‘Dark Knight Rises’ news round-up: Michael Caine, Bane is brutal and comic Bat-tank
Christopher Nolan has confirmed this week that a six to seven minute prologue for TDKR before “Sherlock Holmes 2”, the Bane/Batman spread in Empire Magazine has stirred Bat fans into a fever pitched excitement. From the first photo of Bane, Catwoman, the set videos to the latest news of a Nolan describing the brutality of his new villain.
“With our choice of villain and with our choice of story we’re testing Batman both physically as well as mentally. Also, in terms of finishing our story and increasing its scope, we were trying to craft an epic, so the physicality of the film became very important.”
During an interview this week promoting “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” Michael Caine talked about working with Nolan, playing Alfred & Inception:
You talk about how you take less roles these days and it has to be something interesting. It seems that there is one filmmaker, Christopher Nolan, that seems to get you. As a collaborator, what keeps bringing you back?
Michael Caine: “He’s a wonderful, wonderful guy. I love working with him. He’s pretty secretive, too. He lived near me when he was going to do Batman. He came around one Sunday morning with a script and he said, ‘I want you to play Alfred the butler in Batman,’ and I knew who that character was. He said, ‘Would you want to do it?’ and I said, ‘That would be great. I’ve never done anything like this.'”
“So I read it and I went in the other room and I said, ‘I’ll read it and I’ll call you tomorrow and let you know.’ He said, ‘Oh no, I’m staying and I’ll have a cup of tea with your wife.’ He put the script away and wouldn’t let me keep the script.”
“He’s wonderful. I think he’s the new David Lean, that’s what I think. I know David very well because I did all the back heads for the screen tests for Dr. Zhivago. Julie Christie, who’s a friend of mine, went up to play the part and she said, ‘You come and play the other part with me,’ so I went. And then Lean said, ‘Would you stay on and do all the rest of them?’ So I stayed on and did all the rest. I’ve always studied Lean’s work, and I saw it in The Dark Knight. If you think in terms of an action director in that opening sequence with the mask and the bank robbery, and then you look at directing actors and you see Heath’s opening soliloquy and ending soliloquy, they were fabulous. He can direct actors, he can do action and he writes this stuff. He wrote Inception with Jonathan. He’s an extraordinary intellect, man, director and he’s really quiet. He doesn’t shout and scream. You wouldn’t notice him on the set. You would try and figure out which one is the director, you know?”
It’s lovely to be a part of the ensemble he keeps bringing back.
Michael Caine: I had three days on Inception. I had two days sending Leonardo [DiCaprio] off and one day in Los Angeles months later seeing him back at the LA Airport. The rest of the movie, I didn’t know what was going on. I just turned up. He came off the airplane and I met him and he was followed by the complete cast of Batman. It was all the guys saying ‘Hi, how’s it going?'”
Possible comic book influence for the Christopher Nolan Bat-tanks may possibly be from an old Detective Comic Book
Detective comics #236, which featured not the Batmobile everyone knew and loved, but a starkly different version of it in the form of an armored urban Bat-Tank. It was an image I would never forget. (Amazingly, this obscure vehicle, used just once in the history of Batman comics, reappeared in the movie Batman Begins. What a coincidence! — author Michael Uslan thinks in his book The Boy Who Loved Batman, a memoir of his growing up with comics.
