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.”
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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:
- Give up his identity as Batman and turn himself in to the authorities, or
- Kill The Joker.
In other words: an impossible choice. This is what great drama is built upon.
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.”
The writers use theme to create Bruce’s actions and the trials that he will face in his fight to achieve his goal. This is why I call it the “controlling” theme, because it can be used to essentially control a character’s actions and dialogue and guide the plot of your story. It maintains your crucial “story focus” that holds a Reader’s attention.
When in doubt about where to take the plot and what to make your character do…look for the answer in your theme.
- Download the FULL STORY MAP FOR THE DARK KNIGHT Here. For revised analyses and maps of the complete Dark Knight Trilogy and Christopher Nolan’s other films, see our E-Book:
The writers began by making a list of extreme actions (things that Bruce Wayne would normally never do) that would express this theme:
- Bruce puts faith in a politician: District Attorney Harvey Dent.
- Bruce ignores the advice of Jim Gordon, Alfred, Harvey Dent, Lucius Fox and Rachel and decides to give up his identity.
- Bruce tortures a suspect in an interrogation.
- Bruce steals Lucius’ technology and uses it to infringe on the privacy of all of Gotham’s citizens, whom he has sworn to protect with honor.
- Bruce lets Batman take the fall for murder.
It then becomes the screenwriters’ job to get Bruce into a position where he would logically (within the heightened “world” of a Batman movie) perform these actions. Since a great script focuses on a Protagonist that drives the story with their active decisions, it’s not hard to think that the above list of actions formed the basic spine of the plot, the signpost story beats that make up the “Full Story Map.”
This theme also forces other characters to take irrational action, for example:
- Harvey Dent tortures a paranoid schizophrenic for information.
- Jim Gordon fakes his own death, keeping the truth from his family.
And it “controls” the goal of the Antagonist, The Joker:
- The Joker hatches an intricate terrorist plot based on fear that pushes the mob, Batman and the civilians of Gotham City to the point of desperation.
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Ultimately, the screenwriters used their unique theme to construct an active story with multiple lines of action and a large ensemble of characters that fills 2 hours and 24 minutes of screen time.
It also seems likely that it was a theme relevant to the times; the post-9/11 “War on Terror” era in America and abroad. The theme had urgency. And it took a well-known character that we’ve seen portrayed in several films into new dramatic territory.
In closing, if you know what your story is about – the idea you want to explore or what you want to say – then the blank page will not seem so daunting.
Good luck and happy writing!
Dan Calvisi
P.S. For more detailed analysis and lessons from the pros, please see my Story Maps book series…
The E-Books Story Maps: How to Write a GREAT Screenplay and Story Maps: 12 Great Screenplays include Full Story Map analyses of 20 hit movies, primarily from the last decade.
These successful films are great examples of professional screenwriting in many different genres and budget levels aimed at varied audiences. I stand by each title as a strong example of its genre and as a primer to learn the screenwriting craft at the level that you need to be: the “submission ready” tier that makes a good script into a GREAT script.
After emerging from my sub-basement cryo-chamber as my alter-ego 