The iconic ‘Dark Knight’ scene Christopher Nolan stole from an “incredibly disturbing” Sean Connery movie
Christopher Nolan has never been shy about admitting that his lifelong love of the James Bond franchise has had a monumental impact on his filmography. However, it was a largely forgotten Sean Connery movie that served as the inspiration behind one of the most iconic moments in The Dark Knight.
Arguably the greatest comic book adaptation ever made, the second instalment in Nolan’s acclaimed trilogy had much the same effect as the first. Just like Batman Begins gave rise to the era of dark and gritty reboots, the follow-up became a touchstone for the next decade of Hollywood blockbusters.
Its influence stretches beyond the genre, too, with Heath Ledger’s Academy Award-winning performance as the Joker inspiring the current generation of actors, while the Oscars effectively confessed that expanding the ‘Best Picture’ field from five nominees to anywhere up to ten was driven in part by The Dark Knight being snubbed.
Ledger’s tour de force as the ‘Clown Prince of Crime’ features many iconic moments, but for many people, the interrogation scene is the highlight. The first time Christian Bale’s Batman comes face-to-face with his nemesis is laced with tension, and the superhero almost loses his cool when he starts wailing on the face-painted villain, who merely laughs in the face of getting repeatedly whacked over the head.
The fingerprints of Michael Mann’s Heat are all over The Dark Knight, but few would point to Sydney Lumet’s unsung British thriller, The Offence, as a touchstone. The 1973 crime story stars Connery as a veteran detective on the hunt for a serial rapist, which brings Ian Bannen’s Kenneth Baxter to his attention as a potential prime suspect.
After being brought in for questioning, Baxter begins laughing maniacally when sitting opposite Connery’s grizzled cop in the interrogation room, which culminates in the police officer beating him to a pulp. Sound familiar? The major difference is that Connery’s suspect dies from his injuries, with Nolan conceding that The Offence was the spark that lit The Dark Knight‘s fuse.
“Watching The Offence on TV when I was a teenager, it was just like, ‘What the fuck is this?'” the Oscar-winner recalled. “It does this extraordinary deconstructionist tactic with regard to playing with time. It’s incredibly disturbing; Sean Connery’s amazing in it as a cop under pressure, bearing the weight of his own guilt. It’s remarkable.”
Watching the scene in question, the parallels are there for everyone to see. Both exchanges are set in the same circumstances, with the protagonist luxuriating in the chance to grill their adversary. When the tables begin to turn and it becomes clear that conventional tactics won’t work, the sequence explodes into violence, and it doesn’t go unnoticed that both Baxter and the Joker can’t help but giggle.
After watching The Offence and then comparing it to The Dark Knight, it’s impossible to unsee the influence it had on Nolan’s billion-dollar behemoth, which probably went under the radar because it didn’t receive a wide release in cinemas, and it isn’t exactly remembered as one of Lumet or Connery’s definitive films.
