The Analysis of the Relationship between Colour and Emotions in The Dark Knight

Analysis

I. Summary of The Dark Knight

Before understanding colour and the emotions it instils, we must understand a little about the film, The Dark Knight. The Dark Knight, set in Gotham shows the rise of a new mastermind, the Joker, who comes to Gotham to create chaos but first must go through Gotham’s hero, Batman. The movie is directed and co-written by Christopher Nolan who directed the Batman Trilogy and created some of the best superhero movies ever. He uses various forms of filmmaking and film theory to show the story of Batman and Gotham.

The Joker is the perfect antagonist as he keeps playing at Batman’s weaknesses and keeps forcing him into making tough choices throughout the film. Batman often loses to Joker because of how smart he is and how he’s always one step ahead of Batman. There are multiple scenes where the Batman feels defeated and lost and often questions himself and his actions, which is exactly what Joker wants to do. The Joker isn’t scared of anything as he has nothing to lose, whereas Batman has a lot to lose and therefore is always behind.

Another reason why this movie is so iconic and interesting is because both the antagonist and the protagonist actually have the same goal, just different visions to it. Batman is fighting for hope, for a Gotham City without crime and for law and order. And the Joker wants to upset the established order and create chaos. Both of them are fighting for the soul of Gotham. It’s Law and Order vs Chaos. Batman vs the Joker.

Other key characters in the film are Harvey Dent, who represents the White Knight, someone who’s a saviour, who does good for his people. Rachel Dawes who plays an important role as Bruce Wayne is in love with her and isn’t ready to sacrifice her to save Gotham. Commissioner Gordon and Alfred play supporting characters, sometimes almost pseudo-fathers, that help pick Batman up every time he feels defeated.

One of the main themes of the film comes from the title, The Dark Knight vs The White Knight. The White Knight refers to a hero, a saviour that always does good and gets good from his people. But Batman isn’t a white knight. Batman is a vigilante, he often takes matters away from the Gotham police and into his own hands and almost never gets the rewards of saving people. In the movie, Batman becomes the Dark Knight by sacrificing the praise and reward to protect Gotham and the people of Gotham. A scene in the film where Commissioner Gordon says (talking about Batman) “Because he’s the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now, so we’ll hunt him. Because he can take it, because he’s not a hero. He’s a silent guardian, a watchful protector, a Dark Knight.”

Another interesting theme in the movie is the theme of identity. In a movie like the dark knight, most of its characters make us question their real identity. Whether it be Batman’s mask, Joker’s face paint or Harvey as two-faced, the audience is always wondering what their personalities are really like.

II. What is Colour?

The objective definition of colour would be the element of art that is produced when light, striking an object, is reflected back to the eye. And subjectively, colour would be a sensation, a human reaction to viewing a piece of art.

Colour is divided into Primary Colours (consisting of Red, Blue and Yellow), Secondary Colours (Purple, Green and Orange) and Tertiary Colours (red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, blue-violet, and red-violet).

Another thing that divides colours are whether they are warm or cold. Warm colours are colours such as Red, Yellow and Orange and Cold colours are Blue, Purple and Green. Warm colours usually help create a happier mood to the film and Cold colours are generally used to create a dull, sometimes spooky mood in a film.

III. What is Emotion?

Emotions are strong feelings deriving from one’s circumstances, moods, or relationships with others. Emotions play an important aspect of our day to day lives as they influence how we live and interact with the people around us. The choices we make, the actions we take, and the perceptions we have are all influenced by the emotions we are experiencing at any given moment. Psychologists have tried to identify what the different types of emotions people experience are. There are a few basic or core emotions that were identified; these were-

a. Joy

b. Sadness

c. Anger

d. Disgust

e. Fear

All of these are emotions are seen every day in our lives, usually we are so unconscious to them that we don’t even realise feeling them. But these are the 5 core emotions that every human being feels.

Each of these emotions comes with a different set of colours that represent it as well. A famous animated Pixar film called Inside Out, showed these emotions and through their movie, gave these emotions feelings.

