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Batman,

The Establishing Shot EXCLUSIVE! The Dark Knight Rises Costume Designer Lindy Hemming talks Bane’s outfit from The Dark Knight Rises

This week the British Board of Film Classification passed The Dark Knight Rises with no cuts and a 12A certification for Moderate Violence and an official run time of 164m 27s (2 hours 44 and a half Minutes) and my Dark Knight Rises Limited edition Nokia Lumia 800 TDKR Nokia App telling me that Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises premieres in exactly 12 Days, 9 Hours and will be in cinemas in 2 weeks on Friday 20 July.

With that thought in mind I bring you an interesting little tidbit of Dark Knight Rises information. Yesterday I popped down to the iconic towers of The Barbican to the very first session of Designing 007 – Fifty Years Of Bond Style at the Barbican Centre and bumped into Christopher Nolan's secret weapon Costume Designer Lindy Hemming.

A big part of the Designing 007 – Fifty Years Of Bond Style exhibit is dedicated to the clothes featured in James Bond films from across its 50 year heritage and rightfully so, as the clothes of Bond have been one of the most important and enduring elements in the films raising the Bond films a cut above. After the actors and Ladies of Bond, past the action, the cars and the gadgets the clothes have made the man.

The clothes of Bond have been an intricate part of raising the status of the Bond legacy and will forever be the suave and sophisticated secret agent because of this.

The person responsible for design of the costumes of James Bond from 1995’s GoldenEye through to his masterful reinvention in 2006s Casino Royale was none other than Oscar winning Costume Designer Lindy Hemming. Ms. Hemming’s eye for detail , flair and excellence in her craft  have been praised for films like; Topsy-Turvy, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight as well as her involvement in countless other Blockbusters and independent features
Sadly Ms. Hemming will not be threading her magic into Sam Mendes’s Skyfall. Louise Frogley designed the costumes for Quantum of Solace and Jany Temime will be designing Skyfall’s costumes. On a related note - keep an eye out for my chat with Ms. Jany Temime about the differences in designing outfits for dark fantasy Harry Potter and sophisticated secret agents - which I’ll post soon.

Anyway earlier this year Hemming told GQ magazine:

Bane was meant to look like a cross between a dictator and a revolutionary. I designed the coat myself - it took a year. We took inspiration from a Swedish army jacket and a French Revolution frock coat and amalgamated the two.”

Image: The Dark Knight Rises Batman vs. Bane

Which ties quite nicely into my thoughts of Bane as outlined in my: The Establishing Shot: EPIC! 8,645 word analysis of The Dark Knight Rises Trailer over here! But we need more!!

I managed to briefly Lindy Hemming on the Red Carpet for the opening of the Warner Bros. Studio Tour London - The Making of Harry Potter so when I bumped into her today at the Designing 007 – Fifty Years Of Bond Style exhibit, in a rare moment of being present I took the opportunity to ask Christopher Nolan's secret weapon - Lindy Hemming to shed some light on her influences for Bane’s outfit in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming The Dark Knight Rises.


Sworn to secrecy  Lindy Hemming cannot discuss exact details but was kind enough let us know:

“You’ll  have to see The Dark Knight Rises to see what Bane’s character is and then you’ll, hopefully, understand where he is coming from - which was my inspiration, his outfit is meant to be put together from old parts of military equipment.

As I slowly absorbed the words floating out of Ms. Hemming’s mouth my mind spun off into a myriad of frenetic possibilities but I only realised a little later just how excited I had became hearing Hemming talk about Bane and his origins. This did more for me than the four The Dark Knight Rises Trailers that have been released. It was suddenly real - Bane (in my opinion one of the greatest villains to grace the pages of a comic) and Batman are about to go toe to toe on the big screen.  Many will disagree but The Joker was a clown compared to the focused and palpable threat that Bane presents, both mentally and physically he is Batman’s equal and then some.

Hemming’s saying “put together from old parts of military equipment.” Does this allude to Bane employing a similar ethic to Bruce Wayne’s utilitarian approach when cannibalising Wayne Technologies gear for his own use as well as mixing and matching it to enhance its functionality.  And extrapolating that further - possibly either having some sort of bio-organic enhancements or being the victim of some sort of prison camp experiments? At the time the loudest thought I had was around a possible link between Bane’s origin and a thought I had sparked by the first The Dark Knight Rises leaked Leonid Pavel CIA viral document and Bane being a young victim of a Chernobyl like disaster, even if not his throat injuries allude to something have happened to Bane. His dialogue in the prologue – something to the effect that no one paid attention to him until he put on the mask meaning that the mask was a catalyst for his development as a force to be reckoned with.

If, as indicated, Bane is a career military man chances are he has had ample opportunity to refine his gear and hone both his overall strategy and field fighting skills on the battle field.

Unlike The Joker Bane clearly has an origin story and it seems to somehow tie into his rage for Gotham and everything it stands for.
Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
The novel depicts the plight of the French peasantry demoralized by the French aristocracy in the years leading up to the revolution, the corresponding brutality demonstrated by the revolutionaries toward the former aristocrats in the early years of the revolution, and many unflattering social parallels with life in London during the same time period. It follows the lives of several protagonists through these events.


It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

Book II Chapter XXIII. Fire Rises

Image: Bane Manhole Sewer Cover The Dark Knight Rises (Click for full pic)

The most notable are Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton. Darnay is a French once-aristocrat who falls victim to the indiscriminate wrath of the revolution despite his virtuous nature, and Carton is a dissipated British barrister who endeavours to redeem his ill-spent life out of his unrequited love for Darnay's wife, Lucie Manette.There two very different men are all drawn against their will to the vengeful, bloodstained streets of Paris at the height of the Reign of Terror and soon fall under the lethal shadow of La Guillotine.

My thoughts on The Dark Knight Rises trailer are here: 
http://www.theestablishingshot.com/2012/03/establishing-shot-epic-8645-word.html

My thoughts on The Dark Knight Rises teaser trailer are here: http://www.theestablishingshot.com/2011/07/dark-knight-rises-teaser-trailer.html

My thoughts on The Dark Knight Rises Prologue are here: http://www.theestablishingshot.com/2011/12/establishing-shot-full-dark-knight.html

The Dark Knight Rises release date: The Dark Knight Rises will be released on the 20 July 2012

The Dark Knight Rises
Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ “The Dark Knight Rises” is the epic conclusion to filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. It has been eight years since Batman vanished into the night, turning, in that instant, from hero to fugitive.

Assuming the blame for the death of D.A. Harvey Dent, the Dark Knight sacrificed everything for what he and Commissioner Gordon both hoped was the greater good.  For a time the lie worked, as criminal activity in Gotham City was crushed under the weight of the anti-crime Dent Act. But everything will change with the arrival of a cunning cat burglar with a mysterious agenda.  Far more dangerous, however, is the emergence of Bane, a masked terrorist whose ruthless plans for Gotham drive Bruce out of his self-imposed exile.  But even if he dons the cape and cowl again, Batman may be no match for Bane.

Director: Christopher Nolan
Writers: Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan
Stars: Christian Bale, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Gary Oldman

The Establishing Shot: EXCLUSIVE! THE DARK KNIGHT RISES COSTUME DESIGNER LINDY HEMMING TALKS BANE’S OUTFIT FROM THE DARK KNIGHT RISES