Today, it’s hard to create something that’s fundamentally original. Stanley Kubrick is said to have told Jack Nicholson, “You know, in a way every scene has already been done in film. Our job is simply to do them a little better” (Kubrick, Michel Ciment, Paris, Calmann-Lévy, 1999, p. 297). Now that we all have easy access to the accumulated knowledge of centuries, it’s hard to pretend that knowledge doesn’t exist.

In an interview, Sam Mendes said Nolan’s Dark Knight was a revelation in his approach to the latest James Bond (“The Dark Knight Skyfall: New Bond Director Drew Inspiration from Nolan’s Batman,” Russ Burlingame, October 19, 2012). But at the same time, Darren, in his analysis, shows that Nolan’s Batman owes a great debt to the Bond franchise: “What Bond Learned from Batman: The Dark Knight & Skyfall […]” (Darren, them0vieblog.com, October 26, 2012). He adds that these dynamics of mutual influence should not be avoided, but we must learn to draw the right lessons from them.