Many people have written about The Dark Knight saying that it changed the superhero genre forever, we on the other hand believe that it not only changed superhero genre but cinema as a whole. Today we discuss The Dark Knight. We are going to point out certain things which The Dark Knight changed after it got released worldwide in 2008. The phenomenon that it surrounded and the evolution that it began. Not to forget the iron legion of Nolan also started with The Dark Knight.
The Dark Knight is a 2008 superhero film directed, produced, and co-written by Christopher Nolan. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film is the second installment of Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy and a sequel to 2005’s Batman Begins, starring Christian Bale and supported by Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Morgan Freeman. In the film, Bruce Wayne / Batman played by ‘Christian Bale’, Police Commissioner James Gordon played by ‘Gary Oldman’ and District Attorney Harvey Dent played by ‘Aron Eckhart’ form an alliance to dismantle organized crime in Gotham City, but are menaced by an anarchistic mastermind known as the Joker played by ‘Heath Ledger’ who seeks to undermine Batman’s influence and turn the city into chaos.
The Dark Knight- Mixing art with commerce
The Dark Knight was a great product of approaching a big budgeted movie with a proper story to back. Otherwise with most of the mainstream movies, it’s the appeal first and then the story. After it’s release The Dark Knight made other mainstream movies to think about their scripts, Character arcs and vision to back it up. Because of Dark Knight we get to see movies like Arrival, Blade Runner 2049, Apes Franchise, Bond Franchise.
The Dark Knight at the time of it’s release became the highest grossing superhero movie ever with the first one to reach a billion dollars at the box office. Christopher Nolan has said it countless times that is approach for making films like The Dark Knight and his others films in his repertoire is that he wants to make something that everyone can see. This is a huge reason why Christopher Nolan didn’t have a single drop of blood in The Dark Knight. Christopher Nolan went on to direct Dunkirk, a war movie which doesn’t show a single drop of blood shed but is regarded as one of the most haunting war movies in recent times, Dunkirk is also the most successful WW2 movie in terms of Box office growth.
This Nolan approach of making this dark and gritty are adapted by several film makers going forward, James Bond’s Skyfall Director Sam Mendes too would make the movie extra gritty to capitalize on the works and audience of The Dark Knight. The formula worked as Skyfall too made over a billion dollars to become the highest grossing Bond movie. Christopher Nolan himself uses the gritty nature and toning down of big stories for his films like Inception and Interstellar. Inception deals with thieves who rob by venturing into dreams, a world where dreams are central plot device, Nolan fills the narrative with complex story lines and gritty action sequences which strike the balance between too huge and too small. Interstellar is another film which revolves around space travel and different world, basically a science fiction movie, but Christopher Nolan tones it down to be a deep study of a relationship between a father and his daughter, plus he fills the movie with real scientific details and research papers by associating with Kip Thorne. The following movies are the aftermath of Christopher Nolan’s work on The Dark Knight Trilogy.
The Dark Knight- Oscars Race
Despite being a comic-book movie The Dark Knight was the favorite in the awards season, The Dark Knight was nominated for eight Academy Awards, breaking the previous record of seven held by Dick Tracy for the most nominations received by a film based on a comic book, comic strip, or graphic novel.
The Dark Knight won two awards: Best Supporting Actor for Heath Ledger and Best Sound Editing. It was additionally nominated for six others, these being Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Sound Mixing, Best Visual Effects, Best Makeup, and Best Film Editing. Heath Ledger was the first posthumous winner of the Best Supporting Actor award, and only the second posthumous acting winner ever after Finch, an actor who won for his role in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Network. In addition, Ledger’s win marked the first win in any of the major Oscar categories (producing, directing, acting, or writing) for a superhero-based film.
The Dark Knight dominated the Oscars with 8 nominations but was overlooked in the best picture category, which resulted in Oscars expanding their category to 10 films for movies like The Dark Knight. The recent nomination of Black Panther and Joker for best picture this year is a testament to The Dark Knight and what it achieved for movies like Black Panther and Joker going forward.
