The perfect film. Is there such a thing? Is it attainable? Now while it’s hard to measure, we can assume that no film has ever had 100 percent approval by the general audience and critics alike but there are some that come close for their fans. For me though, that’s The Dark Knight. What better reason to explain why but today on its 10-year anniversary?
Life moves fast today, especially with the advancements in social media, which have not only allowed us to communicate and share our interests but also tear people or movies down with our opinions in a much easier way. Much of those criticisms are directed toward not just regular movies but those with popular franchises like Star Wars or any film from DC Comics or Marvel. Though, Marvel is significantly less criticized as they’ve been able to methodically put together their cinematic universe and successfully entertain their audience with a captivating story and a hero to root for.
Despite the rising dominance of the MCU and what it’s done for the film genre as a whole, I’ve found that often times many comic book fans and moviegoers have forgotten about the importance of the films that came before especially The Dark Knight.
Let’s hop in my metaphorical DeLorean and travel back to 2005. At that time, the comic book film genre was still known as the “little engine that sometimes could,” as Spider-Man had broken the box office record in 2002 for the highest opening weekend of all time with 114 million dollars. Despite the success, the craze and box office mania really started with 1989’s Batman.
Things began to take a bit of a turn on June 15th, 2005 as a gritty, realistic look at the Caped Crusader hit the big screen and not only opened the eyes of critics but revived a genre that was greatly in need of a comeback. Batman Begins reaffirmed that a Batman movie could be great again and be taken seriously among fans and critics. It paved the way for The Dark Knight to add to the narrative of both Batman and Bruce Wayne’s journey in Gotham and for the battle with his ultimate foe, The Joker. One of my favorite scenes is right at the end of Begins where Batman and Jim Gordon are standing on the rooftop of the Gotham City Police Department and Gordon shows him that a new big bad is in town and left a calling card. The finale mirrored that of Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One and created a buzz unlike no other at the time for the 16-year return of the Clown Prince of Crime.
All the conversations were the same across the board for the film’s audience, “Who will play the Joker?”. Speculation and enthusiasm for the next film were everywhere. That finale, along with the originality of the film and Christopher Nolan’s direction started the runaway train that leads to the creation of The Godfather of comic book films, The Dark Knight.
As 2006 rolled around, the question of who would play the Joker was answered. It would be Heath Ledger. My initial reaction was, “Huh? The guy from 10 Things I Hate About You?” As I look back, I was not alone on that boat. In researching for this article, I discovered that in 2006, nobody wanted Heath Ledger in this role and boy did their responses blow up forums. Some of the reactions included, “I won’t be able to watch it. I’ll keep expecting him to have sex with Batman. YUCK!”, “BrokeBat Mountain”, “Gay Batman”, “pretty boy” Ledger wouldn’t be able to bring sufficient malice to the twisted character, “Heath Ledger’s face says ‘boy next door.”, “Seeing him dance around like the Joker would be more of a ‘laugh at’ than ‘laugh with’ thing”, and “I imagine it will be hard to immerse myself in the dark setting of [The Dark Knight] with Mandy turning to Cindy giggling and saying, ‘Oh my god, his dimples are sooo cute… he is so hot.”
While I did not stoop to the lows of writing hateful comments such as the ones I listed above, I did not see a way this casting would work. Until I saw the very first image of Heath in makeup and then I was floored. The image was as simple as it gets. Heath in makeup with scars predominantly around his lips to make his permanent smile. Now we’re talking.
Batman fans weren’t the only skeptics when it came to Nolan’s decision to deliver a new cinematic Joker. Michael Caine, who portrayed Alfred, Bruce’s butler, was very apprehensive when Nolan told him The Dark Knight’s villain would indeed be the Joker, mainly because Jack Nicholson’s performance in 1989 left a lasting impression on audiences. Caine stated, “You don’t try and top Jack.” But once he knew that Ledger would be cast in the role, he thought, “Now that’s the one guy that could do it! My confidence came back. And then when I did this sequence with Heath, I knew we were in for some really good stuff.”