Joy is happiness, and therefore usually shown by brighter colours. One of the brightest colours is yellow, the colour of the sun. Joy gives positive energy, as well as a feeling of ecstasy or happiness. Sadness is melancholy, depression and therefore usually shown by blue. The word blue also means to feel sad or depressed and I think that came from the fact that the colour blue usually gives out a sad feeling. Anger is almost always represented with red because of fire or blood or danger. Disgust is usually shown by green as vomit and puke is usually represented digitally by green. And fear is shown by purple.

IV. Colours and Emotions

Colour Psychology basically refers to the study the emotional effects of certain colours in different scenarios. This is a subjective form of understanding the relationship between colours and emotions but it helps broaden our view of what a colour could represent.

Red is the colour of fire or blood and therefore usually shows danger, war, passion or love.

Light Red- love, sexuality or sensitivity

Dark Red- rage, anger, danger

Blue is the colour of the sky or the sea and it shows stability, depth, wisdom, power and truth.

Light Blue- health and understanding

Dark Blue- power, knowledge and seriousness

Yellow is the colour of the sun and usually shows happiness, joy but also caution and jealousy.

Violet combines the stability of blue and the energy of red and usually depicts royalty, ambition or mystery.

Light Violet- romantic, nostalgia

Dark Purple- royalty, mystery

Green shows power, greed and sometimes money.

Light Green- sickness, jealousy

Dark Green- power, greed, ambition

Lastly, Orange combines the energy of red and the happiness of yellow and shows either distrust or deceit, or happiness and desire.

Light Orange- deceit, distrust

Dark Orange- desire, domination, pleasure

V. Colour Harmony

Colour Harmony refers to the aesthetic relationship some colours have with one another to create a bond. The various kinds of colour harmonies are: complementary, analogous, triadic and monochromatic.

A. Complementary colours are colours opposite one another on the colour wheel. They help make each other brighter and often create a sort of emphasis on a particular object. As colours can either be warm or cold, the combinations of complementary colours are also usually divided into these combinations.

In the above image, we can see the use of warmer colours to create an emphasis on Batman who is looking lost and defeated. This scene comes in the storyline when Batman is made to choose and shows the audience what he’s unwilling to sacrifice for Gotham. But he loses; he makes the wrong choice because the Joker is always one step ahead. A defeated Batman questions whether he’s responsible for the Joker’s actions and the death of the citizens of Gotham. The contrast created through the colour brings out a defeated hero, a hero who is at his lowest point.

Blue is almost always used to denote sadness and in this particular scene, the Batman loses the person he loves and therefore obviously is sad. And orange and yellow show distrust and caution.

B. Analogous colours are two or three colours that are close to each other on the colour wheel. Colours that work together, blend together and often harmonise in a way where we don’t realise them to be there.

This is one of the most iconic scenes in the movie. It’s when the Joker gets captured on purpose to make Batman believe he’s finally got his man, that he’s finally on top of the Joker. But the Joker is smart and cunning and throughout the movie, always one step ahead of the Batman. In this particular shot, the Joker ironically claps for the Gotham police who think they’ve won but actually have played into his game.

The use of shades of green, blue and purple gives a cold and mysterious mood. The colours set in this scene are perfect for the mood that it’s trying to create. Green helps signify ambition and greed, two defining characteristics of the Joker. Dark Blue signifies power, it shows us that the Joker even though he’s in jail is still in power. And purple helps signify the mystery of the Joker, we don’t ever know what’s coming next.

C. Triad Colours are two spaces to either side of the key colour’s complement. Triads helps create one dominant colour and two calmer colours that help highlight the first colour.

In the above scene, there’s subtle use of yellow and green and primary use of purple. The yellow comes from the lamppost and light reflecting of the building and the green comes from the Joker’s hair and his waistcoat. The purple comes from his suit jacket which creates the emphasis of the Joker in the scene. The camera angle in under the eye-line because at this point in the film, the Joker is on top. The Batman is charging towards him on his bike but the Joker isn’t scared of him and therefore he’s on top.

Purple usually shows something mysterious, something that’s unknown. In this scene, the audience is unable to understand why the Joker isn’t shooting at the Batman or why isn’t he running away. There’s a sort of confusion that builds up in the audience’s mind just because we don’t know what the Joker is thinking.

