On July 14, 2008 the premiere of The Dark Knight film was held in New York, where a lucky few could see for the first time this great film directed by Christopher Nolan.
“What doesn’t kill you, makes you stranger. It’s been 10 years since Joker, played by the late Heath Ledger, pronounced this mythical phrase. His incredible performance went down in history, earning the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor posthumously, an achievement that has not been repeated by any other superhero film.
To mark the tenth anniversary of the film’s premiere, it’s time to review the 10 best vignettes that Nolan recreated on the big screen. With his trilogy of The Dark Knight, the filmmaker reinvented the myth, returning his identity and did away with the nipple suits and camp aesthetics.
BATMAN: YEAR ONE (1987)
Nolan started preparing the Batman trilogy using Year One (1988), the comic that reinitiated the identity of the superhero. Frank Miller, the comic writer of the comic, recounted the beginnings of James Gordon in the police force of Gotham and the first steps of the young Bruce Wayne as a hooded vigilante.
The filmmaker faithfully reproduced much of the scenes in which Batman fights small-time criminals in the dark alleys of the city while fleeing the police. But the most shocking sequence takes place when the superhero escapes from the complex where Professor Crane works using a flock of bats. A scene of full of tension that Frank Miller had already conceived almost 20 years before.
The Man Who Falls (1989)
A dark alley, a frightened child, a couple in front of the barrel of a gun and after the shot … the myth. The story of the Wayne family is one of the best known by fans but this comic goes deep into Bruce’s life before the murder of his parents.
Nolan himself admitted that this story was the most influential in his new Batman. The comic written by Dennis O’Neil is not as popular as Year One or The Killing Joke but explores the beginnings – and fears – of Bruce Wayne as a child. And in passing leaves one of the most emotional scenes that Nolan does not hesitate to recreate in Batman Begins.
THE LONG HALLOWEEN (1997)
If Martin Scorsese had ever written a comic book it would be this one. The story of Jeph Loeb is submerged in the underworld of Gotham, turning the Batman comic into a novel by Mario Puzo (The Godfather). For something El Long Halloween is the cornerstone of Nolan’s trilogy.
Conceived as a continuation – not declared – of the acclaimed Year One, this story is a journey through the world of the Mafia, including the trial of Carmine Falcone and the transformation of Dent into Two Face that Nolan recreates so well in The Dark Knight.
The second film of the trilogy is full of sequences inspired by the cartoons. From the moment that Joker burns a mountain of bills to the conversations between Dent, Gordon and Batman on the roof of the Gotham police headquarters.
THE KILLING JOKE (1988)
The Killing Joke is one of the best works of Batman and – paradoxically, even the author acknowledges – one of the worst of Alan Moore. This comic book shows that Batman and the Joker are not as different as they think and that anyone can become a villain if they have a bad day.
In addition to some lines of dialogue, Nolan translates to the big screen the way in which the Joker tests the limit of sanity from Commissioner Gordon. Although in The Dark Knight it is Harvey Dent that he puts to the test … with a dramatic result.
DARK VICTORY (2000)
In the underworld of Nolan’s Gotham there is no room for nostalgia. Mafiosos do not wear big hats or use Thompson submachine guns. And the fact that Carmine Falcone is closer to being Gordon Gekko than to being John Dillinger is because of the comics from Joeph Loeb.
Dark Victory is the sequel to The Long Halloween and highlights some ideas that already appeared in the first installment. Specifically, one of the scenes that was best recreated by Nolan in The Dark Knight were the conversations between Gordon and Batman after the death of Two Face.
BATMAN # 1 (1940)
Although Nolan was very obsessed with recreating a realistic Batman, he allowed small scenes that hinted to the golden age comics. The fantasy of these comics, has little or nothing to do with the verisimilitude of The Dark Knight.
In this comic, Joker disguises himself as a policeman so he can commit a murder that ultimately truncates Batman. Nolan used these few pages of the comic and adapted his Clown Prince of Crime, played by Heath ledger.
THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS (1986)
If Year One endowed Batman with an origin, The Dark Knight Returns meant the resumption of the Bat myth and the conception of his new identity: a much darker and deeper Bruce Wayne. In the comic, Miller introduces a superhero who left the fight against crime after the death of Robin and who returns to put on the suit at the age off 55.
This is the main premise on which The Dark Knight Rises is held. And as a great connoisseur of Batman comics, Christopher Nolan brings to the big screen the cartoons in which Batman reappears publicly after many years in the shadows.
VENGEANCE OF BANE (1993)
Probably, thanks Nolan himself, Bane is the greatest villain of The Dark Knight Rises and the only one in the trilogy that manages to defeat Batman. Raised between the walls of the prison of Peña Duro and trained by the League of Assassins, Bane becomes for a few years the Bat’s greatest enemy in comics.
Vengeance of Bane was Bane’s first appearance in comics. The filmmaker collects much of the cartoons, including the moment in which the villain breaks Batman’s back, one of the most iconic moments in the Bat’s history inside and outside the big screen.
NO MAN’S LAND (1999)
Something stirred in the bowels of Gotham and, suddenly, the buildings began to fall, the neighborhoods ceased to exist and Gotham gets involved in anarchy because of an earthquake. No-man’s land was the macro-event that kept all readers of DC in suspense during 1999.
Gotham was isolated from the rest of the world because of an earthquake that changed the lives of the ‘Gothamites’. A child is being chased by bullies for having a sandwich and in the comics it is Gordon himself who helps the young man but Nolan gave that role to Catwoman.
A LONELY PLACE OF DYING (1989)
After the abandonment of Dick Grayson and the death of Jason Todd, Batman began to lose his head little by little, becoming increasingly violent. But in the darkest moment, a boy named Tim Drake appeared in his life. A young man who discovered the identity of the bat and who wanted to become the new Robin.
If the story sounds familiar it’s because Nolan relied on this comic to create John Blake, his particular Robin, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, in The Dark Knight Rises. In fact, the scene in which Blake visits Bruce Wayne in his mansion is taken flat out of the comic.