Fans would get the opportunity to preview a small snippet ofThe Dark Knight in July 2007 when a teaser was promoted and shown prior to The Simpsons Movie. My sole purpose to watch that film was so I could see the teaser to The Dark Knight. What an experience that was for a lifetime Batman and Joker fan like me. As simple as the teaser goes, the Batman logo came on the screen with a voiceover from Heath saying, “Starting tonight, people will die. I’m a man of my word.” followed by a maniacal cackle. The voice just added to the face we had seen prior and it only drew more and more excitement across the board something that hadn’t been felt since 1989’s Batman. The Joker puzzle was close to being complete and my god was I excited!
As the year drew to a close, I Am Legend was gaining box office steam. Not so much because it was any good but because the first five minutes and full trailer for The Dark Knight would be previewed right before. What a glorious experience to watch a trailer live up to fan expectations. It even increased anticipation because not only did Ledger steal the show but we got to see how Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent would play in the film.
Despite the anticipation for the film, it was not without heartbreak. On January 22, 2008, Heath Ledger died from cardiac arrest as a result of accidental intoxication from prescription drugs. Ledger’s death crushed all fans of the Academy Award-nominated actor, and what followed was speculation that the role of the Joker led to his death.
After Ledger’s passing, news broke regarding Ledger’s influence and dedication to his last role as the Joker. In addition to reading classic Joker stories like The Killing Joke, Ledger looked to different musical and film influences such as Johnny Rotten from the Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious and Malcolm McDowell’s anarchist character Alex DeLarge from Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. It was discovered that Heath would lock himself for weeks in a hotel room experimenting with voices and mannerisms for the Joker until he felt he had them right.
Along with that, Ledger made a diary, which is now famously known as “The Joker Diary” while preparing to play the character. It included various clipped art with a heavy influence of Alex from A Clockwork Orange figures), stylized notes, and even lines from the script recopied in his own handwriting.
Throughout the years, there have been suggestions that Heath Ledger’s fragile state of mind after playing The Joker in The Dark Knight contributed to his untimely passing. However, in 2017, Ledger’s sister, Kate, has insisted that these rumors are completely untrue. In fact, Ledger has declared that her brother loved portraying such a complex and devilish character and that he loved having the opportunity to do just that. Ledger admitted,
“Honestly it was the absolute opposite. He had an amazing sense of humor, and I guess only his close family and friends really knew that. But he was having fun. He wasn’t depressed about The Joker.”
Ledger’s tragic passing was felt by many and he was simply, a soul that was gone way too soon.
One previously unmentioned casting news regarding The Dark Knight was the inclusion of Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel. Katie Holmes, who previously played the role in Batman Begins, did not return for the sequel. Gyllenhall, while not the only actress considered to play Rachel, ending up landing the role and took it as an opportunity to work with Nolan. Gyllenhall stated,
“When Chris approached me about the film, it was almost incidental that it was about Batman. I was lured into becoming intrigued by the character through the process of making the movie. From the very beginning, Chris was so interesting and engaging—and so interested in me and my ideas about Rachel—that I wanted to be a part of it.”
The final piece to The Dark Knight puzzle was placed on July 18th, 2008 with the release of the film. It was received with not just overwhelming praise from critics but adoration from fans of the character and immediately hailed by many as the greatest comic book film ever made.
What were my immediate reactions to The Dark Knight?
First off, I had to come out of that 2 hours and 30-minute trance before formulating an actual opinion. After that wore off, I immediately felt that this film was a game changer. Not only did Nolan create a realistic look at these characters but thanks to the writing of both Chris and his brother, Jonathan, they created a world that brought real-life thoughts of “Hell! This can really happen one day.”
The Dark Knight was able to incorporate an allure and attraction to these characters all while creating a film that stands at the top as one of the greatest crime dramas of all time.
Production-wise, The Dark Knight set the standard in comic book films. Remember to note that just a little over ten years prior, Batman and Robin were mostly shot on a sound stage, while Nolan, starting with Batman Begins, and perfecting it with The Dark Knight, brought these characters and stories into the real world with real world backdrops.
This allowed the use of IMAX to be a focal tool for the shooting of the film. While IMAX cameras are now on the verge of being used to shoot entire feature films, at the time The Dark Knight was made, the format was primarily used for documentary films to showcase things like the wondrous details of nature. Nolan had longed for years to bring the format to features and opted to use ultra-heavy, ultra-expensive cameras to film several major sequences in The Dark Knight.
