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The Dark Knight Rises
UNITED STATES · 2012

The Dark Knight Rises

Christopher Nolan
redemption sacrifice terrorism and chaos corruption and justice urban decay
Watch on MUBI → ▶ Trailer

Synopsis

Following the death of District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman assumes responsibility for Dent's crimes to protect the late attorney's reputation and is subsequently hunted by the Gotham City Police Department. Eight years later, Batman encounters the mysterious Selina Kyle and the villainous Bane, a new terrorist leader who overwhelms Gotham's finest. The Dark Knight resurfaces to protect a city that has branded him an enemy.

Cinema Atlas Connection
Christopher Nolan screened The Battle of Algiers for his crew as an operational blueprint for how to shoot urban warfare — the verité approach, the documentary realism, the sense that what we're watching is happening in real time. Bane's takeover of Gotham mirrors Pontecorvo's depiction of insurgency: tactical, patient, willing to endure casualties. In a 2012 DGA interview, Nolan was explicit: Pontecorvo showed him how to make terrorism feel inevitable rather than sensationalized. The Battle of Algiers is available on MUBI.

'Metropolis' (1927) is the great example of that, where you have a city as a character, and the city as a symbol of modernity, and all the possibilities and all the dangers of that.

— Christopher Nolan  ·  Total Film (via GamesRadar+)
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