Batman's Legacy...is The Dark Knight's Joker!
Christopher Nolan knows what he's doing...
After three successful films that explored the dynamics of a superhero whose past portrayals on the big screen had been comically and seriously portrayed through TV performances and on the big screen by Val Kilmer, Michael Keaton and absurdly by George Clooney; no one could expect a decent crime detective drama that an Academy of Motion Pictures would take seriously, but Nolan decided to make just that.
And it just so happens to be one of the best trilogies in the modern era of cinema. An instantly quotable, deep and symbolic crime detective thriller, that just so happens to feature as it's guest performance, the Detective: The Batman and the scene stealer: The Joker.
Christopher Nolan's idea for this genuine and real version of storytelling did exactly this. It was to start from the very first beginnings of the comic book hero, an origin story with a slight twist, everything would be as if it was based in the reality of every day life.
Batman Begins kicked off the procession presenting the world of Gotham and the visuals and score of an iconic film about a (soon to be orphaned) boy scared of Bats who creates a vigilante hero out of the symbol and literal sense of the mammal Bat.
The real Bat gadgets were taken from Bruce Wayne's high tech personal business company Wayne Corporation, where advanced infantry was designed for the American army and from that Bruce would get his super tank which would be his version of the Batmobile, and which would make every previous Bat car look almost over the top with their out of date eccentricities.
Nolan created a noir-thriller for comic-book fan girls and boys to appreciate in the sequel The Dark Knight, that led to a better class of superhero films preceding it. For example MARVEL's Captain America: The Winter Soldier kept the intensity and realness of the lighter world that Cap was based in. No other comic book film would be the same, without DC's The Dark Knight as the template before it. It set up an idea for a comic book film that was based in reality than creating a reality out of something not real.
As was accustomed with every Christopher Nolan film, the casting of certain actors that he thought would make the film, distinctly altered from the typical choices, creating the most highly talked about film and most anticipated of recent memory, Christian Bale was the least of anyone's worries after Batman Begins.
Heath Ledger became one of the most deliberated and talked about choices for portraying The Joker, highly negative even before any footage came out or even any stills. However with a master like Nolan and the vision he had with the character, which was unique, you could tell from the outset that it wasn't going to be what anyone expected.
The Aussie actor, who's only serious roles were in Brokeback Mountain as a gay sheep herder and his role in The Patriot, created uproar like no other on social media until all was quashed when the film premiered to rapturous reviews singling the Joker out as the performance of his career, and posthumously gaining some serious Oscar buzz.
The eponymous Joker, the clown, the number one archenemy of the Batman in the comics is the villain that everyone has a favourite portrayal of in their minds. The past interpretations had been embodied by Jack Nicholson in Tim Burton's classic Batman and Mark Hamill as the voice in the cartoons Batman: The Animated Series, amongst many other countless masterstrokes of other actors' creations.
But what makes Ledger's Joker so re-watchable is the embodiment of everything the character stands for. He is the Yin to Batman's Yang. The moral compass for which the Dark Knight is trying to stay well away from.
The instantly quotable lines from Christopher Nolan and his brother's Jonathan's heads: "You complete me" and "You're a freak, like me" reads so much more into their frenzied match making of hero and villain that there is no comparison to it in any other comic book universe.
They are matched by their wits and their morals, one with no morals whatsoever and the other who has one rule that he doesn't want to break. He is an anti-hero, the vigilante superhero one of the first.
The Joker is an agent of chaos and the Batman is one who tries to stop chaos and restore peace. As an antagonistic character to the protagonist Batman, the battle is all the more serious because of the one rule that Bruce doesn't want to break which is killing anyone.
So the Joker manages to inadvertently make Bats choose between saving the lives of one boat full of people to the other boat full of prisoners. Choosing between saving Dent and Rachel
Law and Order versus Chaos.
My first impression of the film was of complete awe and one of the first Nolan films I witnessed on the big screen, and that would end up leading the way to crown Nolan as my all time favourite director and film maker, he has an independent film mind set but with the wherewithal to make the kind of awe inspiring IMAX big screen, beautifully framed, perfectly paced film.
