Motivic Transformation in the Dark Knight Trilogy

(2005–2012)

Steven Rahn

Music and the Moving Image, Volume 12, Issue 2, Summer 2019, pp. 40-60
(Article)

Published by University of Illinois Press

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/729535

[ Access provided at 3 Jan 2022 14:42 GMT from Stockholms universitet ]

Motivic Transformation in the Dark Knight Trilogy
(2005–2012)
Steven Rahn
Abstract. This article examines how the minor third motive in the Dark Knight
trilogy (2005–2012) transforms in meaning across the three films through rehar-
monization, and how its narrative associations eventually expand beyond the role
of signifier for Batman. The films’ departure from the more traditional thematic
approach of previous Batman films describes a stylistic trend in contemporary
film scoring that Nicholas Reyland (2015) has dubbed “corporate classicism,”
which, according to Reyland, “[privileges] affect and style topical connotation
over musical structures developing thematic or harmonic symbolism.” By focusing
on a single motive’s array of harmonic underpinnings, this analysis demonstrates
how minimalistic musical materials within the contemporary model of corpo-
rate classicism can not only undergo subtle transformations across a film or film
franchise, but can also host rich symbolic resonances that emerge from such tran-
sformations. Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard thus allow the music to
function beyond an affective role and engage with themes of identity and moral
ambivalence in the Dark Knight trilogy.

Introduction tifs of previous Batman films (also shown

in Example 1), the earlier themes appear
The music in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark
notably more expansive not just in terms
Knight trilogy (2005–2012) features unusu-
of pitch-class content but also in melodic
ally spare thematic content compared to
shape, harmonic richness, and rhythmic va-
many earlier soundtracks for comic book/
riety. The aim of this article is to show how,
superhero films. Composed by Hans Zim-
in spite of the minor third motive’s minimal
mer and James Newton Howard,1 the scores
appearance, a closer analysis of its treatment
for Nolan’s reboot of the Batman franchise
throughout the Dark Knight trilogy reveals
depart significantly from the overtly the-
a transformative progression of meaning in
matic scoring style of Danny Elfman, Shirley
the gesture as it is continuously reharmo-
Walker, and Elliot Goldenthal, the previous
nized across the three films.
musical voices of Batman on the big screen.
In her analysis of the Batman Begins score,
Perhaps the most salient, recurring musical
Janet Halfyard notes how a number of review-
element of Nolan’s trilogy is an ascending
ers expressed dissatisfaction with Zimmer
minor third motive (Example 1a), which
and Howard’s scoring approach because of its
might strike listeners as a curiously minimal
aversion to a more traditional presentation of
aural signifier for such an iconic character.
a “big theme.”2 She specifically acknowledges
When considering this leitmotif ’s internal
the negative commentary of Christian Clem-
properties alongside the principal leitmo-
mensen, founder of the popular and prolific

40 music and the moving image 12.2  /  summer 2019

©2019 by the board of trustees of the university of illinois
Steven Rahn : Motivic Transformation 41
Example 1. Batman film themes
film score review website Filmtracks.com.
Clemmensen criticizes the Batman Begins
score for deviating from the established sound
of earlier Batman films, accusing it of “lazi-
ness” and claiming that the titular character
“demands more than a two-note motif to rep-
resent him.”3 Halfyard argues that while the
film seemingly lacks a singular “big theme,”
Zimmer and Howard create a group of
themes derived from the same harmonic base
that perform different functions in associa-
tion with Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) and
Batman. The harmonic progression that con-
nects these themes, however, “is used on its
own more frequently and for more extended
periods than any of the individual melodies.”4
Halfyard suggests that this might explain why
critics and audiences tend not to perceive any
42 music and the moving image  12.2 / summer 2019
major theme, combined with the fact that no
single member of the theme group becomes
the sole identifier of the hero. Much more
prominent is the rising minor third motive,
which according to Halfyard “acts as an ad-
junct to this [theme] group, frequently placed
alongside elements of it.” She observes how
the motive occurs over a number of iconic
shots and “draws attention to itself, both be-
cause it is used so frequently . . . and because
it often occurs when there is relatively little
action on screen.”5
While the ascending minor third is the
most recurrent leitmotif throughout the
Dark Knight trilogy, Zimmer and Howard
also use spare musical gestures as signifiers
for important characters other than Batman.
In The Dark Knight, the Joker (Heath Ledger)
is defined primarily by a timbrally harsh,
upward-sliding tone clashing with a buzzing
pedal tone played by a distorted cello and
an electric guitar.6 Bane (Tom Hardy), the
main antagonist of The Dark Knight Rises,
is identified not through pitch but rather
through a propulsive, repeated rhythmic pat-
tern that projects a 5/4 metrical structure.
The choice to downplay melody is funda-
mental to Nicholas Reyland’s description
of “corporate classicism,” a stylistic trend of
contemporary film scoring directly associ-
ated with Hans Zimmer that relies more on
secondary compositional parameters such as
timbre, texture, and rhythm.7 According to
Reyland, a hallmark of corporate classicism
is “privileging affect and style topical con-
notation over musical structures developing
thematic or harmonic symbolism.”8 He uses
The Dark Knight as an exemplar case study to
demonstrate features of the style, but while
Zimmer and Howard’s score indeed places
less of an emphasis on conventional thematic
structure, I argue that this does not necessar-
ily diminish the music’s capacity to function
in an explicitly representational manner or
its ability to provide expressive commentary
on the action.
I begin with the premise that the vari-
ous iterations of the ascending minor third
motive exhibit different narrative associa-
tions based on how the motive is harmo-
nized, thus forming a semiotic network of
harmonic progressions.9 There are three
harmonizations of the minor third motive
that occur most frequently throughout the
trilogy: a nonprogressing D-minor tonic
(henceforth referred to as the “pure tonic”
version); i–VI in D minor; and the SLIDE
progression from D minor to D major.
Early in the trilogy, the pure tonic version
marks stages in the evolution of the Batman
persona. By contrast, the i–VI progression
underlines feelings of empowerment, accom-
panying moments of triumph and significant
transformations in the character.
Later in the trilogy, the minor third mo-
tive breaks free of Batman and expands be-
yond its association with the protagonist as
the scope of the narrative broadens. The har-
monically ambivalent SLIDE progression, for
example, underpins scenes that feature ethi-
cal conundrums involving either Batman or
secondary characters. Contrary to its overall
function in Batman Begins, the minor third
motive is thus positioned less as a marker of
the protagonist’s development in the sequels.
However, the concluding moments of these
latter two films—which feature the i–VI
harmonization prominently—suggest a rene-
gotiation of Batman’s developmental trajec-
tory, and highlight a division between the
state of Batman’s public persona and Bruce
Wayne’s internal identity. The appearances
of the i–VI harmonization that terminate
the sequels signal a character’s—not just
Bruce Wayne’s—acquisition of power and
emancipation from the social order through
the necessary transformation of their social
and/or personal identity. In The Dark Knight,
this manifests in the purposeful denigration
of Batman’s public image for the sake of the
greater good; and in The Dark Knight Rises,
it takes place after Bruce Wayne entrusts the
Steven Rahn : Motivic Transformation 43

Batman persona to another—after reclaim- attempts to demonstrate that minimalistic

ing his earlier image—so that the symbol musical materials within the contemporary
lives on. These moments thus represent a model of corporate classicism can not only
realization of empowerment through the undergo subtle transformations across a sin-
displacement of identity. gle film or a film franchise but can also host
While the minor third motive occurs rich symbolic resonances that emerge from
more often as a rapidly oscillating ostinato such transformations.
figure in the strings, this project focuses on
the elongated, foregrounded motivic utter- Identity Emergence and Empowerment
ances that Halfyard describes as a “somber in Batman Begins
fanfare.”10 In my analysis, I will also discuss
In the Batman mythology, Bruce Wayne’s
other harmonizations of the motive besides
decision to adopt the Batman persona can
the three primary progressions mentioned
be traced back to the death of his parents. As
so far. Table 1 provides an inventory of the
a child, Bruce witnesses his parents’ murder
different harmonizations and a summary of
at the hands of a mugger, and later makes an
their narrative associations. Overall, I pro-
oath to combat crime in pursuit of a sense
pose that Zimmer and Howard’s scores ex-
of justice.11 In Batman Begins, the persona is
pressively interact with the narrative subtext
also linked to his fear of bats, which mani-
of the Dark Knight trilogy on a deeper level
fests itself shortly before his parents are mur-
than critics and scholars have suggested, and
dered at the beginning of the film. During
that the compositional efficiency on display
Bruce’s training with the League of Shadows
does not necessarily imply a reduction in
later in the film, his teacher, Ra’s al Ghul
the music’s expressive potential or its repre-
(Liam Neeson), instructs him that in order
sentational power. Even with spare musical
to conquer fear, “you must become fear.”
materials, Zimmer and Howard are able to
According to Kresimir Vukovic and Rajko
provide an additional layer of commentary
Petkovic, the process of internalizing the
on the trilogy’s themes of morality and iden-
dreaded object is fundamental to many cre-
tity. By focusing on a single motive’s array
ation myths.12 In Roman myth, for example,
of harmonic underpinnings, this analysis
the savior figure who nurses Romulus and

