Costume Designer Lindy Hemming on Bane's Costume
by Benjamin July 10, 2012
by Benjamin July 10, 2012 0 comment
I'm sure all of you have been waiting to see Bane in full costume for more than a few seconds in the many TV spots and trailers, well now Lindy Hemming is going to break it down for you. In this article she explained how she recreated Bane to make him fit in Nolan's universe. When she was asked about how what things they kept true to Bane in Nolan's universe and what they left in the comic world she responded with this:
Well, the thing is when you look at the comic version of Bane, he's this massive man and he's wearing this wrestling suit and it's a bit difficult to imagine how you can translate that into a Chris Nolan film, because everyone's meant to have a real background and come from some real story reason. So with Bane, maybe it's whether people like it or not, you can see him with his mercenary men and you can know in the story where he's come from an why he is like he is, so following that route, he is much more… he's armored and the nod towards the straps of the wrestling suit we started with, and he's got an injury, which is why in the comic, he has to have Venom, and in our story, it's slightly different but it's the same kind of idea. So using all those things and using the fact that he doesn't come from the same technology as Batman. He doesn't have Fox making all these things for him. His stuff has been made on the move over the mountains of the world, maybe in training camps. He's kind of… I don't want to say the word, you'll say it yourself… but he's the guy who has had his stuff made by different people along the way. So there is a slightly clunky element to him and that's part of his story. But at the same time, the way he's directed in the film, the menace is within him, it isn't because he's a wrestler, and he's also an older character. He's not a young kid. He's an older man who as you see the film, you'll know that he's been around for a long time, so that's as much as I can kind of tell you, but the reason he looks like he looks is he's much more of a warrior/mercenary kind of man.
I thought it was very interesting when she began to speak about his mask and how it represented a animal. I always thought the same thing when I saw the very first picture of Bane on the The Dark Knight Rises official website. Here is her full comment on the question about Bane's mask:
That's exactly right. I wanted it to be like an animal. I wanted it to have an animalistic feeling, and I looked at things like Silverback Gorillas and snarling teeth and fangs coming up and fangs coming down. You're getting absolutely what it is, and I think it's hard to see from the daylights unlit and un-photographed because when you see how it looks on film, I think often you'll often get that ARRRGH feeling. Also, I think we all decided early on that if you have a film where there are two people that are wearing a mask, or at least two people are wearing a mask, and we have always with Chris a thing with masks and disguises and what have you, but when they're fighting together, we didn't want Batman and him to look the same, and Bane's mask in the comics is a sort of black wrestling mask thing. I mean, you can't see any of his face, so my first thing was animals and my second thing, with Chris—and it was his idea really more—was how on earth can we make this man not look the same as the other man when they're fighting? So just between working and drawing and looking at reference pictures of animals and everything, we came up with the idea that the whole side's out, so the mask is functioning, the painkiller if you like, is being fed down into here and that it could even be that his face is damaged, we don't know. I think we didn't mind that the fact that it would limit his vocal abilities because it's a film and we can put that in or do whatever we want with that afterwards, but it seemed to somehow make him more menacing, anyway not to be able to speak and this bit to be hidden.
She also makes a comment about the thing on Bane's arm in this picture
An early injury (laughs). I mean it's just something that we did for character really.
The way that Bane looks in The Dark Knight Rises is both menacing and brilliant. He doesn't look too ridiculous and cheesy, he looks like he belongs in Nolan's universe and a worthy opponent for Batman. Can Batman handle Bane? We will find out soon enough when TDKR is released in theaters on July 20th!
Source: Collider
-Ben
BanebatmanChristopher NolancostumeLindy HemmingThe Dark Knight Rises
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