You could trust yourself when watching his films, there would be no simple answers, no black and white but always grey moral ground for you to encompass on the conclusions of his films.
Just re-watch all of his films: Inception being an obvious one. Interstellar, The Prestige, he has a preoccupation with endings being open ended for which I adore him for.
I don't think anyone could have imagined what Ledger was going to make with the opportunity Nolan gave him, to do what he wanted with the villain, who has been famous in the past for his creepy make up and campiness, but was in need of a dramatically dramatic overturn, the only things that were familiar was the clown make up, but what made him stand out was the dark, disturbing stories behind the make up, which covers a big smiley scar either side of his mouth. From the make up to the costume to the mannerisms, Ledger earned his Oscar nod and eventual posthumous Oscar for portraying the best performance of 2008.
If you were to watch The Dark Knight for the first time, and to remember the feeling of intensity and down right awe at witnessing one of the best performances of any character on screen in the modern era, you wish that you could be one of the few who could wipe their memory of it and start all over again.
I regret not watching it at least five more times on the big screen, witnessing it only the once on the biggest screen in my vicinity. I had never jumped so many times when watching a film and being emotionally engrossed and feeling actual goosebumps from something portrayed on screen before this.
It made me fall even more in love with cinema as a format and Christopher Nolan as a filmmaker. He knew what he wanted to make and he made a great sequel to Batman Begins, the first of three to change the way comic book films were going to be made, and how fans would expect them to be made and received.
When I left the cinema I definitely felt like I'd seen greatness, nothing before it in my lifetime, or there after had ever left an imprint on my young mind, of pure entertainment with intelligence and a gift for weaving an almost intricate story line that anyone could follow.
But it felt like one of the greatest crime stories ever told in a comic book film and by my reckoning hasn't been topped since.
#Happy10thBirthday #HeathLedger #TheJoker #Batman #DC #ChristopherNolan #HansZimmer #WallyPFister
After three successful films that explored the dynamics of a superhero whose past portrayals on the big screen had been comically and seriously portrayed through TV performances and on the big screen by Val Kilmer, Michael Keaton and absurdly by George Clooney; no one could expect a decent crime detective drama that an Academy of Motion Pictures would take seriously, but Nolan decided to make just that.
And it just so happens to be one of the best trilogies in the modern era of cinema. An instantly quotable, deep and symbolic crime detective thriller, that just so happens to feature as it's guest performance, the Detective: The Batman and the scene stealer: The Joker.
Christopher Nolan's idea for this genuine and real version of storytelling did exactly this. It was to start from the very first beginnings of the comic book hero, an origin story with a slight twist, everything would be as if it was based in the reality of every day life.
Batman Begins kicked off the procession presenting the world of Gotham and the visuals and score of an iconic film about a (soon to be orphaned) boy scared of Bats who creates a vigilante hero out of the symbol and literal sense of the mammal Bat.
The real Bat gadgets were taken from Bruce Wayne's high tech personal business company Wayne Corporation, where advanced infantry was designed for the American army and from that Bruce would get his super tank which would be his version of the Batmobile, and which would make every previous Bat car look almost over the top with their out of date eccentricities.
Nolan created a noir-thriller for comic-book fan girls and boys to appreciate in the sequel The Dark Knight, that led to a better class of superhero films preceding it. For example MARVEL's Captain America: The Winter Soldier kept the intensity and realness of the lighter world that Cap was based in. No other comic book film would be the same, without DC's The Dark Knight as the template before it. It set up an idea for a comic book film that was based in reality than creating a reality out of something not real.
As was accustomed with every Christopher Nolan film, the casting of certain actors that he thought would make the film, distinctly altered from the typical choices, creating the most highly talked about film and most anticipated of recent memory, Christian Bale was the least of anyone's worries after Batman Begins.
