In case you missed it, there has been an interview from THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (click the link to read the review) costume designer Lindy Hemming circling the internet the past couple of days about some deleted footage from the film. She says in an interview that, first she hasn’t seen the film (how shocking, right!) but there was a very telling scene about Bane’s (Tom Hardy) youth and why he wears a brace and face mask.
Lindy Hemming says in the interview, “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… you should have seen during that sequence is him 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.”
What an interesting piece of information, no? Films get chunks cut from them all the time so I’m sure Christopher Nolan had a very good reason for not giving us more on Bane’s origin. He probably didn’t want the audience feeling any sympathy for the bad guy until the end of the film, though it would have been nice to see an earlier version of that mask. Either way, don’t expect to see this deleted scene on the Blu-ray release because Christopher Nolan hasn’t put any deleted scenes on BATMAN BEGINS or THE DARK KNIGHT. This might just be one of those details we’ll just have to ponder on in the middle of the night when we can’t sleep. If you get a chance I highly encourage you read the entire interview from Lindy Hemming, it’s quite interesting. (GQ)
