Visual Analysis on Christopher Nash´s the Dark Knight and Inception

Introduction

As one of the most popular Directors in Hollywood, Christopher Nolan was known for his complex storyline and non-linear structure of the film. His most famous work including The Prestige (2006), Inception (2010), Batman series (2005, 2008, 2012), many of his work have been nominated by numerous awards. This paper mainly analyses two famous film posters from his works, The Dark Knight (2008) and Inception (2010).

Semiotics, known as the science of signification, was first originated by Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Sanders Peirce, with applying the semiotics analysis in this paper; we will introduce the theory of semiotics and review the history generally. Semiotics is the interpretation of meaning, based on the Saussure’s approach of semiology; he was mainly focus on the structural on linguistics, while Peirce was more concentrate on the logical dimensions of the science. In general, semiotic is a study of signs.

According to Gordon, he defined that sign is “Anything that tell us about something other than itself” (Gordon, 1996:14) A sign is a representation of an object or implied deep meaning behind the object. Saussure developed the principle of semiotics as he applied to language, he also elaborates the relationship of sign with the following formula: “signifier + signified=sign”

Based on Saussure’s notion, signifier is the sign carries the meaning, including the marks on the paper and the sound in the air. Signified is a mental concept of the meaning, which the person who have the same cultural background can share the same language. The sign is embrace both of them, which make the sign, has the wider use.

Peirce’s idea of semiotic is an account of signification, representation, reference and meaning...

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... Additionally, use semiotic theory to analysing film poster will be a great challenge, because a film poster is not like a film, a film poster is a propaganda tool; to analysis the poster was more likely to analysis the target market and audiences of the film. Examples like ‘The Dark Knight’ are focusing on the audiences who interested in superhero stories, and ‘Incepiton’ will attract the audiences who like science film and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Both film posters reflected the style of director, Christopher Nolan, as the paper have mentioned, the film poster will keep the same style with the film, ‘the Dark Knight’ has a dark colour selection which ‘Inception’ has brighter colour, but both of them have mysterious atmosphere. The audiences will believed the scene in front of eyes, in this cases, both of the film poster are success to arouse curiosity of audiences.