Emotions Through Camera Shots: The Dark Knight

 In the movie: The Dark Knight (2008), specifically the scene of Batman interrogating the Joker, there isn’t as much action going on when compared to the rest of the movie, but we still see so much emotion conveyed. In the beginning of the scene, we see a two shot between Commissioner Gordon and the Joker. This is the first sort of emotion we see. Whenever the camera is over the shoulder of Gordon and on the Joker, they emphasize his craziness by having him do frantic looking around and moving his tongue and mouth around. When the camera is on Gordon, we see him trying to keep his cool, by attempting to keep eye contact with the Joker, but we can also tell he is nervous by his need to cut the Joker off of his creepy rambling and how he begins to breathe faster and faster. He also fidgets with the key to the handcuff a bit before unlocking the Joker’s handcuff. This creates a feeling of immense uncertainty to the viewer as the commissioner is even a bit scared talking to the handcuffed Joker who seemingly has the upper hand. When Batman appears in the interrogation room, the scenes of him are all shot from a low angle. This makes Batman give off this intense feeling for the viewer as he just stares coldly and attacks the Joker. When the Joker tries to relate to the Batman with both of them being freaks, the camera angle brings Batman closer to the Joker and the Joker leans in. This makes the viewer question how similar the Joker really is to the Batman. As this goes on, Batman eventually picks up the Joker, pulling him extremely close to him, once again building onto what the Joker was saying of how they’re different from everyone else. When Batman is pinning Joker against the wall interrogating him, Batman is at a slightly lower angle than the joker. This lets the viewers feel that Batman may be winning the battle, but Joker is winning the war. This feeling is later confirmed when the Joker tells Batman that he has nothing to threaten him with. Even when Joker says this, he is laying on the floor with a high angle over the shoulder of Batman. This is telling the viewers that even though Batman is doing all he can to assert himself and his pressure onto the Joker, it is not working. That feeling of uncertainty from the beginning has come back in this shot as even while being beat senseless, the Batman is still essentially playing the Joker’s game as he intended it to be. When Joker finally tells Batman where the two are being held, they are close together again with Batman being the high angle and Joker the low angle. Once again emphasizing to the viewer that maybe the Joker was right about them two making one whole. Several times during this scene we see them pulled together, like yin and yang, and that is when we see the most emotion being pressed onto the viewer.