x
Breaking News
More () »

How 'The Dark Knight' changed things in Hollywood 10 years ago

It's not just Ledger's best work. It's Nolan's finest achievement in a career of highs. Bale's work is the reason I think he gave us the true Batman out of all the contenders.
Warner Brothers Pictures

"You've changed things. There's no going back."

While Heath Ledger's maniac Joker was referencing the effect that Christian Bale's Batman had on Gotham with his crime fighting ways, one could also use the same quote in a different way when discussing the impact that Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight had on Hollywood and the industry.

Before The Dark Knight came out ten years ago, an actor in a comic book movie hadn't been nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars. You wouldn't catch a superhero-themed film even considered for Best Picture or Best Director. Before Nolan's gem-which he wrote with his brother Jonathan-broke onto the scene on July 18, 2008, Hollywood saw comic book films as gleefully ignorant yet fun endeavors. A guilty pleasure to suspend the mind for two hours, but nothing more than an escape. Nolan's Batman take re-routed that ideal with a movie no one saw coming.

The trailer may be one of the best edits of all time when it comes to juicy teases.

As good as Bale was as the Night Crusader, Ledger is the reason we remember this film so potently a decade later. He didn't just play the Joker; Ledger became the guy through merciless training, rehearsal, invention, and isolation. He reportedly locked himself in a hotel for weeks in order to get the laugh, walk, and talk right. Imagine delivering room service to a calm and sweet looking Australian guy who you know from A Knight's Tale and then hearing as you walk away, "let's put a smile on that face!!"

Ledger's Joker was a terrifyingly addictive drug for the viewer to consume. You couldn't look away if there was an option. He was the star of a movie that he won a supporting award for. By the time he showed his face to an unfortunately heroic bank manager (William Fichtner) ten minutes in, all we wanted was more Joker. When he was gone, it was time to come back. With a cast including prestigious award powerhouses-Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, and Bale among them-that's saying something.

Before he took the role that would define his painfully short-lived life, Ledger was a teen idol type was slowly maturing into bigger and juicier roles. The guy who was in 10 Things I Hate about You chasing down Julia Stiles was entering the serious zone with brilliant roles in Monster's Ball and Brokeback Mountain. Neither of those stood up to The Joker, though.

When I interviewed actor Frank Grillo back in 2014, he put it best: "You cared for that guy. He stole the movie." Ledger's villain wasn't much of a classic villain at all. He wasn't wrecking havoc for money or power. He simply wanted to teach Batman a lesson and enlighten the misinformed public about the way the world truly works.

"You see, their morals, their code, it's a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They're only as good as the world allows them to be. I'll show you. When the chips are down, these... these civilized people, they'll eat each other. See, I'm not a monster. I'm just ahead of the curve."

Inside the madness was a melancholy acceptance of how the human race works and manipulates innocent people. This was a case of an auteur on top of his game making a big-budget movie something more. Nolan even credited the great Michael Mann's bank heist in 1995's Heat as an influence in his opening scene, which was a bank robbery as well.

Fun fact: Heat and The Dark Knight rest on my top ten movies of all time list.

Why? They both adopted familiar setups. A career criminal against a dedicated cop in LA. An unstoppable villain going up against an immovable force in Gotham. The filmmakers injected a surprising substance into their stories. Mann dug deep into the personas of Al Pacino's cop and Robert De Niro's thief, creating dual-sided lives for the main two characters as well as the supporting cast.

In The Dark Knight, The Nolan Brothers made it a point to expose how ugly the world can be when placed in certain positions instead of just showing us a fight between good and evil. A deliberate tale about twisted souls who don't have the ambition to be greedy with money and power, instead focusing their strengths on showing the nasty excrement that lives inside every soul on Earth. The Nolans did that with a DC Comic film. This was back in the day when DC Films put out high-quality films and not just noisy fluff. Zack Snyder, you are not Nolan and will never be, so stop mimicking his ways.

Nolan didn't paint Bale's masked crime fighter as an entirely noble character either. He created a dichotomy between the meaning and purpose of a hero. Is Batman a vigilante that does more harm than good or someone who is needed when the bad guys show up? Sometimes, it can be both, but it's not an easy question to answer. The Dark Knight examined that throughout its 140 minutes.

It's one of the rare comic book films that is instantly rewatchable all these years later. If it comes on, the day becomes useless. Laundry is put down, dinner plans are scrapped, and a beer is popped open. Go with a wheat beer instead of an IPA, so you get the full effect.

Watching it these days is bittersweet due to the level of mastery that Ledger showed before his untimely death at the age of 28. He was on the road to becoming one of the true greats (I'm talking Daniel Day Lewis level), and he lost it one night when mishandling and digesting prescription medication. While it wasn't intended to be, this was Ledger's swan song; a farewell performance that rightfully garnered an Oscar.

When he won, the entire game changed. People looked at comic book films differently. Marvel arrived with Iron Man that year and took off with its own series of films. I like to think The Dark Knight made some of that possible.

It's not just Ledger's best work. The Dark Knight is still Nolan's finest achievement in a career of highs. Bale's work is the reason I think he gave us the true Batman out of all the contenders. Everyone dug deep and tried to take something ordinary and turn it into something extraordinary.

Ten years ago today, my best friend Eric and I went on a road trip to a luxurious theater in Oklahoma to see The Dark Knight the day after it opened. A ten hour drive for one movie. It was worth the trip, because we talked about it the entire way back.

Watch it again. Rewind a bunch. Watch certain parts again. As the Joker would say, you aren't a monster for going back to this film so often; you are merely ahead of the curve.

Before You Leave, Check This Out