The movie character that terrifies Christopher Nolan “more than anything”
Christopher Nolan is without a doubt the director of his generation, earning much clout and success to become more powerful than any filmmaker, actor, or studio head, and he also helped reinvent an all-time bad guy.
Crowning his career’s greatest achievement is no easy feat, what with Memento putting him on the map, Inception being a game-changing original blockbuster, Interstellar courting a passionate following, Dunkirk flipping war films on its head, and Oppenheimer winning the Academy Award for ‘Best Picture‘, in the face of it all, it’s still hard to argue against the cultural impact of The Dark Knight.
The director was an unusual choice to helm Batman Begins in 2005, but the film ended up receiving much stronger reviews than Warner Bros had expected, which built up anticipation for its sequel, especially because it had famously ended with a scene in which Lieutenant Jim Gordon, played by Gary Oldman, makes a passing reference to Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne, where he acknowledges the existence of the Joker, teasing that he would pop up in the follow up.
Although marred by tragedy, Heath Ledger’s genius performance would, of course, go down in history as one of the best ever, responsible for making the version of the Joker in The Dark Knight what it was, but Nolan also deserved credit for his role in terms of crafting the screenplay.
According to the filmmaker, the character was one that had long since fascinated him: “The Joker is what I am afraid of more than anything, more than any of the villains, these days, particularly, when you feel civilisation is very thinly lined. I think the Joker represents the id in all of this.”
The Joker has nearly become a Shakespearean part, as it seems like there is a great actor of every generation who has desired to take it on. Jack Nicholson received the biggest paycheck in history at the time that the original Batman was released, and Mark Hamill’s take on the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series helped develop a newfound level of prestige for animated characters.
Thanks to the victories by both Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix, the Joker is one of only three characters who have won multiple Oscars, the others being Vito Corleone in the first two The Godfather films (played by Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro, respectively), and Maria in both versions of West Side Story (played by Rita Moreno and Ariana DeBose).
Nolan’s being terrified of the Joker makes sense, as he is a filmmaker who is renowned for his sense of order and precision, whereas the madcap villain cannot be reasoned with, explained, or predicted, which is what makes him such an enigmatic and seemingly unstoppable force in The Dark Knight. It is also what leads Batman to pay the ultimate price by taking the fall for crimes that he did not commit.
However, his version might have also made the character insurmountable, as the Joker has seemingly lost his edge in recent years. Jared Leto’s performance in Suicide Squad and Zack Snyder’s Justice League was terribly received, and Phoenix managed to destroy any goodwill he had earned for his Oscar-winning portrayal due to the disaster of Joker: Folie à Deux.
