The dark side of Batman's success

By almost all accounts, "The Dark Knight" is a terrific movie, a dark and disturbing disquisition on madness and mayhem. But plenty of terrific movies open all the time and don't have people paying $100 for a ticket, or filling seats in sold-out theaters in the middle of the night.

Not one of those other movies has ever sold $155.3 million in tickets in its first weekend. Perhaps because not one of those movies ever featured as its villain an acclaimed actor who died between the filming and the opening.

Heath Ledger's acting legacy, once described by his quiet performance as a gay cowboy in 2005's "Brokeback Mountain," will likely be now measured by his apocalyptic appearance as The Joker in the $180 million "Dark Knight," a blockbuster born when a major studio - in this case Warner Bros. - let an artist loose on a pop institution.

Director Chris Nolan's second Batman is apparently even better than his first. But since quality is so rarely reflected in box office receipts, there has to be another explanation for "Dark Knight's" success over the weekend.

The alternative is ghoulish. Ledger died in an accidental overdose in January, in his New York apartment, another talented performer gone too young. The relentless attention paid to that tragedy ensured that when "The Dark Knight" opened, there was pent curiosity that says more about the voyeuristic state of American culture than the quality of Ledger's performance.

Luckily, Ledger's Joker was a screen turn equal to all the attention. It's too early to say if it is one for the ages - but it is a bravura outing that will remind those who braved the crowds to see the last performance of a dead man that Ledger was a gifted and courageous actor before he was ever a curiosity.