Christopher Nolan rarely has anything left on the cutting room floor when he has finished working on his Batman movies, and has stated before that he's not really a fan of deleted scenes. But it seems with The Dark Knight Rises at least, there were a few things left out of the finished film. We already know about one brief scene involving Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard) and Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), but costume designer Lindy Hemming describes a far more interesting scene -- or series of scenes -- involving Bane (Tom Hardy). Here is what she had to say to GQ (via Vulture..
"The thing that you should have seen during that sequence is [Bane] being injured in his youth. So one of the fundamental things about his costume is that he has this scar from the back injury. Even if he hasn’t got the bulletproof vest on, he still has to wear the waist belt and the braces. In that scene in the prison, where he’s learning to fight the same way Batman learned to fight, he’s wearing an early version of his waist belt. It’s showing support, but it’s not the finished one he eventually wears. He’s also wearing an early version of his gas mask, all glued together … If you look at the film, unless they’ve cut it—and I’m sure they haven’t—there’s a whole early section for Tom Hardy where he’s fighting and being taunted by people. He’s got chains on him, and he’s standing on a wooden thing while people are attacking him. And in that scene, he’s wearing a much more ragged, primitive version of the mask."
Hemming obviously hadn't seen the final movie, and assumed this was all left in, but when it was explained to her that those scenes had been cut, she replied:
"Well that's an awful shame, but I suppose you have to cut things. I won't elaborate on it too much, because it isn't in the film, but there was another section that showed you why he had the mask and where it came from." This all sounds like great stuff. Although I did like the mystery surrounding the character at the same time, it would have been nice to find out a bit more about that mask and why he wears it. Can we look forward to seeing it on the Blu-ray/DVD? Unlikely since the home releases for
Batman Begins and
The Dark Knight featured no deleted scenes, but I guess you never know.
About The Author:
Mark Cassidy is a writer, photographer, amateur filmmaker, and Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic from Dublin, Ireland.