The Dark Knight's Joker may have been a departure from any other live-action adaptation of the character, but his most famous kill still managed to pay homage to Jack Nicholson's maniacal supervillain from 1989's Batman film. Heath Ledger's Joker has been widely celebrated as one of the best versions of the iconic character in history, even earning the actor a posthumous Academy Award, though Nicholson's brief stint as the supervillain remains a favorite as well. The former's infamous pencil kill in The Dark Knight actually manages to connect the two Jokers in a surprising and brutal way that many viewers might have overlooked.
Heath Ledger's supervillain was introduced with The Dark Knight ignoring questions of Joker's origin. Instead, the film opts to introduce Batman's archnemesis in a truly memorable fashion, including several scenes of obscene and grisly murders. The stand-out scene, however, includes Joker asking a group of mob bosses if they "want to see a magic trick," claiming that he will make a pencil disappear before jamming it into a goon's eye. This grisly scene pays quiet homage to a moment in Batman wherein Nicholson's Joker kills a man with a quill, throwing it into his neck before proclaiming the age-old addage that "the pen is truly mightier than the sword."
How The Dark Knight Pulled Off Joker's Pencil Trick
Despite The Dark Knight breaking Christopher Nolan's apparent no-sequel rule, the pencil trick early in the film helps show that this Batman Begins sequel is anything but a pessimistic cash grab. A behind-the-scenes interview with the cast, crew , and The Dark Knight's stunt team conducted by Vulture gets to the bottom of how this scene was pulled off. Ultimately, the truth behind the pencil stunt shows just how much thought, effort, and practice went into the scene, with the final product proving itself to be worthy of Christopher Nolan's prestigious reputation as a filmmaker and perhaps the best Batman director of all time.
Although he often creates massive action sequences for his films, Christopher Nolan often refuses to use CGI, a rule which he did not break for this scene. The stunt was instead pulled off through a trick of editing wherein the scene was shot with and without the pencil, then spliced together to make it appear as though the writing utensil had gone into the man's eye. In certain takes, stuntman Charles Jarman was required to whisk the pencil off the table just before his head made , marking a precarious procedure. Nevertheless, the final product was seamless, leaving audiences in awe at the Joker's brutality and Nolan's realistic filmmaking techniques.
Dark Knight's Nicholson Homage Makes The Pencil Scene Better
Although there may have been some hurt feelings regarding Heath Ledger replacing Jack Nicholson as the Joker, The Dark Knight's pencil scene manages to both pay homage to the previous Joker actor and make the film better overall. Referencing Nicholson's memorable quill kill acknowledges the esteemed actor's contribution to the Joker's legacy while also updating the scene for Nolan's more brutal world. Whereas Nicholson's quill murder acted as a dark joke in a relatively campy film, Ledger's pencil trick is a horrific moment meant to display the true depths of his character's insanity, redefining the Joker for a new generation of Batman fans.
Throughout the rest of The Dark Knight, the Joker becomes a character for audiences to truly fear, knowing the depths of evil of which he is capable. Though The Dark Knight eventually failed, Ledger's version of the character remains one of the most beloved supervillains of all time. By both paying homage to the actor that had preceded Ledger in the role and displaying the character's true brutality, The Dark Knight manages to craft one of the best Jokers ever seen in the history of cinema, with only a few brave souls willing to follow up such a definitive performance.