Table 1. Summary of minor third motive harmonizations and their narrative associations in the Dark
Knight trilogy.
Batman Begins The Dark Knight The Dark Knight Rises
Nonprogressing tonic Marks stages in Batman’s General signifier for Bat- General signifier for Bat-
process of “becoming” man man, even when he is
absent
Dm→BM Empowerment, victory, Same as previous film Same as previous films
(i–VI) personal triumph
“Empowered” gesture
Dm→DM (SLIDE) Moral ambivalence of char- Ambivalence; uncertainty
acters (not just Batman) regarding the outcome of
dramatic situations
Dm→Bm Tragically inflected, associ- Similar to SLIDE in TDKR
(i–vi) ated with despair in terms of signification
Dm→Dm7/C→GM/B Hope or consolation in the
“Hope” gesture wake of sorrowful loss
44 music and the moving image  12.2 / summer 2019
Remus internalizes a fear of wolves as a she-
wolf. Likewise, Hercules slays the Nemean
lion and then uses the animal’s skin as a sta-
ple of his identity, an act in keeping with an
ancient practice of the hunter, which was to
assume the identity and power of the animal
predator.13 Bruce Wayne accepts trauma as
the ultimate marker of his identity and “cre-
ates a new order upon which a better world
is to be built.”14 He positions his identity in
relation to his trauma and symbolically re-
enacts it through the Batman persona. This
act, however, is not a solution that eliminates
the trauma, but rather a reworking of the
trauma.15
As a creation myth, Batman Begins traces
the evolution of the Batman persona starting
from the traumatic event that instilled a fear
of bats in Bruce as a young boy. While play-
ing in his parents’ garden, Bruce accidentally
falls into a well and encounters a swarm of
bats at the bottom. Shortly before the bats
appear, the soundtrack introduces the rising
D–F motive in sustained tones, as shown
in Table 2. Throughout the film, this minor
third motive marks pivotal moments that
represent a step forward in Batman’s pro-
cess of “becoming.” While Bruce’s traumatic
childhood experience in the well triggered
his fear of bats, another significant scene fea-
turing the minor third motive shows Bruce
leaving Gotham in order to begin a new
life. Bruce travels the world in an attempt to
understand the criminal mind, and this deci-
sion initiates his personal journey towards
self-reinvention.
When Bruce returns to Gotham, he ex-
plains to Alfred (Michael Caine) his desire
to act as a symbol against the criminals and
the corrupt. The spare musical signifier for
Batman finds its descriptive correlate in
Bruce’s explanation to Alfred: “As a man, I’m
flesh and blood. I can be ignored, I can be
destroyed. But as a symbol . . . I can be incor-
ruptible, I can be everlasting. Something el-
emental, something terrifying.” Bruce’s use of
the word elemental to characterize his future
Batman persona manifests itself musically in
the minimal, yet distinct minor third motive,
which projects a sense of power and gran-
deur in later scenes with its stark simplicity.
Table 3 tracks the scenes in Batman Begins
that feature the sustained minor third mo-
tive in its pure tonic form, and clarifies the
relevance of these moments in the develop-
ment of the Batman persona. During most of
the scenes listed in the table, the minor third
motive suggests the key of D minor in its
ascent from scale degree 1 to 3 (D–F). Some
scenes, however, present the motive trans-
posed at a different pitch level.
One of these marked instances of the
motive appears during a scene showing
Batman alone for the first time in the sig-
nature costume, the persona fully fledged
(1:05:38). In a rotating shot, Batman stands
motionless on the ledge of a building in
shadow like a gargoyle. Accompanying
this image is an E-major triad played by
tremolo strings, which create a shimmering
effect while the sustained minor third mo-
tive in the brass cuts through this texture in
the form of G to B. The shimmering effect
of the strings suggests almost a celestial
character, creating a striking juxtaposition
with the gothic imagery and imbuing Bat-
man with a transcendental quality. This
particular musical setting of a protracted
E-major harmony evokes mythic creation
in a Wagnerian sense, recalling the opening
of Das Rheingold. Coupled with the shot
composition—which frames Batman as a
solemn and forbidding figure resembling a
demigod—the music cue contributes to the
mythic iconography of the character. On
a broader scale, the reharmonization and
dramatic recontextualization of the minor
third motive throughout the Dark Knight
trilogy might suggest a mythic resonance
since the leitmotif eventually breaks free of
Batman and thus resists overt signification
starting in the second installment.16
Table 2. Reduced audiovisual score for the well scene in Batman Begins.
Time Stamp 0:01:26
Visuals
Shot Description Young Bruce Wayne falls
into a well after the boards
covering the well give way
beneath his feet.
Music D-F motive played as an
oscillating ostinato figure
0:01:32
Bruce lands painfully at the bottom of the shaft.
Sustained D appears over ostinato figure
0:01:35
Rachel runs toward the mansion to seek help.
D rises to F in the sustained version of the mo-
tive; ostinato figure fades
0:01:50–0:01:54
Bruce screams in fear as bats
emerge from an opening in
the rocks and flutter around
him.
Timbrally indistinct sound
gradually rises in pitch, ob-
scured by bats flapping and
screeching
Table 3. Scenes featuring the pure tonic version of the minor third motive in Batman Begins.
Time Stamp Scene Stage in Batman’s process of “becoming”
0:01:30 Young Bruce falls into a well and is met with a First traumatic event that Bruce will eventually use
swarm of bats. symbolically to redefine his identity as an adult
0:07:19 Bruce trudges up a mountain slope in winter Bruce accepts Ra’s al Ghul’s offer of a meaning-
weather. ful path and commits to becoming “more than
just a man” in his mission to fight injustice. Bruce
demonstrates this commitment by venturing into
the wilderness in an attempt to meet Ra’s al Ghul’s
challenge.
0:07:56 Bruce arrives at the entrance to Ra’s al Ghul’s Ra’s al Ghul’s temple is the place where Bruce be-
temple. gins to redefine himself physically and psychologi-
cally.
0:27:59 Rachel lectures Bruce on the worsening state of Unable to seek revenge for his parents’ death,
crime in Gotham and the difference between justice Bruce begins to ruminate on the concept of justice
and revenge.1 beyond his own personal tragedy. Rachel’s lecture
helps plant the seed that leads to Bruce’s decision to
fight crime on a large scale.
0:32:17 Bruce runs away from Gotham. Bruce chooses to experience life as a criminal far
away from Gotham in attempt to understand the
criminal mind. This decision begins his personal
journey towards self-reinvention.
0:51:19 Lucius Fox reveals the armor that will later become Bruce begins preparing the theatrical components
Batman’s suit.2 of the Batman persona.
0:54:32 Bruce puts on a ski mask before first meeting with Bruce assumes a different identity for the first time,
Gordon. wearing a disguise that serves as a precursor to the
Batman persona.
0:59:20 Bruce designs Batman’s cape and forges a Batarang. Additional preparations in developing the theatri-
cal components of the Batman persona
1:05:38 Batman stands motionless on the ledge of a build- The Batman persona appears fully-formed in an
ing in shadow.3 iconic image.
1:16:14 Batman hangs from a building in the Narrows (a Batman assumes the role of detective, a fundamen-
seedy suburb of Gotham), investigating why half a tal trait of the character.
shipment of drugs is missing.
1:30:35 A swarm of bats begins to approach Arkham Asy- What was once the object of Bruce’s fear is now
lum. harnessed as a tool to help distract the cops as Bat-
man escapes from Arkham. Bruce demonstrates
true mastery of his fear.
1:34:28 Batman escapes from the police in the Batmobile Batman embodies the role of action hero.
while attempting to save Rachel’s life.
1:55:25 Batman heads to the Narrows after recovering from Bruce initially believes that he has failed to save
Ra’s al Ghul’s attack on Bruce’s mansion. Gotham, destroying everything his family built
in the process, but Alfred teaches Bruce to “pick
himself up” after “falling” (quoting Bruce’s father).
Reinvigorated, Bruce is determined to carry out his
mission and dons the cape and cowl again.
1:58:28 Batman glides through the air to confront Ra’s al Batman positions himself in opposition to the vil-
Ghul. lain, embodying the role of hero once again.
2:10:12 The Bat-signal is revealed for the first time. The Bat-signal represents Gotham’s trust in Bat-
man, their dependency on him, and their ac-
ceptance of him. The vigilante is now regarded by
many as the symbol of justice that Bruce intended.