Performance wise, let’s look at Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, and Aaron Eckhart. Bale once again knocks it out of the park as Batman. While Michael Keaton remains my top performance as he is able to incorporate and individualize both Batman and Bruce Wayne, Bale is right on par as Bruce Wayne. Bale is able to channel a sense of despair that haunts Wayne throughout the film and the trilogy. A sense of doing everything in his power to avoid and feel the same loss he once had with the death of his parents.
To this day, I hold firmly that no one will ever touch Gary Oldman in his role as James Gordon. He is the only one thus far that has been able to have a performance so wonderful, that you truly feel the importance of the relationship between Batman and Gordon.
As far as Aaron Eckhart goes, I personally think that if Ledger was not in this film, that Two-Face would have still made a fantastic villain. Eckhart is able to capture the needed duality for the character showing his human side and when he falls to the dark side.
Was I forgetting someone? Oh yes, that’s right, The Joker. 10 years have passed since the film was first released, and to this day, I have yet to find a performance that has surpassed the feeling I felt the moment The Dark Knight ended, “There will never be a better performance than this.”
I am obsessed with the original Batman and felt like Jack Nicholson’s portrayal was untouchable. However, Ledger not only made you forget about Jack, but his performance even touched upon the character’s comic book origins and the idea that the Joker’s start is multiple choice, much like all of the Joker performances that came before and will come after.
While Hamill, Nicholson, Leto, and Romero should all be commended for their portrayals, no one holds a candle to Heath Ledger’s performance in this film. A performance so empowering and so enthralling that it even made Sir Michael Caine forget his lines. In the scene where Bruce Wayne is hosting a fundraiser for Harvey Dent in his elegant Gotham City townhouse, Ledger and a group of Joker goons burst into the party. Caine, as Alfred, was supposed to be there waiting to greet guests as the elevator doors opened, only to be frightened by the appearance of The Joker and he steps back. Caine was there waiting, the elevator doors opened, and he was apparently so frightened by what he saw that any lines he was meant to deliver during the scene completely left his mind. He said later in an interview, “I was waiting for Batman’s guests, but (the Joker) had taken over the elevator with—he has seven dwarfs and … oh! wait until you see them, he said while promoting the film. So, I’d never seen any of it and the elevator door opened and they came out and I forgot every bloody line. They frightened the bloody life out of me.”
That is just one example of the effect Ledger’s performance had on the cast. The impact it left on fans was groundbreaking. While today’s “comic book fan” suffers from the prisoner of the moment mentality, I will argue to the day I take my last breath that Heath Ledger set the bar for a beloved character so high and so unattainable that a certain patch of fans will do anything to knock down the greatness of the performance.
The Dark Knight even had an effect on the Academy Awards. Not only was it nominated for 8 awards, but it won 2 – one for Heath Ledger awarded posthumously for Best Supporting Actor and the other for Richard King for Best Sound Editing. Ledger’s win solidifies him as the only person to win an award for a comic book film performance. To this day, no one has yet taken that crown.
Another major way The Dark Knight affected the Oscars was with the Best Picture category. Because it didn’t make the top 5 nominees at the time, it’s said that after 2009 the Academy decided to increase the Best Pictures nominees to 10 in order to be able to include more deserving films. It’s now more affectionately known as The Dark Knight Rule.
Financially, The Dark Knight did pretty decently as well. The film took in a domestic total of $534,858,444.00 and a foreign total of $469,700,00.00 putting the film in the rare $1 billion dollar club as it grossed $1,004,558,444.00 in its lifetime making it one of the highest grossing films in history.
This article was never meant to change opinions. To this day, I see what I consider to be quite idiotic opinions towards the film, which such nonsense as ” It’s not really a Batman film” and to that I say, That’s what’s made it stand the test of time, it’s not just a Batman film, it’s a genre-defining film that crossed over and changes the genre forever.
Never forget that before the MCU began its domination, there had not been nor ever will be a greater comic book film that has made the lasting and indelible impression that The Dark Knight has made not just on the genre but in film history.