The colour of Joker’s jacket has always purple as it creates a mysterious yet daunting mood around him. With his face paint and his cuts, the audience is always scared of the Joker.

D. Monochromatic Colours are colours derived from the same base colour and differ just in terms of tone, shade or tint.

In the above scene we see how the frame that is set only contains the colour white but used at different intensities and all of them coming from different sources. There’s the white light, the white from the walls, the nurse’s white uniform that the Joker is wearing and the iconic white paint on his face. Even though all the colours seem to just be white, they’re all different types of white and therefore work together in the scene. The white frame also helps underlines the question of who is Gotham’s White Knight?

The colour white generally shows purity or innocence but in this scene is used in a way where the audience knows that the Joker isn’t innocent, he’s the opposite of innocent. Therefore, Joker seems out of place in the scene, other than the fact that he’s wearing female clothes, he breaks the conventional thought of white.

VI. Key moments in the film and their emotion

Even before the movie begins, there’s a short clip of the bat logo appearing from a wall of flames. The flames are dark and blue and that gives a scary, mysterious mood to the start of the film. The flames also foreshadow Batman’s trial by fire throughout the film. The Joker in a scene during the film says that he believes gasoline to be ‘cheap but effective’ and uses it in multiple different ways in the film which Batman must endure. In a scene where Bruce and Alfred are trying to understand the Joker and his actions, Alfred says “Some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.” This line again links the fire with the Joker.

The Dark Knight begins with 5 masked robbers trying to rob a bank. All the robbers are wearing weird looking joker masks so that no one can recognize them. We see 2 different conversations between the robbers about the man who planned the robbery, “the Joker”. One of the main themes that we see in this film is Game Theory. Game Theory is basically concerned with the analysis of strategies for dealing with competitive situations where the outcome could depend on someone else’s actions. This first scene shows a classic game theory experiment called Pirates Game where each robber is enticed by getting a larger share and therefore kills his fellow robber, leaving just one. The scene ends with the last robber taking off his mask revealing himself as the Joker. The use of colour specially at the end of this scene is very interesting. The Joker doesn’t only reveal himself to the bank manager for the first time but also to the audience watching the film. When he takes off his mask, the audience expects it to be a normal person, but they’re shocked to see his face. The Joker is created to be scary, the cuts on his face that were caused by his father, the use of black around his eyes to give them more highlight, etc. The three main colours used on him in this shot are white (face paint), red (lips and cuts) and green (hair).

“You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” Harvey Dent’s character in this movie plays two very important roles. He’s firstly Gotham’s White Knight, someone who’s going to protect or save Gotham. And secondly, later in the film, he becomes Two-Faced, both internally and physically as his face is burnt in half. What Dent is saying here is that to be a hero, you must sacrifice. There’s an interesting way Nolan shows both the characters that Dent plays. His date takes a white card and covers half his face which shows both, the white knight, as well as two faced. The colour white generally denotes innocence, purity, peace and mainly positivity. And at this point in the film, so does Harvey Dent. Therefore this scene foreshadows both aspects of Dent’s character, he’s two faced as well as Gotham’s white knight.

In a scene when Batman in on his bike racing toward the Joker, the use of colour and lighting creates fear and confusion in the minds of the audience. Batman has an easy change to end the Joker. The Joker shouts “hit me” multiple times as he’s not afraid of the Batman or afraid of death. Joker shoots at cars that are blocking Batman’s way because he wants Batman to kill him. A very important detail about Batman is that he doesn’t kill people. And the Joker here plays on that as he knows the Batman won’t be able to kill him and shows his power. The audience understands who’s on top and how the Joker is a step ahead of the Batman. The colours majorly used in this shot are contrasting or complementary colours to bring out both characters and their internal journeys.

Both angles of the shot are basically warm with yellows and oranges making most of the shot. And the two characters in darker colours; black and purple. The use of warmer colours vs cooler colours creates an emphasis on the characters as well as creates a sort of conflict on screen. Complementary colours often create conflict with one another as they don’t harmonise. Similarly, we see that both characters (specially Batman) is going through a conflicted journey in his head and therefore is confused over what he should do.