The Dark Knight was definitely inspirational for a movie like Joker which share the same character as it laid the groundwork for the said movie, Joker came out on top with 11 Oscar Nominations. Actor in a Leading Role, Joaquin Phoenix Cinematography, Joker Costume Design, Joker Directing, Joker Film Editing, Joker Makeup and Hair styling, Joker Music (Original Score), Joker Sound Editing, Joker Sound Mixing, Joker Writing (Adapted Screenplay), Joker and Best Picture were the following Nominations. Amongst these, there were two wins; one for Joaquin for leading role and two for Hildur Guðnadóttir Best Music
Importance of a Villain
The topic is very cliche and we are well aware that we ar not the first person to acknowledge Heath Ledger’s Joker. The character work done on the Joker both from Nolan while writing and Ledger while performing is remarkable. Joker set the benchmark for movie villains for years to come. Thanos and Killmonger were great success but at the end of the day were compared to Joker. Keeping a villains identity a mystery is a risky move and many films get trashed for having one note villain, but that didn’t happen to The Dark Knight. The mystery and lack of backstory to character worked in it’s favor and still somehow Joker managed to make sense out of what he was doing.
A great story needs a great villain which Christopher Nolan understood from the very beginning as he approached The Dark Knight. Heath Ledger’s Joker is more of an agent of chaos and helps move the plot of Dark Knight forward, Heath Ledger’s Joker is himself the creator of those actions which results into the missions for The Dark Knight. Heath Ledger’s Joker is quick, action packed and dark.The idea of not fleshing out Joker was a deliberate choice on Christopher Nolan’s behalf. There are examples in movie history where films have used melancholy story line to make the villain more appealing to the audience but Christopher Nolan makes nothing like that with the Joker and still ends up making audience to favor for the Joker and not Batman. To make a Batman movie which after it ends only makes audience speak about it’s villain, spreading countless Articles made by movie nerds, only to praise Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight is no minor fest.
The criticisms against the recent Joker movie by Todd Phillips is this very ideas, that it makes Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker so melancholy that it’s a downright disrespect for what The Dark Knight was able to achieve with zero melancholy. Warner Bros. Studios at least had the decency of not make Joker set in the same world as The Dark Knight for that could have been drastically bad.
The Dark Knight- Christopher Nolan’s film making
Christopher Nolan had only made five movies before he started filming of The Dark Knight with it’s massive budget. Christopher Nolan approached The Dark Knight by combining the superhero Genre of this movie with By the books Heist movie. Christopher Nolan also said that one can find comparison between Michael Mann’s Heat and The Dark Knight if put side by side because he mirrored The Dark Knight on Heat extensively. The genre combining approach of Christopher Nolan was copied by many films such as Logan, which combined itself a new western genre, Captain America The Winter Soldier which combined itself with a spy thriller and most recently Joker which combined itself with a character study.
The Dark Knight just like Heat never makes its protagonists and antagonists meet up until the 1/3 of movie, as it builds up the tension between the two. Christopher Nolan also approached themes of Christ and how Batman embodies that figure as he is made to sacrifice himself for the greater good of Gotham towards the end of The Dark Knight.
According to Nolan, an important theme of the sequel is escalation, extending the ending of Batman Begins, noting things having to get worse before they get better. While indicating The Dark Knight would continue the themes of Batman Begins, including justice vs revenge and Bruce Wayne’s issues with his father, Christopher Nolan emphasized the sequel would also portray Wayne more as a detective, an aspect of his character not fully developed in Batman Begins. Christopher Nolan described the friendly rivalry between Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent as the backbone of the film and story itself. He also chose to compress the overall story line, allowing him to develop Dent into a criminal in The Dark Knight, thus giving the film an emotional arc the unsympathetic Joker could not offer. Christopher Nolan acknowledged the title was not only a reference to Batman, but also the fallen “White Knight” Harvey Dent.
