In the film “The Dark Knight” directed by Christopher Nolan, I will be analysing the Joker’s Social Experiment scene. I will look at the many different methods Christopher Nolan to create suspense in the scene such as lighting, Character Actions and costumes. Christopher Nolan shows the importance of the citizens not falling to the Joker’s plan and abandoning law and order throughout the film, he especially emphasises this in the Joker’s Social experiment scene. This scene has the viewers gripping the edges of their seats as Gotham sits on the verge of chaos.

Christopher Nolan uses lighting throughout the scene. An example of when Christopher Nolan uses this is when Batman has the joker hanging from the building and his face is swaying in and out of the spotlight of the helicopter changing his face from being from dark to light. Christopher Nolan breaks the lighting conventions to show the Jokers in normality this is very uncommon in movies for a director to go against conventions where the villain is usually in the shadows to show he is evil. He does this to reinforce his idea of the joker being unpredictable and not a regular villain. Unlike regular villains the joker is not interested in making himself rich or the leader, he just wants to corrupt Gotham and drive it into anarchy. This idea of anarchy and corruption is in societies today in countries such as Pakistan where anarchy reigns this has caused a huge demise for the country as they have lost lots of travellers and are now no longer able to host sports games for example the Black Caps have not travelled to Pakistan since 2002 because it is too dangerous. Pakistan is a real life example of what happens when a country or city is driven into anarchy, this is a society where corruption rules and crime runs free.

In the social experiment scene Christopher Nolan uses character actions to create suspense. Christopher Nolan uses the idea of the importance of law and order for any society or city to function. The Joker’s goal is to let chaos and anarchy rule over Gotham. The Joker tries to force the citizens break the law and order to destroy the only thing keeping the city from dropping fully into anarchy. The Joker tried to corrupt the city and drive it into anarchy by giving the civilians the option to blow up the other boat full of convicted felons. Christopher Nolan makes you wonder what decision you would make if you were in the shoes of the innocent citizens. This moral dilemma creates suspense as Christopher Nolan makes the viewers wonder if the innocent civilians are above the felons. The problem the innocent people face is that if they blow up the other ship they are dragging themselves down and making them no better than the felons on the other boat. 

Christopher Nolan uses character costumes to create suspense by clearly showing who everyone is and to make viewers assume what is going to happen. During the Jokers social experiment scene Christopher Nolan clearly shows that there are prisoners in one boat as he shows them in the stereotypical orange jumpsuits and in the other boat he shows them to the viewers as innocent civilians by making them wear very basic dull coloured clothes. By doing this he makes the viewers instantly believe that one of the boats will be blown up by the prisoners because of how Christopher Nolan shows them it makes them seem like they are all bad and will blow up the boat of civilians without a second thought. This scene has a lot of suspense as it is deciding the fate of Gotham. Christopher Nolan shows this using the names of the boat “spirit” and “liberty” he uses these names as much more than just the names of the boats as if the passengers of the boat will be blowing up far more than just the other boat they will be blowing up Gothams spirit and liberty and destroy any hope of the city redeeming itself. Christopher Nolan creates suspense when the time for the bombs is about to run out the biggest scariest looking prisoner walks up to the warden and says “Im doing what you should have done 10 minutes ago”. This misdirects the viewers into believing that because he’s the big intimidating prisoner he will blow up the civilians boat leaving the spirit and liberty of Gotham will be shattered. The prisoner then throws the detonator out the window into the boat, this leaves the viewers shocked as Christopher Nolan has made the viewers almost certain that he would blow the other ship up. 

I found the Joker’s social experiment scene was very gripping. The scene constantly had viewers wondering what will happen next, and thinking about what they would do if they were put in this situation. Christopher Nolan did this while using lighting, character actions and costumes to create suspense and show the importance of law and order in Gotham and every society.