Once the Joker gets captured by commissioner Gordon, we see probably one of the most iconic interrogation scenes in Hollywood between Batman and the Joker. To set the scene it’s important to know that both Harvey and Rachel have been abducted and the Batman doesn’t know where they are. He tries various techniques, first with conversation then violence in order to find out where both of them are. They have an interesting exchange before Batman results to violence where the Joker explains to him how they complete one another. The Joker and Batman are actually opposite ends of the same coin. A visual that is shown throughout the film because of Harvey Dent’s coin. But the Joker and Batman want the same thing, they want the soul of Gotham. Batman is fighting for hope, for a Gotham City without crime and for law and order to prevail. And the Joker wants to upset the established order and create chaos. Both of them are fighting for the same goal and therefore are the two sides of the same coin. It’s Law and Order vs Chaos. Batman vs the Joker.

The camera work in this scene creates a disoriented feeling for the viewer. Nolan keeps shifting where a particular character is in the frame by moving the camera constantly. This is used to create the feeling of the Joker getting into the Batman’s head. Nolan breaks the eye-line rule of filmmaking to parallel how the Joker is making Batman break his only rule. The Joker forces Batman to make a choice between Rachel and Harvey. Batman chooses Rachel because she’s someone he’s unwilling to lose for the greater good of Gotham. Later we find out that the Joker knew this would happen and told him opposite addresses for where the two are. Therefore, Rachel dies and Dent survives, leaving half his face burnt.

In the scene where we first see Two-Faced, there’s a subtle use of colour. As the red and black on his face is obvious from the blood and burnt skin, Nolan uses light green in the background. Light green and light red are complementary colours as well and therefore again emphasise the character’s face.

At this point in the movie Batman is at rock bottom. This phase of a film in screenwriting is called the ‘Dark night of the soul’ which is an interesting play of words with the title of the film and its theme. This phase in the film is shown to be extra blue and dark as it’s the lowest part of the film. Batman has to deal with the questions he has inside of him and takes Alfred’s help in order to understand what he should do. The blues set the mood of sadness or mourning, not just for Rachel but also for this inner dilemma that Batman is going through. He feels responsible for everything that’s happening and Alfred helps him understand how Gotham needs him, they need their hero. The blues are often contrasted with yellows and oranges to create again a conflict on screen but very subtly.

“The final game” played by Joker involved two ferries, one containing average citizens of Gotham and the other containing convicts that Gordon wanted to get out of the city and away from Joker’s plans. But again we see how the Joker was one step ahead as this plays right into his plans. The Joker gives each ferry the detonator to the other ferry. Telling them both that if they don’t blow up the other by a certain amount of time, they’ll blow up both boats. And obviously both boats aren’t able to communicate with each other to create a plan on what to do, or how to go about the situation at hand. This game is another very famous game theory experiment called the ‘Prisoners Dilemma’.

The climax of the movie is again generally framed in a darker setting with the music also mysterious and makes the audience want more. The cooler darker palette creates a sense of fear as well as the audience now knows the power of Joker and even though this is a film and usually good wins over evil, the Joker is always ahead of the Batman.

This part of the third act ends with the Batman eventually capturing the Joker and finding out the other villain who was created by the Joker, Two-Faced. In a long climax Batman fights Dent (now as Two-Faced) and saves Gordon’s son. Both Gordon and Batman decide to let Dent die a hero, and as the White Knight of Gotham. Why? Because of what Harvey believed in, he said earlier in the film, “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” Harvey did become the villain but Batman sacrificed himself to let Harvey die as a hero. Batman now has learnt that sacrifice is vital to be a true hero. This is what makes Batman the “Dark Knight” of Gotham. Gordon explains to his son, “Because he’s the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now, so we’ll hunt him. Because he can take it, because he’s not a hero. He’s a silent guardian, a watchful protector, a Dark Knight.”

The last clip before the fade out to black is of Batman on his bike riding into the light. The whole movie has been set in a cooler tone and dominated by blues and purples and therefore Nolan ends the film with Batman racing into a yellow light or a warmer light.