Notes: 1. In this scene, the minor third motive is transposed to C–E instead of the usual D–F cell.
2. Here, the motive is transposed to G-B.
3. Motive is transposed to G–B.
Steven Rahn : Motivic Transformation 47
Example 2. Empowered gesture
While the minor third gesture remains
attached to the titular character through-
out Batman Begins, Zimmer and Howard
begin the process of expanding the motive’s
harmonic palette and expressive boundar-
ies in the scene where Bruce enters the
Batcave for the first time as an adult. Here,
the F of the D–F motive is harmonized with
a loud, resonant B-major triad, forming
a i–VI progression in D minor (Example
2 shows a reduction). The Batcave scene
shows Bruce calmly rising to his feet amidst
a swarm of bats, his eyes closed. He does
not cower in fear like he did as a young boy,
but instead embraces his fear, luxuriating in
the swarm of bats and feeling empowered
by the experience. Bruce had been previ-
ously instructed that he must become fear in
order to conquer it and this particular scene
demonstrates that final stage of Bruce’s pro-
cess of self-reinvention. Bolstered by a more
brass-heavy orchestration than the pure
tonic harmonization, the i–VI progression
serves to emphatically underline the sense
of empowerment Bruce experiences as a
new persona begins to emerge and his iden-
tity as Bruce is, as Halfyard puts it, “subli-
mated into his role as Batman.”17
A scene at the end of the film that simi-
larly features the i–VI harmonization of the
D–F motive shows Batman gliding through
the air after having defeated the villain Ra’s
al Ghul (previously Bruce’s teacher). This
victory prevents the destruction of Gotham
and represents Bruce’s first major, large-scale
achievement as Batman. The motion from D
to F above the booming B-major triad—or
what I will now refer to as the “empowered
gesture”—highlights Batman’s sense of ac-
complishment and triumph.18 The expressive
associations of this gesture emerge from a
confluence of narrative/visual coincidence
and the progression’s internal properties,
which suggest a positively valenced vitality
through brassy orchestration and the minor-
to-major succession of triads. The i–VI
progression also gains its power from the
registral expansion about D that results from
the motion from the first chord to the sec-
ond. D is melodically displaced by not only
the F from above as a result of the minor
third motive’s instantiation, but also by the B
from below as the downward shift to a new
bass harmonization occurs. Combined with
the sustained brass timbre, the expanded
registral space lends the i–VI progression a
sonically robust character, which makes this
harmonization of the minor third motive a
particularly appropriate signifier for empow-
erment in several moments throughout the
film. While the empowered gesture returns
in The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight
Rises, its presence at the end of the trilogy’s
second installment suggests more complex
meaning, as will be discussed in the next sec-
tion.
Moral Conflict in The Dark Knight
The minor third motive’s different harmoni-
zations shift in frequency over the course of
The Dark Knight, creating a metanarrative
of transformation that complements the
film’s dramatic trajectory. In Batman Begins,
the motive denotes stages in the evolution
of the Batman persona, and most iterations
sustain the tonic harmony. Early in The Dark
Knight, the pure tonic version of the mo-
tive functions more generally to underscore
scenes in which Batman springs into action
or prepares to perform a dramatic physical
maneuver.19 The i–VI progression also oc-
curs early on, but not at the blaring volume
found during the moments of triumph from
48 music and the moving image  12.2 / summer 2019
Example 3. SLIDE harmonization
the film’s predecessor. In fact, this harmo-
nization of the motive is quite subdued in
early scenes that suggest Batman’s presence
when he is either offscreen or not yet vis-
ible to criminals prior to a confrontation.20
Later scenes in The Dark Knight, however,
often feature the motive accompanied by
chromatic harmonies, suggesting an entirely
different meaning from that of the diatonic
harmonizations. Example 3 shows the D–F
motive occurring over the Neo-Riemannian
SLIDE progression in which a D-minor triad
moves to D major.
This chromatically inflected harmonic
progression coincides with moments in
which characters (not just Batman) are pre-
sented with moral dilemmas or scenes in
which the actions of characters raise moral
questions. The slipping motion from a minor
triad to a major triad, which retains only
one common tone (F), colors the appearance
of the minor third motive with a foreign
harmonic entity. The chromatic shift is a
striking contrast to the diatonic i–VI gesture,
suggesting a more harmonically ambivalent
gesture21 that serves as a musical manifesta-
tion of the moral ambivalence certain char-
acters experience in the film.
Late in the film, for example, Batman at-
tempts to find the location of the Joker by
using a sonar device that has turned every
cell phone in Gotham into a microphone.
Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) is initially
reluctant to help him use the device because
it violates the privacy of citizens, but Batman
is desperate to find the Joker and to stop him
from killing more people. Fox tells him that
this course of action is unethical, but Batman
believes it is justified because he is using the
device for the greater good. The minor third
motive appears over a SLIDE transforma-
tion during the moment in which Batman
finally discovers where the Joker is hiding in
Gotham (2:00:50). Table 4 tracks the scenes
that feature the SLIDE harmonization, which
occurs more frequently in the latter half of
The Dark Knight.
In his dissertation, Frank Lehman com-
ments on the popularity of the SLIDE trans-
formation in film music, explaining how its
suitability to ambivalent dramatic contexts
can be attributed to its intrinsic harmonic
features, which include “the inability to
inhabit diatonic contexts; the commingling
of immanent indicators of extreme tonal
proximity with extreme diatonic remoteness;
and the uncanny enharmonic reorientation
of the triadic third.”22 In his book Hollywood
Harmony, Lehman briefly discusses SLIDE’s
ambiguity in the Dark Knight trilogy while
also applying transformational models to
the other harmonizations of the minor third
motive. The aforementioned motion from D
minor to B major, for instance, is described
as an L operation, serving as “the basic trans-
formational atom of the [film] series” from
which the Dm to DM progression derives.
According to Lehman, a more roundabout
reading of SLIDE as an L∙PR compound
transformation in this context accounts for
the progression’s “warping of the originary
M3 motion [in the L model].”23 My comple-
mentary functional reading of Dm to BM
as a i–VI progression illuminates a potential
link between the tonal character of this
harmonization and the film’s dramatic trajec-
tory. The shift from diatonic to chromatic
harmonizations of the minor third motive in
the latter half of The Dark Knight can be in-
terpreted as a musical analogue to the strain
on Batman’s (and others’) moral constitu-
tion.24
Because of its broad narrative scope, The
Dark Knight often shifts its focus away from
Table 4. Scenes featuring the SLIDE harmonization of the minor third motive in The Dark Knight.
Time Stamp Scene
0:35:42 Batman attempts to kidnap Lau from his company’s
building in Hong Kong as Lau’s henchmen trap Bat-
man by a window. Batman blows up the window with a
detonator, preparing to escape.
1:17:34 A police helicopter arrives as air support to counter the
Joker’s attacks on the SWAT truck that is transporting
Harvey Dent across town.
1:49:23 Bruce deliberately crashes his car into the police car
carrying Coleman Reese, preventing one of the cops
inside from killing Reese.
1:55:55 Gordon and the mayor discuss using ferries to evacu-
ate Gotham citizens and keeping Harvey Dent’s disap-
pearance a secret.
2:00:50 Batman discovers the Joker’s location with the help of
Lucius Fox, who is using a sonar device that has turned
every cell phone in Gotham into a microphone.
2:03:47 Citizens on a ferry begin voting on whether or not to
blow up the other boat full of Arkham inmates.
2:04:30 Batman uses a sonar device to navigate the floors of the
building where the Joker is located and to identify the
location of henchmen and SWAT teams.
2:11:57 A Gotham citizen decides against detonating the other
boat and places the detonator back inside its box.
Note: 1. Mark D. White, “Why Doesn’t Batman Kill the Joker?,” in Batman and Philosophy: The Dark Knight of the Soul, ed. Mark D. White
and Robert Arp (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2008), 16.
