here does not make the hero of the movie more heroic but rather focuses on the storyline and his past.

Section 4; The Editor is your BPM (Bonus Section)

All these years learning about film music and working in Hollywood for a movie (currently) made me learn a lot of new things that go beyond film music and one of those things is “The Editor” who acts as BPM for the composer for the screen. It's really important to understand that to map the tempo you need to see the cuts in the movie and the way the camera moves in a certain scene which is much more in the hands of the editor than the cinematographer, as the composer for the screen you are the one who gets to watch the movie first than the audience which makes you the person of the decision in terms of should you chose to move ahead of the scene so to tell the audience what’s coming ahead through your music before it shows up on the screen.

At time stamp 1:50 in the video (look for the link provided) the character of the music changes with the profound music of cinematic percussion strikes starting before the character of the scene changes which is when Batman hops on his bat-pod at timestamp 1:56, so is this a problem of synchronization of music or is it a problem with the editing? The answer is “No”, It was intended by the composer to be that way to give the audience a feeling of what’s coming and to make them prepare before they get to watch the moment at time stamp 1:56.

Section 5; Conclusion

Hans Zimmer’s score to “The Dark Knight” is, in many ways, a nontraditional orchestral film score because of the reason that it can’t be performed live as it’s impossible to have the kind of sound that Hans Zimmer used through digital processing.

However, while this film is now fifteen years old, its score (and visual effects) make it seem never old. By 1991, audiences had seen the conclusion of the “Superman,” “Indiana Jones,” and “Star Wars” Films. Hans Zimmer brought with him his evolutionary sounds to give the cinema a new shape through his music.

In the years that followed “The Dark Knight,” action and sci-fi blockbusters such as “Inception” (2010), “Interstellar” (2014) or “Dune” (2021) began to redefine action scores with heavy use of synthesizers and sound design influences. In addition, major blockbusters began to be released that had virtually no score whatsoever. While the philosophy among filmmakers to layer a film’s soundtrack with popular songs had been around for decades at the end of all of this madness, we now find ourselves in a time when nextgen Films and TV Shows are scored with teen-audience-approved pop songs, instead of with the major orchestras and composers the series and films used to demand.

Unfortunately, with pop culture and the rising technology we can’t see young and upcoming Film Composers bringing their music like The Film Composers from 1980 such as James Horner and John Williams.