The Dark Knight Screenplay Analysis

Christian Bale as Batman - The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight is an expert example of building an active story around Theme, one of the main dramatic elements in the “Basic Story Map.”

  • Download the FULL STORY MAP FOR THE DARK NIGHT Here.

In a movie, especially a superhero action thriller, there must be HIGH STAKES with SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES. Life or death. Loyalty or betrayal. Love or Duty.

In The Dark Knight, the screenwriters wisely push the story to the extremes of the conflict. To find those extremes, they began with Bruce Wayne/Batman’s character and mythology and used those elements to push him into an impossible situation.

Here are three “essential truths” of Bruce Wayne/Batman:

  • Bruce Wayne has sworn to protect the people of Gotham City.
  • Bruce’s alter-ego Batman is the only thing that can protect them.
  • Bruce’s one rule is not to kill.

The screenwriters will push Bruce into a position where he has only two options:

  1. Give up his identity as Batman and turn himself in to the authorities, or
  2. Kill The Joker.

In other words: an impossible choice. This is what great drama is built upon.

Heath Ledger as The Joker in The Dark Knight.

The glue that holds it together is Theme.

The Theme of The Dark Knight is “Desperation pushes men to act in self-destructive and chaotic ways.”

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VIDEO Interview with Graham Yost… Justified, The Pacific, Band of Brothers, Speed, Broken Arrow

I sometimes cover openings in Hollywood.  I caught up with Graham Yost at the premiere of his TV drama series Justified which airs on the Fox’s FX Network and stars Timothy Olyphant and is based on original characters by Elmore Leonard.

Graham Yost is the series creator/Executive Producer of Justified and a veteran writer/director in film and television with an impressive list of credits that includes Band of Brothers, Boomtown, Raines and The Pacific and the feature films Speed, Broken Arrow and Mission to Mars. He won an Emmy for his work on the mini-series From the Earth to the Moon.

Related: Interview with Elmore Leonard and Graham Yost, creators of “Justified”

script-coverage-RDJ-Iron-Man

Why I don’t do Coverage and why you don’t need it

I don’t offer script coverage as one of my consulting services; I prepare detailed story notes that identify narrative problems and offer specific suggestions on how to fix them. However, I wrote coverage on scripts and books for years as a professional movie studio Reader. So I’m very familiar with it. You will find a number of services online that offer screenplay coverage, but in my opinion it’s not the best thing to spend your money on. Here’s why…

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Best Movie Scenes of the 2000s by Dan Calvisi

Great lines. Great performances. Great payoffs.

Huge laughs. Crocodile tears.

This is why we love to go to the movies. These scenes are what is best about the movies.

The greatest siege battle ever put on film.

My favorite scene about making music.

A moment that I think about every time I go to the gym.

The most hilarious child choreography ever.

The most ridiculous thing ever done with a grocery cart.

The scenes on this list will never fail to inspire me. If there is any doubt that this was a great decade for film, one only needs to watch these clips to see the truth.

[Note: Clips not available for every scene.  I’m working on it.]

In no particular order…

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M. Night Shyamalan: Method To The Madness

M. Night ShyamalanOriginally published in Script Magazine Online in 2005 in a slightly shorter form here.

Below is the full article…

M. Night Shyamalan is the modern master of the high-concept thriller. He is also a mad scientist.  A tinkerer.

With each new film, he’s gone back into his lab and concocted some new experiment in suspense storytelling.  This is a screenwriter who has mastered traditional narrative and gotten bored with it, so he’s decided to consistently take chances with the form.  From his sub-basement sanctum sanctorum, amidst the smoking beakers and jarred brains and that lightning-rod thingee, adjacent to the plasma screen playing non-stop Hitchcock films, he straps standard three-act structure down onto a slab of unforgiving granite and goes to work.  With The Village he shocks his most bold experiment into life.

Shyamalan has always enjoyed playing the puppetmaster of our emotions.  Don’t kid yourself — he may be fascinated with the retooling of narrative structure, but ultimately, he’s experimenting on us, the audience.  Like Hitchcock before him, Shyamalan is the Great Manipulator.  Manipulation is not a bad word to M. Night; rather, it’s his raison d’etre.  He loves it, gets off on playing us like a marionette.  And considering his four straight commercial successes (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, The Village), it’s safe to say we keep coming back for more.

We want him in that lab.  We need him in that lab.

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Don’t suck…Suck in the Reader!

I worked for years as a professional Story Analyst, or “Reader” for major movie companies in New York City, reading and evaluating incoming screenplays and books for executives and producers who developed films like Chicago, Scream, The Game, The Faculty, Volcano, Beloved, Ulee’s Gold, and Chocolat.  Their production slates ran the gamut of genres and so did the material that I was handed.

And I realized that the common wisdom about your Act One being “Setup”…is crap.

Click to read excerpts

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“The Art Of Pitching” Panel In Los Angeles

I attended this panel on October 29, 2008 sponsored by the NYU Tisch “Writers’ Lab West” alumni group.  The panel offered a valuable range of opinion from members of different sectors of the business, all people who have heard many pitches…

  • Sean C. Covel, Independent Producer (Napoleon Dynamite, Beneath)
  • Maradith Frenkel, Creative Executive, Universal Pictures (Mamma Mia,Frost/Nixon)
  • Eddie Gamarra, Literary Manager & Producer, The Gotham Group (represents screenwriters, animators, novelists, and illustrators with an emphasis on animation, family and graphic novels.)
  • Chris Lawson, Executive, Creative Artists Agency (locates and develops source material to inspire new film and television projects for their clients.)
  • Ellen Sandler, Television Writer/Producer (Everybody Loves Raymond,Coach)

The following is my own collection of notes from the panel.  In some cases, I’ve identified the source of the comment. Read more

Pitching a Screenplay by a Pro

Northrop Davis has sold three movie pitches
to major film studios in Los Angeles.

I am proud to have him join us for a
guest column on pitching a screenplay…

10 PITCHING TIPS FROM A PRO!

First thing, why a pitch? We all know it’s very hard to sell one.  But it’s also terrifically difficult to sell a spec script.  Pitches take less time to develop (though far more than you’d think).  But that’s not the reason I like them.  I like them for feedback.  They allow you the opportunity to present your story to industry feedback, and “find the spine of your story.”

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Screenplay Help

Would you like to learn how to write a screenplay from a professional screenwriter and Script Doctor who has worked for major movie studios and is based in Los Angeles, California, Hollywood, the entertainment capital of the world?

I can give you the TOOLS — the professional screenwriting how to — to write a great movie screenplay or television script. My method is called Story Maps Screenwriting and it is the most simple, clear and effective roadmap to take you from your initial concept all the way to a polished draft that you can submit to agents, managers and producers in the movie industry in Hollywood. Read more