Moral significance
Jurisdictional boundaries prevent Gotham police from
arresting Lau in Hong Kong, so Batman circumvents
the law by breaking into Lau’s company building and
abducting him. While Batman has always operated
outside the law, this scene shows what is arguably his
most extreme, morally questionable act thus far.
Bruce’s controversial decision to allow Harvey to pose
as Batman and act as bait for the Joker has initiated
hazardous street warfare that puts Harvey’s life (and
others) in danger.
The Joker has threatened to blow up a hospital if no
one assassinates Coleman Reese in one hour. Fearing
for the life of his wife in the hospital, a cop is faced
with the dilemma of killing a man in order to save his
wife.
Gordon wants to move the inmates of Arkham Asylum
because the Joker has threatened the lives of everyone
who remains in Gotham. The mayor, however, is not
concerned with the lives of criminals and would rather
prioritize the lives of ordinary citizens. The mayor also
wants to keep Harvey’s disappearance a secret so as not
to distress the people of Gotham, raising the question
of whether or not certain information should be with-
held from the public for the greater good.
Using every cell phone in the city as a microphone
violates the privacy of citizens, but Batman is desperate
to find and stop the Joker from killing more people.
Fox tells him that using the machine is unethical, but
Batman believes it is justified because he is using the
machine for the greater good.
The Joker’s social experiment presents a moral conun-
drum: one boat must detonate the other boat full of
people before midnight, or else the Joker will blow up
both ferries. Some citizens appear conflicted about the
notion of killing others in order to save themselves
while others exhibit assurance in their decision, justify-
ing it with the belief that the inmates of Arkham “had
their chance” at life and squandered it.
Batman’s use of the sonar device to locate the positions
of people in the building recalls his unethical use of the
device in finding the Joker earlier.
Initially steadfast in his position, a Gotham citizen
elects to take charge of the detonator, but he ultimately
cannot bring himself to activate the detonator. This
scene brings to mind the controversial ethical distinc-
tion between causing death through action and causing
death through inaction. While allowing a death is usu-
ally considered less problematic than directly causing a
death,1 the issue is complicated further by the possibil-
ity that more people will die as a result of inaction.
50 music and the moving image  12.2 / summer 2019
the central character and, as a result, the
minor third motive begins to break free of
Batman in the latter half of the film. More
specifically, the motive’s SLIDE transforma-
tion accompanies some scenes in which
Batman is absent, the moral haze spreading
as secondary characters are also faced with
difficult decisions. During the climax of the
film, for example, the Joker designs a social
experiment and presents the people of Go-
tham with a moral conundrum. The Joker
threatens to blow up two ferries full of peo-
ple unless the passengers on one of the two
boats voluntarily detonate the other before
midnight. One group is made up of ordinary
citizens, while the other consists of inmates
from Arkham Asylum. Each group faces the
choice of either saving themselves by killing
the other group or waiting to be killed them-
selves. The citizens on one of the ferries then
begin voting on whether or not to detonate
the boat of Arkham inmates. Some appear
conflicted, while others exhibit assurance
and justify their decision with the belief that
the Arkham inmates had had their chance at
life and squandered it.
Near the end of the ferry sequence, a
chromatic variation of the minor third mo-
tive’s i–VI harmonization occurs: a D-minor
to B-minor progression, or i-vi (an LP
progression in Neo-Riemannian terms). The
scene featuring this gesture shows one of
the Arkham inmates stopping a guard from
detonating the bomb on the other boat and
then throwing the detonator overboard. The
substitution of the minor submediant for its
diatonic counterpart suggests a tragic reso-
nance as the other passengers on the ferry
fall into despair and accept their fate. This
pairing of two minor triads whose roots lie
a major third apart exemplifies what is com-
monly referred to as the “Tarnhelm” pro-
gression (named for its prominent thematic
role in Wagner’s Das Rheingold). Matthew
Bribitzer-Stull describes how this harmonic
progression came to be consistently associ-
ated with the eerie and the sinister through-
out art music of the later nineteenth century,
and also how it became a popular resource
in film music for evoking darkness, mystery,
and the unknown.25 While the “Tarnhelm”
progression harmonizes The Dark Knight’s
minor third motive during one of the film’s
most climactic sequences, it is not as preva-
lent as the other harmonizations featured
throughout the rest of the score.26 The “Tarn-
helm” harmonization is a marked gesture
here, serving as a striking mutation of the
i–VI progression and suggesting a reversal of
its association with empowerment.
The empowered gesture returns toward
the conclusion of The Dark Knight in three
significant scenes. It first appears when Bat-
man incapacitates the SWAT team at the
Joker’s hideout in order to stop them from
mistakenly targeting hostages disguised as
the Joker’s clown henchmen. Here, the em-
powered gesture underlines Batman’s com-
plete control of the situation and his physical
prowess. The empowered gesture enters
again when he prevents the mentally un-
stable District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron
Eckhart) from killing the son of Commis-
sioner Gordon (Gary Oldman), but in the
process causes Harvey to fall to his death. In
this moment, Batman has finally succeeded
in putting a stop to the current wave of
bloodshed in Gotham. With the Joker cap-
tured and Harvey dead, innocent lives are no
longer under immediate threat.
The removal of these threats only rep-
resents a partial victory, however. A com-
plex turn of events at the film’s conclusion
complicates the meaning of the empowered
gesture’s final iteration, which occurs during
the closing shot of the film. Batman is shown
fleeing from the police, riding into the night
on the Batpod, because he is believed to have
murdered five people. In actuality, Batman
has chosen to take responsibility for Harvey
Dent’s crimes in order to preserve Harvey’s
clean reputation as the city’s district attorney,
Steven Rahn : Motivic Transformation 51
and to maintain the collective spirit of hope
for Gotham’s rehabilitation. Shortly before
Batman makes this decision, Gordon states:
“The Joker won. Harvey’s prosecution, ev-
erything he fought for, undone. Whatever
chance you gave us of fixing our city dies
with Harvey’s reputation. We bet it all on
him. The Joker took the best of us and tore
him down. People will lose hope.” Batman
then chooses to paint himself as the villain
because he believes that Gotham needs Har-
vey as its true hero—a hero with a face. Gor-
don shows his understanding of Batman’s
choice in his ending monologue, which
Nicholas Bott describes as mythical and sa-
cred in its language.27 Gordon’s son asks why
Batman runs away and Gordon responds:
“Because he’s the hero Gotham deserves, but
not the one it needs right now.”
According to Bott, Batman becomes
an “innocent scapegoat” whose sacrifice
“reconciles a community in the midst of
crisis and violent upheaval.”28 Vukovic and
Petkovic note how Harvey Dent can now
be celebrated as an iconic hero sustained by
the construction of a myth—he becomes an
imaginary figure whose true nature is hid-
den from society.29 Bott claims that Batman’s
act of sacrifice in this situation indicates that
something has gone terribly awry in Bruce
Wayne’s initial decision to inspire good. He
characterizes Batman as an anti-Christ figure
because his sacrifice is done to suppress the
violent and murderous truth about Harvey
Dent, whereas Christ’s submission to the role
of scapegoat served to reveal the violent and
murderous truth about humanity’s repre-
sentatives. Both figures, however, choose to
absorb the evil and sins of others in order to
bring reconciliation.30
Batman justifies his “noble lie” by appeal-
ing to the greater good: “Sometimes the
truth isn’t good enough. Sometimes people
deserve more. Sometimes people deserve
to have their faith rewarded.” The vigilante’s
utilitarian thinking calls into question the
ethicality of his decision, recalling the scene
in which Batman uses the sonar device to
locate the Joker. In this earlier scene, Lucius
Fox states that the sonar device is too much
power for one person. At the film’s conclu-
sion, Batman again assumes a position of
