An English literature major [Nolan] who rarely leaves the house without a suit coat, he has no email account, no cellphone, and here in this digital summer of 2012, his Batman movie is the only major popcorn release shot on film stock. He shuns 3-D, typically goes light on digital effects and his stories and characters are not just serious, they’re grim…

As “Dark Knight Rises” opens, Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is a sullen shadow of himself, and instead of his Batman mask he hides behind a scraggly hermit’s beard. Eight years have passed since the murder of his true love, Rachel Dawes, and the fatal tumble of the deranged Harvey Dent. With the weight of those memories, the recluse must lean on a cane as he wanders a sealed-off wing of Wayne Manor. The world outside claws away at that isolation, almost literally in the case of Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) the femme fatale traditionally called Catwoman.

While Nolan’s actors are clear about the tone he wants to set, they say they are often in the dark about what the director is actually putting together until they watch the completed movie.

“The things he’s doing in these films, a lot of it I don’t get to see — I’m not aware of it — until I sit and watch the finished film,” Bale said as Nolan and his crew prepared for a scene of total civic chaos. “There’s so much there in script but it comes together when Chris editing it. He knows what it is going to be. That’s why he’s very decisive on the set. The pieces already fit together in his mind.”