Thursday, August 2, 2012

Obsessive Cinematic Disorder: Bane's Voice

I’m kind of obsessed with Bane from The Dark Knight Rises. More specifically, his voice. Months before the film came out, a special IMAX preview for TDKR was shown to fans, most of whom found Tom Hardy all but unintelligible as the Batman villain. The big problem is that director Christopher Nolan did NOT want to fix the audio, claiming it wasn’t that important for the audience to understand every word Bane said.

IMDb
Badass Digest and other sites recently posted this video, comparing the audio from the IMAX preview and the audio from the finished film.

There are questions as to whether Hardy's lines were redubbed or not, but either way I find the voice he used incredible. The actor supposedly based his voice on, among others, bare knuckle boxer Bartley Gorman.



No offense to Hardy, but I can barely hear the Gorman in his Bane. The villain does remind me of a few other characters, however.

This is a dress rehearsal skit from Saturday Night Live that ultimately didn’t make it on the episode that night. It’s also one of the most hilarious things Will Ferrell’s ever done. Anyway, throughout TDKR, Bane reminded me of Ferrell’s high-pitched, lilting redneck. Take note at :54 in the Badass Digest video above.

I also heard a bit of Morla from The Neverending Story every now and then...



More than a few people heard Agent 007 himself in Hardy’s character, including friend-o-the-blog George Bell from Green People Soup.


Whatever you hear when Bane opens his mouth, I think we can all agree Hardy turned in one of the greatest vocal performances of the last few years.

What did you think of the voice Tom Hardy used for Bane?

9 comments:

  1. Bane's voice was interesting and during his speeches, you didn't care what he was saying, his voice was really cool.

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    1. @Ty - I agree. It seems like I missed a lot of what he was saying the first time around, not because I couldn't understand him but because I just thought his voice sounded so great. If that makes any sense.

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  2. Bane's voice was pretty brilliant. I didn't understand him a few times, but I don't care, it was too awesome and menacing a voice

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    1. @Rodders - Absolutely. His voice was somehow the most menacing thing about him.

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  3. I found the voice distracting at first (I also heard Connery every time he spoke), but I got used to it after a while.

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    1. @Chip - I also found it a little odd because he seriously sounded like a hillbilly to me at times, but when it's all said and done it was an amazing performance.

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  4. @Phobos - I wish Tom Hardy as Bane was my outgoing voicemail.

    Hardy definitely picked a bad ass to draw inspiration from.

    Thanks again for the tweet! And thanks for appearing in the post (against your will).

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  5. Dude, first off, epic post. I've spent the past 30 minutes watching all the clips you linked and embedded, great stuff.

    I thought Bane's voice was completely bitchin' and was a little surprised when it got some much negative attention. (I did have one question, which I asked on Twitter on Sunday, and that was, How does Bane eat?) But all in all, I thought the voice itself was fantastic.

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    1. @Alex - Thanks, man! Glad you enjoyed it.

      It definitely would have been interesting if they had explained his mask a little bit more. He's a huge dude, he must eat a TON.

      Thanks again for reading and commenting!

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