8. Editing/Coverage
This problem first became apparent to me while watching Batman Begins for the first time; when Bruce is being trained by Ra's Al Ghul, the choppy editing makes it difficult to discern what's going on, as well as making it difficult to savour the otherwise thrilling action. This problem was exacerbated on the Region 2 DVD - due to the 4% speed-up of NTSC-to-PAL conversion - meaning that some of the action beats were virtually incomprehensible. Sure, it's easy to say that the problem lies with editor Lee Smith, but Nolan surely sits in on these edits, and is perfectly capable of advising Smith to use other coverage. The probable problem, then, is that Nolan doesn't have much other footage to choose from; the fact that Nolan opts not to elide deleted scenes means that he's one of the most shrewd directors out there as far as footage economy goes. It's not unreasonable to assume that this transpires into how much he shoots, as well. Again, The Dark Knight Rises shows improvement in this regard, but we need only go back to Cobb and Ariadne's Parisian conversation in Inception to see the jolting changes in position between shots.