The Dark Knight also became the first movie of a kind to be shot with IMAX cameras, Nolan shot four major sequences in that, including the Joker’s opening bank robbery and the car chase midway through the film, which marked the first time that a feature film had been even partially shot in the format. At the time of shooting, there were only two IMAX film camera designed, which were used by Christopher Nolan to film the action sequences for The Dark Knight, both were destroyed. The film was received with praised and the shooting of IMAX camera garnered so much applause that Nolan went on to make Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, Interstellar, Dunkirk and Tenet, the latter two are completely shot with IMAX cameras.
Christopher Nolan’s latter work on Interstellar and Dunkirk are so profound, that Interstellar’s depiction of Black hole went on to be so accurate, that a scientific paper was based on the film. The recent discovery of the Black hole is very similar to what appears on screen. Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar and it’s depiction of Black hole is considered to be the first accurate depiction of the scientific anomaly over any medium. Dunkirk, is regarded as a war movie which brought back the horrors of real life men who were trapped at the beach of Dunkirk. The movies sound design was so haunting that it brought real memories of actual World War 2 veterans who viewed the movie at its Premiere.
The Dark Knight- Christian Bale’s Batman
Christian Bale’s Batman was garnered with praise from everyone unlike Ben Affleck’s casting or Robert Pattinson’s. Although, Christian Bale’s portrayal of Batman in The Dark Knight Trilogy is praised, the performance is also one of the most underrated in film and pop culture. The reason for this could have been because Heath Ledger’s joker completely blew up for fans, the talk was so mainstream that it underrated Christian Bale’s performance as Batman.
When Batman vs Superman was being made, Warner Bros. Studios offered Christian Bale, 120 Million Dollars to reprise his role as Batman but he declined. Christian Bale has been known to making bold choices and method approach to get into characters. Christian Bale was first scene in Steven Spielberg’s Empire of the sun when he was just a kid, as he grew up he took more mature roles, but his preparation for the role of Batman has gotta be the most fascinating story.
Christian Bale did a film called the Machinist in 2004 for which he appeared so thin, then within a year he had to put on 20 pounds to get into the body required for Batman Begins 2005, after Batman Begins, Christian Bale did another movie with Christopher Nolan called the Prestige 2006 for which he had to gain weight and appear bloated, which he again shed this time to get in shape for The Dark Knight 2008, later he went onto dramatically loose weight to play a trainer in 2010 film called the fighter, afterwards as The Dark Knight Rises went on floor, Christian Bale was in a tight spot to regain weight and his muscular body for the final film which came out in 2012. Christian Bale just like Bruce Wayne and Batman learned martial arts and Jiu Jitsu to sell the fight scenes in The Dark Knight Trilogy better.
Christian Bale continues to do chameleon work in his performance as he got bloated again for American Hustle in 2013, shed his weight for The Big Short in 2015 to bare minimum and later gained for his role in Vice 2018, to portray Former Vice President of United States. Right now he is at his normal body weight, and Bale has signed on to appear as the villain in the Thor Love and Thunder which has been directed by Taika Watiti, which will mark Bale’s return to the superhero genre after more than a decade since the release of The Dark Knight Rises.
The Dark Knight- Heath Ledger’s Joker
We at The Movie Culture hails Heath Ledger is the best joke ever. Jack Nicholson, Mark Hamill, Joaquin Phoenix are all marvelous actors who played the Joker the crown Prince of crime very well but there’s something about Heath Ledger and his ways that makes his Joker the most terrifying Joker that has ever grace the big screen. The portrayal of Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight was invasion by visionary director Christopher Nolan.
Nolan thought of the character as an agent of chaos, the character himself did not know what he was gonna do next and he would just do it which will rain chaos and fears among the people of Gotham. Heath Ledger the marvelous 28 years old actor won the Osc...(continue reading)