enormous (perhaps excessive) power by con-
cealing the truth about Harvey Dent from
the public.
In previous scenes throughout Batman
Begins and The Dark Knight, the empowered
gesture carries an unequivocally positive
association, underlining moments of victory
or personal triumph. While The Dark Knight
ends with Batman overcoming the Joker, the
victory is built on a lie, which complicates
the meaning of the music cue in the film’s
final shot. In light of the SLIDE progressions
that highlighted situations featuring moral
dilemmas or characters engaging in ethically
questionable acts, one could argue that a
SLIDE progression would be more appropri-
ate here if ambivalence were the expressive
intention. Does the film therefore support
Batman’s choice by ennobling him with the
empowered gesture in the final scene?
The Dark Knight has been interpreted
from wildly contradictory political view-
points and the variety of readings is perhaps
indicative of the film’s ambiguous ideology.
Some have interpreted the film as a critique
on the war on terror while others have criti-
cized the film for endorsing “necessary evils”
such as rendition, torture, and erosion of
civil liberties.31 Criticisms such as these fail
to acknowledge how The Dark Knight sig-
nals its awareness of its own moral grayness
through complex developments in the nar-
rative that are underscored with expressively
ambiguous music cues (the SLIDE transfor-
mations). According to Martin Fradley, “it
is precisely the [film’s] moral ambiguity that
makes [it] so culturally potent.”32
The use of the empowered gesture in the
film’s closing shot—following Batman’s most
significant moral conundrum yet—represents
52 music and the moving image  12.2 / summer 2019
an ironic reversal of the empowered gesture’s
first appearance in Batman Begins. Recall,
in the earlier scene, Bruce Wayne luxuriat-
ing at the center of a swarm of bats in the
Batcave, embracing a new identity that was
more authentic to him than the vacuous bil-
lionaire playboy façade that he would later
present to the public. At the conclusion of The
Dark Knight, however, we witness the reverse
process in which Batman sheds his authentic
identity and adopts a false one. This moment
marks the point at which the empowered
gesture becomes linked to identity as much as
victory or triumph, specifically, the manipula-
tion of one’s own identity and the power it
gives characters in the films. As my discussion
of The Dark Knight Rises will demonstrate,
the empowered gesture not only sustains its
association with identity transformation and
power, but, like the SLIDE progression, even-
tually breaks free of Batman.
Hope, Loss, and Uncertainty
in The Dark Knight Rises
Continuing the trend in the latter half of
the previous film, the minor third motive
in The Dark Knight Rises is not confined to
its association with Batman, but this time
the expansion is not limited to one specific
harmonization. Even during scenes in which
the motive can be interpreted as a signifier
for Batman, the character may either be out
of costume or offscreen altogether. In an es-
tablishing shot of Gotham’s cityscape at the
beginning of the film (0:06:37), for instance,
we hear the pure tonic version of the mo-
tive played quietly with a ghostly, electronic
timbre. This new presentation of the motive
is perhaps commenting on Batman’s absence,
suggesting that the memory of Batman still
haunts the city even though he has been
inactive for eight years. The familiar, assured
presentation of the motive in its pure tonic
form returns when Bruce finally emerges
from isolation and takes steps toward ending
his retirement from crime fighting (0:30:00).
Lehman proposes that a new harmoniza-
tion of the minor third motive introduced in
the final film is connected to Batman’s im-
plied successor, Robin “John” Blake (Joseph
Gordon-Levitt), a rookie cop.33 Zimmer ex-
pands the gesture from two chords to three,
beginning with the D-minor tonic moving to
a Dm7/C chord,34 followed by a GM/B triad
(Example 4). The progression produces the
stepwise bass line D–C–B, against which the
D–F motive occurs and then falls back down
to D. While this reharmonization of the mo-
tive indeed appears in several scenes featur-
ing Blake’s character, I will offer an alternate
reading of its signification.
Appearing in a scene where Blake is actu-
ally absent, the new progression underscores
an interaction between Bruce and Miranda
Tate (Marion Cotillard), who finds Bruce
locked out of his home and standing alone in
the rain. Alfred has abandoned Bruce out of
resistance to his reprisal of the Batman per-
sona, and Bruce has been left penniless after
a break-in at the stock exchange. Miranda
assures Bruce that she will take care of his
parents’ legacy by taking control of Wayne
Enterprises in the aftermath of his financial
bankruptcy. Upon seeing a photo of Rachel,
Bruce’s deceased love, and learning about
Alfred’s departure, Miranda continues to
comfort Bruce.
In light of its prominent use in the scene
described above and emotionally similar mo-
ments that do involve Blake, I argue that the
Dm–Dm7/C–GM/B harmonization of the
minor third motive more broadly signifies
the experience of hope or consolation in the
wake of sorrowful loss. This new progression
Example 4. Hope gesture
Steven Rahn : Motivic Transformation 53
is the first to incorporate a seventh chord
as support for the motive, introducing an
element of tension and release. The D–C–B
descending bass line is also reminiscent of
a sigh gesture, evoking a yearning quality,
and the resolution to the G-major harmony
provides a sense of warmth. C occasionally
enters as a chromatic neighbor to D in the
G-major triad, breaking its warmth with an
added dissonance before the progression
repeats or continues to different musical
material. This hint of extra tension might
suggest a pang of uncertainty or doubt be-
hind the overall hopefulness of the gesture.
Despite the interpolating seventh in the bass,
the motion from minor tonic to the major
subdominant resembles what Scott Mur-
phy calls an m5M tonal-triadic progression
class, which describes a succession of two
triads where the distance from the root of a
tonicized minor triad to the root of a sub-
ordinate major triad is five ascending semi-
tones. According to Murphy, m5M tends to
be associated with optimism in film music,
among other experiences such as wonder-
ment, success, and transcendence.35 The
presence of the major subdominant in minor
also gives The Dark Knight Rises’ “hope”
progression a dorian-mode flavor, which
Lehman links to nostalgia and melancholia
in film music.36 The consolatory resonance
of this new harmonization of the minor third
motive is further reinforced by what Mark
Richards describes as a delicate, high-register
electronic timbre, which eventually gives way
to a warm string texture in most instances.
While the electronic timbre used for the
minor third motive’s first appearance in the
film suggested a ghostly aura, its continued
presence in more intimate dramatic contexts
evokes, as Richards puts it, a sense of “vul-
nerability.”37
In an early scene featuring the “hope”
harmonization, Blake comforts a young boy
after his older brother was found dead. Dur-
ing the scene, the boy is shown drawing a
bat symbol with chalk and expresses hope
for Batman’s return. Here, the motive is con-
nected more to the idea of Batman than to
Blake. Similarly, the new harmonization of
the motive appears when Blake later visits
Bruce’s home and expresses his own hope
for Batman’s return. Blake reveals how he
had surmised Bruce’s secret identity as a
young boy when the billionaire had visited
the orphanage where Blake lived at the time.
He and the other boys were excited to meet
someone famous who was like them—an
orphan. Blake recognized in Bruce a famil-
iar pain and anger hidden behind a smiling
exterior that the boy had taught himself to
maintain. Blake saw Bruce as a kindred spirit
and found solace in encountering not only
someone else with a lingering anguish long
after his parents’ death, but also someone
who he imagined had channeled that anger
and thirst for justice into what became the
Batman project with ample wealth and re-
sources at his disposal.
The “hope” harmonization of the minor
third motive occurs as Blake is describing to
Bruce the memory of his father being killed
over a gambling debt: “Not a lot of people
know what it feels like, do they? To be angry.
In your bones.” Blake hopes for Batman’s
return because his current absence has left a
void in the city, but he also describes a time
when his first encounter with Bruce and the
knowledge of Bruce’s private war against
crime inspired him with a sense of hope
and fellowship in the wake of Blake’s own
personal loss. The new harmonization of the
