{"id":2013,"date":"2009-01-22T02:35:07","date_gmt":"2009-01-22T07:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/?p=2013"},"modified":"2009-01-22T02:35:07","modified_gmt":"2009-01-22T07:35:07","slug":"dissecting-the-dark-knight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2009\/01\/dissecting-the-dark-knight\/","title":{"rendered":"Dissecting The Dark Knight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jim Emerson has been dissecting The Dark Knight<\/i> on his blog scanners<\/a> for the past few weeks. He’s not what you might call a fan of the film, and he’s been building, post by post, his argument against Nolan’s choices as a filmmaker. His earlier posts are here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a> – all of them focusing on the framing of the schoolbus getaway scene. The comments are excellent, too, arguing both for and against the film very eloquently.<\/p>\n

To my mind, he’s a little nitpicky on that scene, but I’m in complete agreement with his latest post<\/a>, which highlights several different falling sequences in different films to show how poorly-thought-out a major falling scene in The Dark Knight<\/i> is. After the examples, he then re-edits The Dark Knight<\/i> sequence into a sequence that is, to me, more coherent and impactful than Nolan’s original. By a long shot.<\/p>\n

This is both an excellent example of hands-on film criticism – not just sitting back and saying “I liked” or “I didn’t like” but being incredibly specific, down to the level of individual shots and angles, and suggesting alternatives rather than simply complaining – and also a perfect illustration of what can be done with video in film criticism and why we need to protect fair use. I don’t always agree with Emerson, but I’d be pleased to be half as observant a critic as he is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jim Emerson has been dissecting The Dark Knight on his blog scanners for the past few weeks. He’s not what you might call a fan of the film, and he’s been building, post by post, his argument against Nolan’s choices as a filmmaker. His earlier posts are here, here, here, here, and here – all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":365,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/04\/literary-criticism-rant-warning\/","url_meta":{"origin":2013,"position":0},"title":"Literary Criticism (rant warning)","author":"Jandy","date":"April 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Literary criticism ruins books. It tears them apart and glues them together again with the critic's pet theory. It reduces character to symbol and narrative to trope. It increases cynicism and decreases enjoyment. It makes every book about something else. It creates a divide between \"critical readers\" and ordinary ones\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books and Reading"","block_context":{"text":"Books and Reading","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/books\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2078,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/last-minute-oscar-predictions\/","url_meta":{"origin":2013,"position":1},"title":"Last minute Oscar predictions","author":"Jandy","date":"February 22, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Figured I should get some Oscar predictions out there, since the ceremony is, like, tonight. They're going to be relatively terse, though - my computer died on Friday and my newly ordered one has not yet arrived, so I'm tapping this out on my iPhone. Which is not optimal for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1664,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2008\/11\/film-classics-sunrise-a-song-of-two-humans\/","url_meta":{"origin":2013,"position":2},"title":"Film Classics – Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans","author":"Jandy","date":"November 9, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans directed by F.W. Murnau starring George O'Brien, Janet Gaynor, Margaret Livingston USA 1927; screened 8 July 2008 at the Silent Movie Theatre, Los Angeles Let me just quickly tell you about me and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. It's been on my see-soon\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":815,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2007\/11\/fbtop-100-100-the-cranes-are-flying\/","url_meta":{"origin":2013,"position":3},"title":"FBTop 100: #100 – The Cranes are Flying","author":"Jandy","date":"November 16, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"This post is part of a project to watch the Film Bloggers' 100 Favorite Non-English Films. See my progress here. The Cranes are Flying USSR 1957; dir: Mikhail Kalatozov starring: Tatyana Samojlova, Aleksey Batalov screened 11\/13\/07, Criterion Collection DVD Previous Viewing Experience: Never seen it before. Knowledge Before Viewing: I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32980,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2013\/08\/top-ten-alfred-hitchcock-films\/","url_meta":{"origin":2013,"position":4},"title":"Top Ten: Alfred Hitchcock Films","author":"Jandy","date":"August 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Alfred Hitchcock, celebrating what would have been his 114th birthday last week, is undeniably my favorite director. I've seen almost all of his filmography, barring a few scattered ones here and there and most of the silents, and even though there are a few I'm not that crazy about (looking\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/feat-Hitchsilhouette.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":35928,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/challenge-week-20-sneakers\/","url_meta":{"origin":2013,"position":5},"title":"Challenge Week 20: Sneakers","author":"Jandy","date":"May 23, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I hadn't heard of this movie at all until it came up on a podcast I randomly listened to a few months ago, and I was intrigued because I love spy-type and hacker-type movies, so I was glad to have a push to see it. I didn't know much what\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"tf-listening","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/tf-listening.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2013"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2013\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}