The New York Times checks in on director Christopher Nolan as he slaps the finishing touches on The Dark Knight, his sequel to his own Batman reboot, Batman Begins. The project, described by reporter David M. Halbfinger as "a $180 million Hollywood comic-book movie sequel with a zillion moving parts, a cast of thousands and sets from here to Hong Kong," gives the director a second chance to humiliate himself after having brought off his relaunch of the franchise. Now he has to worry about topping himself and maintaining his bond of trust with a notoriously touchy fan base. ("If the people who make the film aren't taking it seriously," Nolan says, in a barely veiled slap at Joel Schumacher, who with the one-two punch of Batman Forever and Batman and Robin managed to smother the series with a ten-ton campy pillow, "why should we?") Nolan's come a long way spent the year he spent assembling his debut feature, Following, on a budget of $6000. But he still works without an assistant director, even as his canvasses have gotten a damn sight larger — "if it's on the screen," writes Halbfinger, "he directed it" — and he's built a sturdy regular crew who've grown to anticipate his moves. (Chief among them is the cinematographer Wally Pfister; The Dark Knight will be the fifth straight film he's shot for Nolan since Memento.
The big thing that nobody could have anticipated was the death of Heath Ledger, whose portrayal of a grotesque, grinning sociopath, is kind of central not just to the movie but to the promotional campaign that had already begun before events gave it an unwelcome connection to real morbidity and grief. (Since his death, Ledger's participation in the film has been further soured by dimestore philosophizing about the nature of his last role; former actor turned windbag Jack Nicholson is even said to have announced to the world that he warned the younger man that the role of the Joker is a "dangerous" one. For his part, Ledger called the experience ""the most fun I've ever had, or probably ever will have" as an actor.) Nolan, who has called Ledger's work in the picture "stunning" and "iconic", predicts that "It's going to just blow people away." Ironically, the movie itself is said to be lightened up aesthetically after the pop-Expressionist, nightbloom look of the previous film (and the earlier Tim Burton pictures), with "the creepy shadows and gothic Wayne Manor... replaced by sleek towers, shiny surfaces, bright lighting and the vistas of a city with shoulders bigger than Batman's." Explaining the thinking behind the "uncluttered" look of the new Gotham, the film's production designer, Nathan Crowley says, "Gotham is in chaos. We keep blowing up stuff. So we can keep our images clean."