minor third motive thus accompanies scenes
in which different characters reflect upon or
suffer loss on more than one level, but also
experience hope or consolation in spite of
their sorrow.
Alongside this new variant of the minor
third motive, the SLIDE harmonization re-
turns in The Dark Knight Rises, once again
highlighting moments of moral ambivalence.
Early in the film, for example, the progres-
54 music and the moving image  12.2 / summer 2019
Example 5. Motive variant and SLIDE pairing in The Dark Knight Rises (attached to Gordon)
sion occurs during the scene in which
Deputy Commissioner Foley (Matthew
Modine) orders his fleet of police cars to
pursue Batman instead of the armed robbers
who had broken into the stock exchange.
Blake’s knowledge of Batman’s role as an in-
nocent scapegoat for Harvey Dent’s death
compels him to question Foley’s order, which
is based on the assumption that Batman is a
murderous criminal. As the stakes increase
later in the film, the SLIDE progression’s ap-
pearances begin to suggest either ambivalent
emotions of characters in a more general
sense or uncertainty regarding the outcome
of dramatic situations.38 This semantic shift
is not so much a break from the harmo-
nization’s prior association, but rather an
expansion of its sphere of meaning, which
includes either a generalized or more precise
expression of ambivalence. Also returning
from the film’s predecessor, the minor third
motive’s B-minor harmonization emerges as
an alternative to the SLIDE in the latter half
of The Dark Knight Rises and serves a simi-
lar expressive function. This less frequently
heard chromatic gesture occurs when Selina
Kyle (Anne Hathaway) helps Bruce and
Lucius Fox escape from captivity (2:05:25),
and when Batman frees the city’s police force
from the sewer tunnels (2:09:54). The ap-
pearance of the darkened B-minor harmoni-
zation seems to suggest that these moments
represent only small victories, and there still
remains the question of whether or not Bat-
man will ultimately succeed in defeating the
villain Bane and prevent the destruction of
Gotham.
A striking variation of the SLIDE harmo-
nization is specifically attached to Commis-
sioner Gordon during moments that refer-
ence Harvey Dent’s death in the previous
film (Example 5). Instead of occurring in its
familiar form as a singular, protracted ges-
ture, the minor third motive repeats itself
in an unbroken melodic pattern, oscillating
between D and F broodingly at a deliberate
tempo. The oscillating minor third expands
to a major third as the D eventually slips
down to D, producing the SLIDE progres-
sion. The major third is then transposed up
by a fifth over an F-minor harmony before
the melodic line undergoes another inter-
vallic expansion, which coincides with a
second SLIDE progression from Fm to EM.
The oscillating line finally expands from
a fourth to a fifth for the remainder of the
passage, albeit without an accompanying
SLIDE progression. The variation of the
SLIDE gesture at the beginning of the ex-
cerpt alludes to the moral ambivalence Gor-
don experienced long ago as he was asked
to help build a lie around Dent’s death for
Steven Rahn : Motivic Transformation 55
the greater good of Gotham. The SLIDE
progression thus evokes the character’s
history, unlike most of the other SLIDE ap-
pearances, which underscore ambivalence
as it directly arises in the plot.
The most unusual variation of the SLIDE
harmonization, however, occurs when Bruce
visits an incapacitated Gordon at his hospi-
tal bed while in disguise. Recovering in the
wake of his encounter with Bane, Gordon
expresses a desperate hope for Batman to
return from his long absence. Fittingly, the
electronic timbre of the minor third mo-
tive in this scene gives the gesture a ghostly
effect, similar to its first appearance in the
beginning of the film. Instead of occurring
beneath the F of the D–F motive, however,
the bass’s drop down to D—performed as
a striking bending gesture—precedes the
entrance of the motive, creating a cross-
relation between D and D when the motive
actually appears. The bending motion in the
bass and its dissonant clash with the onset
of the motive reinforce Bruce’s ambivalence
about the pressure put on him to break his
retirement and reprise his Batman persona.
“What if [Batman] doesn’t exist anymore?”
the disguised Bruce says in response to
Gordon’s plea, suggesting that Batman may
no longer be a defining part of his identity.
When Bruce finally assumes the role of Bat-
man again, there is still the lingering concern
that he is not the man he once was, physi-
cally or spiritually, and this calls into ques-
tion his decision to return. The reappearance
of the empowered gesture in the film’s third
act, however, coincides with Bruce’s physical
and spiritual rehabilitation, signifying his
renewed sense of identity.
Rebirth and the Reclaiming
of Empowerment
The empowered gesture appears three times
in The Dark Knight Rises, each instance oc-
curring in the latter half of the film. Con-
trary to most of its earlier appearances in the
trilogy, however, the i–VI harmonization of
the minor third motive accompanies mo-
ments in which the Batman persona is not
present. Instead, the gesture is tied to Bat-
man as an ideal, underscoring scenes that ei-
ther characterize the persona as the embodi-
ment of spiritual rebirth, or that comment
upon Batman’s role as a powerful symbol for
the people of Gotham.
The first scene featuring the empowered
gesture, for example, shows Bruce escaping
from Bane’s prison pit after several failed at-
tempts. Having recovered from being physi-
cally broken at the hands of Bane earlier in
the film, Bruce finally discovers the strength
to escape. In his previous attempts to climb
out of the pit, Bruce used a rope to keep
from falling to his death, but this method
prompts a prison inmate to tell Bruce that
he fails because of fear. Bruce claims that
he is not afraid, but he misunderstands the
remark. The inmate claims that those who
do not fear death are weak, and he instructs
Bruce to climb without the rope in order to
re-experience the fear of death, which will
make him stronger: “How can you move
faster than possible, fight longer than pos-
sible, without the most powerful impulse of
the spirit? The fear of death.”
This scene revisits a core theme of Bat-
man Begins: internalizing and embracing
fear. Visually, the prison pit recalls the well
where Bruce fell as a young boy—the place
where Bruce first discovered his fear of bats.
Prior to Bruce’s final escape attempt from
the prison pit, a brief flashback from Bat-
man Begins occurs in which Bruce’s father
lowers himself into the well to retrieve the
young Bruce at the bottom. We hear Bruce’s
father utter the first half of the recurring line:
“Why do we fall, Bruce? So that we can learn
to pick ourselves up.” The escape from the
prison pit thus represents Bruce’s rediscov-
ery of the fear that once served as a source
of strength. The i–VI harmonization of the
56 music and the moving image  12.2 / summer 2019
minor third motive highlights not only the
victory of escape, but also Bruce’s renewed
sense of identity and the feeling of power it
gives him. This moment of spiritual rebirth
also recalls the first scene in the Batcave
from Batman Begins in which Bruce stands
empowered among a swarm of bats.
The empowered gesture occurs for a
second time when the Bat-signal appears
in flames on a bridge in Gotham, burning
boldly at night. The symbol serves to inform
the people of Gotham of Batman’s return and
to rally them for the climactic battle with
Bane and his army. The empowered gesture
thus suggests the power of the Bat symbol to
inspire the people of Gotham with hope in
the face of despair.
Similar to the conclusion of The Dark
Knight, the final shot of The Dark Knight
Rises features the empowered gesture. In-
stead of Batman, however, Blake is the focus
of the closing shot, “rising” on a platform
(similar to how Bruce had “risen” from the
pit). By revealing Blake’s first name as Robin,
the film implies that Blake will take up Bat-
man’s mantle. “Batman could be anyone,”
Bruce tells Blake in an earlier scene. The
empowered gesture marks the beginning of
Blake’s journey toward sustaining the symbol
of hope and justice that Batman embodies,
and it also refers to Blake’s experience of lib-
eration in adopting the symbol. Prior to this
scene, Blake leaves the police force because
he cannot tolerate how the laws too often feel
like shackles rather than weapons in the face
of injustice. When Blake walks through the
Batcave and is met with a swarm of bats, the
moment sets up another imminent spiritual
rebirth and suggests the inevitable emer-
gence of another symbolic persona. Blake is
ready to embrace a new identity that is more
authentic to him than his old one (a police
