From a Facebook post about filming Dark Knight Returns in Newark
Posted by
Jovian (aka Jovian)
Nov 7 '11, 07:01
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NEWARK � All was quiet on the set of the new Batman movie in Newark's City Hall, which was dressed to look like a Red Cross shelter inhabited by a holed-up guerilla army.
They were filming.
Men in camouflage fatigues toting AK-47s walked past real fires burning behind the balusters on the third floor, one above the mayor�s office, and their lines mentioned something about a revolution.
Cavernous City Hall, with its echo-friendly granite stairs and marble interior, was open for business. But from the second floor rotunda up, it was being controlled by the Batman film crew. Citizens and city workers were shepherded over wires and around props, the army cots that lined the walls and pretend emergency supplies stacked everywhere. When cameras rolled, they were stopped by the crew and shushed quiet, so not a whisper or footstep would reverberate through the halls. The silence was almost reverential.
Then somebody flushed a toilet. The set manager winced.
Then somebody slammed a door. The set manager winced again.
Then the toilet flushed again.
Whether the slams and whooshes forced the scene to be re-shot Thursday, we�ll never know. Such is the secrecy around "The Dark Knight Rises." But suffice it to say, they rolled again (flush), then again (slam), then again (flush), and again.
Hollywood came to Newark this week, with all its trappings. Catering trucks, trailers filled with enough electronics to launch a Mars shot, people wearing red badges that said "crew" looking stressed and hurried. And that sense of self-importance, that nothing � not the real war we�re in, not the real people staying in shelters after last week�s storm � is as real as making movies.
And so the simple question of "Why Newark?" was met by this response from Warner Bros. on-site publicist Amanda Soll.
"We�re not releasing any information," she said.
Was it because the art deco architecture of the downtown skyline, circa 1926-1931, reminded set scouts of the "Gotham" from the first Batman comic in 1939?
Was it because City Hall, a American beaux arts masterpiece with its marble and brass and gold dome scream "government wealth and power" of a bygone era? The kind a renegade army might want to seize? Was it because the tunnels of the antique city subway system are perfect black holes from which Batman can emerge.
"We�re not releasing any information," she said.
Soll said director Christopher Nolan didn�t want to give away the plot, and talking about "Why Newark?" might divulge such important secrets.
"By talking about locations, people might be able to figure out part of the plot," she said.
She said this as if the Batman plot ever changes. Bad guys capture city. Batman swoops in. Bad guys get Batman in a pickle. Batman gets out and wins. Been that way since 1939.
So we�ll never know why "The Dark Knight Rises" came to Newark.
Too bad, for the good people of pretend Gotham deserve to hear some good things about their real city.
But Soll wasn�t saying, except to say all the information we need is on a press release, which did little more than name the producers, directors and actors.
It also listed all the filming locations. India, Scotland, England, Pittsburgh, New York and Los Angeles.
Newark was not listed among them.
And that's all the information we need.
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