Posters of Prominence: “The Dark Knight”
Following the success of Batman Begins, anticipation was running high – to say the least – for the sequel. Begins and Memento had made me a big Christopher Nolan fan, but even I was among the skeptical when it was announced that Heath Ledger would be playing the Joker in The Dark Knight.
Heath Ledger? Mr. Brokeback Mountain gay cowboy? As the Joker?
Like many, I tried to reconcile this with my preconceived notions of the Joker. Not an avid reader of comic books, my familiarity with Batman and his Rogues Gallery stemmed from the previous films and that fantastic ’90s animated series (which I watched rabidly in high school). I was not well versed in Mr. Ledger’s work. I’d seen Brokeback. I’d seen 10 Things I Hate About You. I was not convinced.
Then came that fantastic teaser trailer. I heard his voice, and I knew:
Then came the posters that launched one of my favorite campaigns of all time, and I was utterly convinced that, not only had Christopher Nolan made the right choice, but Mr. Ledger was going to knock this role out of the park.
I knew. And while it is not necessarily my favorite poster in the campaign, that feeling of knowing is best encapsulated in the poster that is the theme of this article. The
Joker, standing behind frosted glass, his features unclear. That crazy tilt to his body, those hollowed-out, black eyes in that skull-like face. The immortal tagline – “Why So Serious?” – scrawled in blood on the glass. One gets an immediate sense of who this character is: This is not Jack Nicholson‘s Joker; this is something entirely more sinister, more dangerous, more unpredictable.
The Dark Knight featured an immense poster campaign, many of the individual pieces playing with not revealing the Joker’s features to us:
Several of the posters dealt with the mayhem the Joker would cause. And of course, the Joker’s appearance could not remain a secret until the film’s release, especially when there were more fantastic trailers for Warner Bros. to put out. A few of the posters did show us the insanity behind Mr. Ledger’s eyes:
Batman himself (played by Christian Bale) was not treated equally. He dominated the Batman Begins poster campaign, but here, even when featuring in his own posters, the specter of the Joker pervades. And even the Batman logo is shown to be shattering, splintering, a subtle hint that the Joker’s insanity will push Batman to the breaking point:
Closer to the film’s release, the campaign took an interesting turn, having “the Joker” deface some of the already existing posters. It was another interesting step towards underlining the anarchy the character would represent:
The posters for The Dark Knight campaign were created by BLT & Associates, a company that has released posters for many big movies. They’ve done a lot of character posters like The Dark Knight teaser for tentpole movies (including a lot of comic book movies):
L-R: Alien Vs. Predator, Star Trek, the upcoming Captain America, Spider-Man 2, Iron Man
The Dark Knight, however, is easily some of their best work. Whether you agree with The Dark Knight being the #1 film on Flickchart or not, you have to concede that BLT & Associates created a fantastic poster campaign. Almost without exception, all of the posters are eye-catching, and excellent. (For good or ill, it also created the recent trend in movie posters to include all manner of flashing sparks whirling about the characters.) But that teaser does the greatest job of capturing the deadly spirit of Heath Ledger’s Joker. I had had my doubts. But I saw that image, and I became one of Mr. Ledger’s staunchest supporters.
I knew.
But I was still unprepared.
Even now, three years later, Mr. Ledger’s performance sends a chill up my spine. And even now, I look at these posters, and am reminded of one of the last great works from an immensely talented actor, taken from this world too soon.
The first time I saw this poster was in the lobby of our local theater, the Oldham 8. As I recall, we were running behind so I didn’t have the time I normally have to peruse the wall of posters for forthcoming movies. I may have noticed it, but I don’t remember registering what it was. I do, however, clearly recall passing it on my way out of the theater and literally stopping in my tracks to just stare at it.
I love the teasing nature of the image. It’s suggestive, without showing us enough to really know what we’re getting. The purple is recognizable enough as the Joker, but we don’t see the face. We were left to speculate what the makeup would be; I suspect few of us conjured images of what the real thing was.
Fun fact: Circuit City closed its doors around the end of 2008, not too long after The Dark Knight hit DVD. They had a store exclusive version of it, bundling a journal with the DVD. The journal was full of blank pages and had a Joker cover. Anyway, the slipcover for their release used this poster instead of the Batpod poster art that was the regular 2-disc DVD release slipcover. I never got my hands on the Circuit City version, but I wanted it just for that slipcover!
Oh, yeah, wow, that would have been fantastic. I managed to get a steelbook version of the DVD, which has the Batpod poster on the front (one of my least favorite posters of the campaign) with the Joker on the back (facing forward, on an angle, holding the gun, sparks whirling) – which is one of my favorites. But that slipcover…that would have been cool. (I feel like such a nerd…)
Man, I was kind of disappointed in the special edition DVD. It really, REALLY needed a commentary or something… Nolan, Bale and Eckhart would have been fantastic.
Nigel, I entirely agree about being underwhelmed by the bonus content. I think the title of my review on Amazon is, “Great Movie; Disappointing DVD.” In any event, I don’t want to go too far off-topic from the poster artwork you selected so I’ll save the rest of my remarks on the topic of the DVD release for another day.
My attention was just drawn to a limited edition silkscreen poster from San Francisco’s Castro Theatre that went on sale today. I’m not shilling for the poster or the theater, but rather think that Dark Knight fans may be interested in the art. It’s got a sort of Rorschach meets Vegas quality to it.
http://aliencorset.blogspot.com/2011/02/dark-knight-silkscreen-poster.html
Wow. Pretty cool.