officer restricted by the confines of the law).
At the conclusion of The Dark Knight, we
saw the reverse process in which Batman
retreated from his authentic identity and ad-
opted a false one. The use of the empowered
gesture at the end of The Dark Knight Rises
thus exemplifies the cyclic narrative design
of the trilogy, recalling the i–VI harmoniza-
tion’s first appearance in Batman Begins dur-
ing the primordial emergence of the Batman
persona.
Culminating in the empowered gesture,
the music used during the closing minutes
of The Dark Knight Rises is recycled from
the finale of The Dark Knight. Described by
Vasco Hexel as “regal and dignified, perhaps
somewhat elegiac,”39 the cue continuously
builds with high activity in the strings, rum-
bling percussion, and sustained tones in the
brass. At the conclusion of The Dark Knight
Rises, Batman again sacrifices himself for the
sake of Gotham, but not as a scapegoat this
time. As Bott puts it, Bruce Wayne “embraces
the truth of his humanity and vulnerability,
and allows [his identity as] Batman to per-
ish with [Bane’s] nuclear device in the open
sea.”40 He can now fulfill Alfred’s desire for
him to move on from his past trauma and
forge a life for himself free of Batman. The
use of the same concluding music as The
Dark Knight, however, suggests that Batman
outlives Bruce Wayne’s attachment to the
persona and will continue to be an enduring
symbol of hope and justice. Thus, the final
appearance of the i–VI harmonization is also
a manifestation of Bruce’s own realization of
empowerment through the act of relinquish-
ing the symbol and allowing another to em-
body and sustain it.
Conclusion
Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight tril-
ogy revitalized the image of Batman on the
big screen by presenting a less campy, more
grounded vision of the character than previ-
ous iterations, and by directing the narra-
tive content toward more mature thematic
terrain. Much of Batman Begins is spent
probing the psychology of the protagonist
Steven Rahn : Motivic Transformation 57
as he learns to symbolically embody fear
while attempting to expunge his identity as
Bruce Wayne. The Dark Knight then presents
a series of moral dilemmas, which challenge
Batman’s ideals and eventually motivate the
surrender of his symbolic identity. In The
Dark Knight Rises, Bruce Wayne redeems
his identity as Batman, but soon chooses to
abdicate once again while passing the sym-
bol onto a successor, thereby severing the
link between the Batman persona and Bruce
Wayne’s personal identity for good.
With this cinematic reimagining of the
character’s story came a significant reconcep-
tion of Batman’s musical world. Rather than
attempt to recapture the spirit of Elfman,
Walker, or Goldenthal, Zimmer and Howard
adopted a less thematically driven approach,
relying on timbre, texture, and rhythm to
enhance the action instead. According to
Vasco Hexel, Batman Begins’s status as an
origin story perhaps justifies the minimalist
scoring approach because “a well-developed
theme might have felt premature for the
emerging character of Batman.”41 While the
score to The Dark Knight continues within
a similar stylistic vein, the film takes place
shortly after the events of its predecessor,
which suggests that Batman is still not the
fully developed hero he’s assumed to be
in other cinematic incarnations. After the
events of The Dark Knight, the character is
virtually frozen in time for eight years before
he returns to the world the character once
inhabited in The Dark Knight Rises. Because
Nolan’s version of Batman is never given the
opportunity to grow into the veteran hero
audiences are used to seeing, the lack of a
traditional “big theme” throughout the tril-
ogy seems only appropriate.
As a distinctly Zimmerian scoring gesture,
Batman’s two-note motive is representative
of the “cellular, aphoristic constructions” that
characterize Reyland’s concept of corporate
classicism.42 Operating within this scoring
style, however, does not preclude engage-
ment with longer-form expositions of nar-
rative, a practice that Reyland argues is now
underprivileged in favor of “affective short
hands.”43 In his analysis of the opening heist
scene of The Dark Knight, Reyland discusses
the pared-down musical content, acknowl-
edging the local thematic development of
another two-note motivic cell and stating
how “a tiny amount of material has . . . been
made to go a very long way.”44 A similar
observation can be made regarding the re-
curring minor third motive, if one takes a
hermeneutic step further and recognizes the
range of meanings afforded by the variety
of ways in which the motive is harmonized
and positioned throughout the trilogy’s
larger narrative. Even with minimal materi-
als, Zimmer and Howard allow the music in
Nolan’s Batman films to function beyond an
affective role and engage with the themes of
identity and moral ambivalence that emerge
from the long-range narrative arc of the tril-
ogy summarized above.
The initial pure tonic harmonization of the
minor third motive tracks stages in the de-
velopment of Bruce Wayne’s symbolic iden-
tity in Batman Begins, but the introduction
of an expressively ambivalent chromatic har-
monization of the motive in The Dark Knight
(the SLIDE progression) suggests strain on
the moral constitution of Batman and other
characters. The minor third motive expands
beyond its association with the protagonist
in The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight
Rises, but the i–VI harmonization—the
empowered gesture—continues to be linked
with Batman (or at least the symbol he repre-
sents). The empowered gesture not only oc-
curs during moments of victory and triumph
but also in scenes that suggest a transmuta-
tion of identity. Beginning with its first ap-
pearance in Batman Begins, the empowered
gesture accompanies the defining moment in
which Bruce Wayne’s identity is supplanted
by Batman as he stands in the cave for the
first time, surrounded by the bats he had
58 music and the moving image  12.2 / summer 2019
once feared. At the conclusion of The Dark
Knight, the empowered gesture accompanies
a moment of victory that requires a loss of
identity, which suggests a renegotiation of
the developmental trajectory established in
the previous film. The empowered gesture
terminates the final scene of The Dark Knight
Rises in which two levels of identity transfor-
mation are suggested: Bruce’s abdication of
the role of Batman, and Blake’s inheritance
of Batman’s legacy. Overall, these notable
instances of the i–VI harmonization suggest
the reclaiming of empowerment through the
displacement of identity. The i–VI gesture
thus occupies a central position within a
semiotic network of harmonic progressions
that accompany the rising minor third mo-
tive throughout the trilogy.
My interpretive account of the minor
third motive’s role throughout the Dark
Knight trilogy illustrates how Zimmer and
Howard use harmony to provide the short
melodic gesture with an array of affective
and symbolic guises instead of engaging in
traditional thematic development. In their
introduction to Contemporary Film Music,
Lindsay Coleman and Joakim Tillman note
how Zimmer “has fostered a generation of
new composers whose scores bear the Zim-
mer Batman imprint . . . the scores they have
produced, frequently for superhero movies,
seem averse to the anthemic features . . . of
John Williams in his franchise heyday.”45
Coleman and Tillman also observe how cer-
tain film music critics, fans, and composers
strongly disapprove of the trend in contem-
porary film scoring that Zimmer’s approach
represents. But rather than be dismissed
based on its rejection of traditional scoring
approaches, this stylistic practice can lead to
a greater focus on different interpretive strat-
egies through which meaning can be derived
from the music. While this project focuses
specifically on how harmonic design can
reflect the overarching symbols and thematic
concerns across a film franchise even within
the corporate classicist style, the timbral,
textural, and rhythmic elements that Reyland
highlights offer equal potential for symboli-
cally rich networks of subtle transformations
for future study.
Acknowledgements
First, I would like to thank the reviewers of
this article for their many helpful, detailed
comments, which pushed me to think about
how to broaden the scope of this project in
a number of ways. My gratitude also goes to
James Buhler, whose suggestions for this ar-
ticle helped me refine how I framed my anal-
ysis. I would like to thank Julissa Shinsky for
providing feedback from the perspective of
a reader who had not seen the Dark Knight
trilogy. Finally, I am indebted to Bree Guerra
for offering her valuable insight and for act-
ing as a sounding board for my ideas during