Heath Ledger became one of the most deliberated and talked about choices for portraying The Joker, highly negative even before any footage came out or even any stills. However with a master like Nolan and the vision he had with the character, which was unique, you could tell from the outset that it wasn't going to be what anyone expected.
The Aussie actor, who's only serious roles were in Brokeback Mountain as a gay sheep herder and his role in The Patriot, created uproar like no other on social media until all was quashed when the film premiered to rapturous reviews singling the Joker out as the performance of his career, and posthumously gaining some serious Oscar buzz.
The eponymous Joker, the clown, the number one archenemy of the Batman in the comics is the villain that everyone has a favourite portrayal of in their minds. The past interpretations had been embodied by Jack Nicholson in Tim Burton's classic Batman and Mark Hamill as the voice in the cartoons Batman: The Animated Series, amongst many other countless masterstrokes of other actors' creations.
But what makes Ledger's Joker so re-watchable is the embodiment of everything the character stands for. He is the Yin to Batman's Yang. The moral compass for which the Dark Knight is trying to stay well away from.
The instantly quotable lines from Christopher Nolan and his brother's Jonathan's heads: "You complete me" and "You're a freak, like me" reads so much more into their frenzied match making of hero and villain that there is no comparison to it in any other comic book universe.
They are matched by their wits and their morals, one with no morals whatsoever and the other who has one rule that he doesn't want to break. He is an anti-hero, the vigilante superhero one of the first.
The Joker is an agent of chaos and the Batman is one who tries to stop chaos and restore peace. As an antagonistic character to the protagonist Batman, the battle is all the more serious because of the one rule that Bruce doesn't want to break which is killing anyone.
So the Joker manages to inadvertently make Bats choose between saving the lives of one boat full of people to the other boat full of prisoners. Choosing between saving Dent and Rachel
Law and Order versus Chaos.
My first impression of the film was of complete awe and one of the first Nolan films I witnessed on the big screen, and that would end up leading the way to crown Nolan as my all time favourite director and film maker, he has an independent film mind set but with the wherewithal to make the kind of awe inspiring IMAX big screen, beautifully framed, perfectly paced film.
You could trust yourself when watching his films, there would be no simple answers, no black and white but always grey moral ground for you to encompass on the conclusions of his films.
Just re-watch all of his films: Inception being an obvious one. Interstellar, The Prestige, he has a preoccupation with endings being open ended for which I adore him for.
I don't think anyone could have imagined what Ledger was going to make with the opportunity Nolan gave him, to do what he wanted with the villain, who has been famous in the past for his creepy make up and campiness, but was in need of a dramatically dramatic overturn, the only things that were familiar was the clown make up, but what made him stand out was the dark, disturbing stories behind the make up, which covers a big smiley scar either side of his mouth. From the make up to the costume to the mannerisms, Ledger earned his Oscar nod and eventual posthumous Oscar for portraying the best performance of 2008.
If you were to watch The Dark Knight for the first time, and to remember the feeling of intensity and down right awe at witnessing one of the best performances of any character on screen in the modern era, you wish that you could be one of the few who could wipe their memory of it and start all over again.
I regret not watching it at least five more times on the big screen, witnessing it only the once on the biggest screen in my vicinity. I had never jumped so many times when watching a film and being emotionally engrossed and feeling actual goosebumps from something portrayed on screen before this.
It made me fall even more in love with cinema as a format and Christopher Nolan as a filmmaker. He knew what he wanted to make and he made a great sequel to Batman Begins, the first of three to change the way comic book films were going to be made, and how fans would expect them to be made and received.
When I left the cinema I definitely felt like I'd seen greatness, nothing before it in my lifetime, or there after had ever left an imprint on my young mind, of pure entertainment with intelligence and a gift for weaving an almost intricate story line that anyone could follow.
But it felt like one of the greatest crime stories ever told in a comic book film and by my reckoning hasn't been topped since.
#Happy10thBirthday #HeathLedger #TheJoker #Batman #DC #ChristopherNolan #HansZimmer #WallyPFister
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