the process of developing this project.
Notes
1. The Dark Knight Rises (2012) is the only film
in the trilogy where Hans Zimmer is credited as
the sole composer.
2. Janet K. Halfyard, “Cue the Big Theme? The
Sound of the Superhero,” in The Oxford Handbook
of New Audiovisual Aesthetics, ed. John Richard-
son, Claudia Gorbman, and Carol Vernallis (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 185.
3. Christian Clemmensen, review of Batman
Begins soundtrack, composed and produced by
Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard, Film-
tracks, updated September 14, 2011, http://www.
filmtracks.com/titles/batman_begins.html.
4. Halfyard, “Cue the Big Theme?,” 190.
5. Halfyard, “Cue the Big Theme?,” 188.
6. For an exhaustive discussion of the recurring
musical themes and motifs in The Dark Knight,
see Vasco Hexel, Hans Zimmer and James Newton
Howard’s “The Dark Knight”: A Film Score Guide
(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016),
66–87.
7. Nicholas Reyland, “Corporate Classicism
and the Metaphysical Style: Affects, Effects, and
Contexts of Two Recent Trends in Screen Scor-
Steven Rahn : Motivic Transformation 59
ing,” Music, Sound, and the Moving Image 9, no.
2 (2015): 119. For an in-depth study of Zimmer’s
scoring style and musical idiom in the context of
spectacle-driven films, see Frank Lehman, “Manu-
facturing the Epic Score: Hans Zimmer and the
Sounds of Significance,” in Music in Epic Film:
Listening to Spectacle, ed. Stephen C. Meyer (New
York: Routledge, 2016), 27–55.
8. Reyland, “Corporate Classicism and the
Metaphysical Style,” 122–23.
9. For related film music studies dealing with
long-range harmonic relationships, associational
networks, and broader issues regarding tonal or-
ganization, see David Neumeyer, “Tonal Design
and Narrative in Film Music: Bernard Herrmann’s
A Portrait of Hitch and The Trouble With Harry,”
Indiana Theory Review 19, no. 1–2 (1998): 87–123;
and Tahirih Motazedian, “To Key or Not to Key:
Tonal Design in Film Music” (PhD diss., Yale
University, 2016). For recent scholarship on mo-
tivic semiosis in both art music and film scores,
see Matthew Bribitzer-Stull, Understanding the
Leitmotif: From Wagner to Hollywood Film Music
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015).
10. Halfyard, “Cue the Big Theme?,” 186. As
Halfyard observes, the fanfare version and the
ostinato version are often paired together.
11. While certain elements of the character’s his-
tory have undergone creative revision and reinter-
pretation over the years, the central fixed event in
the various iterations of Batman is his origin story.
See William Uricchio and Roberta E. Pearson,
“I’m Not Fooled By That Cheap Disguise,” in The
Many Lives of the Batman: Critical Approaches to a
Superhero and His Media, ed. Roberta E. Pearson
and William Uricchio (London: Routledge, 1991),
186.
12. Kresimir Vukovic and Rajko Petkovic, “Leg-
endary Caesar and the Architect Ariadne: Narra-
tive, Myth and Psychology in Christopher Nolan’s
Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and Inception,”
Psyart (January 2013): 15.
13. Walter Burkert, Homo Necans (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1983), 42–43, cited
in Vukovic and Petkovic, “Legendary Caesar and
the Architect Ariadne,” 15.
14. Vukovic and Petkovic, “Legendary Caesar
and the Architect Ariadne,” 15.
15. Vukovic and Petkovic, “Legendary Caesar
and the Architect Ariadne,” 15.
16. For a discussion of the semiotic fluidity of
the leitmotif and its relation to myth, see James
Buhler, “Star Wars, Music, and Myth,” in Music
and Cinema, ed. James Buhler, Caryl Flinn, and
David Neumeyer (Hanover, NH: Wesleyan Uni-
versity Press, 2000), 33–57.
17. Halfyard, “Cue the Big Theme?,” 187.
18. The only other moment in the film that fea-
tures the empowered gesture is the scene in which
Batman suddenly arrives in the Narrows after
Commissioner Loeb tells Gordon that there is no
one left to send as reinforcements.
19. One scene, however, features an out-of-
costume Bruce mounting a motorcycle and riding
across town after discovering a clue that may help
him find the Joker.
20. Two examples include the beginning of the
scene in the parking garage with Scarecrow and
the mobsters before Batman’s first appearance in
the film, and the scene in Hong Kong before Bat-
man’s siege on the building where Lau, the mob’s
accountant, is located.
21. In his analysis of James Newton Howard’s
music for The Sixth Sense (1999), Lloyd Whitesell
describes the undulation between g-sharp and G,
the score’s motto, as “harmonically ambivalent,
slipping chromatically back and forth between
a minor chord and a major chord.” Whitesell
notes that, out of all the distinctive elements in
the score, the SLIDE motto is “the most elusive
in terms of its narrative associations.” See Lloyd
Whitesell, “Quieting the Ghosts in The Sixth Sense
and The Others,” in Music in the Horror Film: Lis-
tening to Fear, ed. Neil Lerner (New York: Rout-
ledge, 2010), 206–23.
22. Frank Lehman, “Reading Tonality through
Film: Transformational Hermeneutics and the
Music of Hollywood” (PhD diss., Harvard Univer-
sity, 2012), 181.
23. Frank Lehman, Hollywood Harmony: Musi-
cal Wonder and the Sound of Cinema (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2018), 131.
24. The Neo-Riemannian approach does not
necessarily suggest that functional harmony is
inoperative, but rather provides an alternative
method for describing harmonic progressions in
terms of voice leading and inversions, irrespective
of tonal context.
25. Matthew Bribitzer-Stull, “From Nibelheim
to Hollywood: The Associativity of Harmonic
60 music and the moving image  12.2 / summer 2019
Progression,” in Understanding the Leitmotif: From
Wagner to Hollywood Film Music (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2015), 131–55. In Das
Rheingold, the Tarnhelm’s dark magic has, among
other powers, the ability to transform the wearer
into any creature imaginable, suggesting another
possible association of the harmonic progres-
sion that may be exploited in film: change in a
character’s identity. Ironically, it is the “Tarnhelm”
progression’s antipode—the empowered i-VI pro-
gression—that becomes associated with identity
transformation throughout the Dark Knight trilogy.
26. The Batman themes of Elfman, Walker, and
Goldenthal either feature the “Tarnhelm” progres-
sion as a built-in property or adopt it as part of
their harmonic accompaniment at some point in
their respective film appearances.
27. Nicholas Bott, “How Can Satan Cast Out
Satan?: Violence and the Birth of the Sacred in
Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight,” Contagion:
Journal of Violence, Mimesis, and Culture 20, no. 1
(2013): 240.
28. Bott, “How Can Satan Cast Out Satan?,” 240.
29. Vukovic and Petkovic, “Legendary Caesar
and the Architect Ariadne,” 15.
30. Bott, “How Can Satan Cast Out Satan?,”
245–46.
31. Martin Fradley, “What Do You Believe In?
Film Scholarship and the Cultural Politics of the
Dark Knight Franchise,” Film Quarterly 66, no. 3
(2013): 18.
32. Fradley, “What Do You Believe In?,” 19.
33. Lehman, Hollywood Harmony, 131.
34. Describing it as more “hopeful,” Lehman
analyzes the harmonization as a D-minor to F-
major progression.
35. Scott Murphy, “Transformational Theory
and the Analysis of Film Music,” in The Oxford
Handbook of Film Music Studies, ed. David Neu-
meyer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014),
488.
36. Lehman, “Reading Tonality through Film,”
30.
37. Mark Richards, “Musical Themes in the Dark
Knight Trilogy, Part 6 of 6: The Dark Knight Rises,”
Film Music Notes: Analysis, Style, Technique, and
More (blog), May 7, 2013, http://www.filmmusic
notes.com/musical-themes-in-the-dark-knight
-trilogy-part-6-the-dark-knight-rises/.
38. The SLIDE harmonization is featured dur-
ing the scene in which an undercover special-ops
captain attempts to help the Gotham police free
the city from under Bane’s rule, but Foley is un-
certain whether or not to trust the man because of
his unconfirmed identity. The progression also ap-
pears during the climactic scene in which Batman
is attempting to transport Bane’s neutron bomb
out of Gotham before it detonates.
39. Hexel, Hans Zimmer and James Newton
Howard’s “The Dark Knight,” 71.
40. Bott, “How Can Satan Cast Out Satan?,”
249.
41. Hexel, Hans Zimmer and James Newton
Howard’s “The Dark Knight,” 69.
42. Reyland, “Corporate Classicism and the
Metaphysical Style,” 123.
43. Reyland, “Corporate Classicism and the
Metaphysical Style,” 123.
44. Reyland, “Corporate Classicism and the
Metaphysical Style,” 119.
45. Lindsay Coleman and Joakim Tillman,
introduction to Contemporary Film Music: Inves-
tigating Cinema Narratives and Composition, ed.
Lindsay Coleman and Joakim Tillman (London:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 5.