Heath Ledger's Joker

Recently, I read an article online submitting that, while a great performance, the late, great Heath Ledger’s portrayal of The Joker was far from the best.

And while the author tried to convey a guise of objectivity, repeating staunchly that no one version of The Joker can be proclaimed the best, simply based on the fact of the character’s 70 + year history, they betray their neutrality by then going on to praise Mark Hammil’s rendition as the be all and end all of Joker performances, defending this position by highlighting what they believe to be limitations in the version as put forth in “The Dark Knight”, simultaneously expounding on why Hammil's version lacks any such limitations, and, so, is “better”.

Already the author has contradicted themselves, but that’s beside the point.

After opening their article by, essentially, insulting Heath Ledger’s abilities as an actor, going on in rather malicious ferocity about how lackluster each and every one of his performances were, prior to “The Dark Knight”, they then proceeded to concede that his performance as The Joker was, indeed, fantastic, but begrudgingly so, as they very blatantly attempt to disservice it’s brilliance by allotting credit to the writers and director.

While obviously a large amount of credit is deserved by Christopher Nolan and the screen writers for so thoroughly understanding the character of The Joker, giving said credit while accessing Heath Ledger’s performance makes the author’s agenda quite clear.

Simply, they dislike Heath Ledger. This is obvious. And they harbor clear resentment towards the praise Ledger’s performance garnered.

The author further pushes their agenda by then insisting that The Joker’s purpose and intent in the film makes him a limited and ultimately pitiful, ineffectual character. They argue that The Joker’s attempts to prove the futility of man-made law and order makes him just as sad and without hope as the rest of humanity. That by trying to prove a point, he makes himself the same as they.

And the author then proceeds to again exalt Mark Hammil's performance of the character and explain its vast superiority.

I disagree with this person on both counts. Both with their proclamation that Ledger’s Joker in inferior to Hamill’s, and with the assessment that “The Dark Knight’s” vision of The Joker is no good.

I in fact feel that the characterization, both in terms of writing and acting, was as accurate and pointed as has ever been done with The Joker. I don’t believe the character has ever been done greater justice.

What first must be remembered about the character of The Joker is, he is a villain. His entire purpose, his entire point for existing, is to serve as a foil to Batman, to oppose and counter him. And when you take a look in to Batman’s world, how utterly dark, depressing and tragic it is, you realize that, at his core, in order for The Joker to be effective against such a brooding, serious hero, he himself must be frightening. He must emit horror and fear. He must be a threatening presence.

What the writers of “The Dark Knight” understood about the character so well was exactly what it is that makes him such an intimidating foe.

Batman operates on fear, on his ability to frighten and intimidate criminals.

What makes The Joker such a deserving and evenly matched opponent to the caped crusader, and what Nolan and the writers understood so well, is that The Joker is a fearless character, someone unable to be bullied or threatened, someone you cannot intimidate or persuade or blackmail in to doing your bidding.

He is a wholly apathetic person, a true nihilist who regards everything, his own life included, as nothing more then a meaningless, cruel joke, not to be regarded with any sort of gravity, not to be taken seriously.

So you can’t scare him. He isn’t afraid to die. He doesn’t care about money or power. He doesn’t care about profit or control or anything tangible, about anything you can give or do to him.

Put in basic terms, he simply doesn’t care, about anything, and so, he can’t be stopped.

How do you stop someone who isn’t afraid?

The only way to stop him is to kill him. To actually kill him.

Because the threat of doing so won’t.

And that is what makes The Joker so scary. That’s what makes him such a horrifying, intimidating force.

His unpredictability, the impossibility of knowing what he’s going to do is simply something to enhance the fact of his being unstoppable. It makes it that much worse, being unable to foretell his intentions.

But make no mistake, it is knowing full well that whatever it is he plans, whatever he desires, whether to play some harmless prank or murder millions, you won’t, no matter what, be able to dissuade him from it.

The fact that The Joker, several times throughout the film, places his own life in harms way, serves to highlight this quality of the character very well.

The best portrayals of The Joker highlight his fearlessness, in my opinion. It’s what makes him unique among Batman’s diverse rogues gallery. And it’s what makes him Batman’s most dangerous rogue.

And Heath Ledger brought those qualities to life.

And that’s why Heath Ledger’s performance was great.

More then great, it was brilliant.

A good actor will make a character convincing enough so that you can enjoy the performance without the distraction of knowing its all make believe.

A great actor will make you forget that it’s a performance at all, to the point where you believe that what you’re watching is not a film, but something actually real. They’ll make you forget that it’s them in the role, and make you believe that whoever it is they’re playing, they really exist.

And that’s precisely what Ledger accomplished when he played The Joker.

It would be hard for me to watch Ledger on screen, knowing that he’s now past away, if he didn’t so thoroughly disappear in to the character of The Joker, if he didn’t actually become The Joker. But he did. And while watching “The Dark Knight”, I find myself not thinking at all about Heath Ledger, the real person. It never even crosses my mind that it’s him behind the make up, that he’s no longer on this earth. I believe whole-heartedly that I’m watching The Joker. The comic book character. I believe, while watching Ledger’s performance, that The Joker actually exists, that he’s real, and it never occurs to me that I’m watching an actor, that I’m watching a fantasy.

That’s the mark of a truly brilliant performance, and a truly brilliant talent.

And for the record, while Mark Hammil is fantastic in the role of The Joker, I believe it’s his portrayal which is limited to a more light-hearted, child-friendly medium, while Ledger’s captures the essence of The Joker, who the character is at his core.

His portrayal is off-putting, unsettling and strange. He seems bizarre. From the opening scene, before you even know it’s the Joker behind the clown mask, and he shoots the bank manager, the way he cocks his head and just stares at him afterwards, as though he’s fascinated by what he sees, enthralled by it even, that’s The Joker. He derives something from hurting others, whether pleasure or curiosity, interest, joy, excitement, etc… Ledger’s subtle body language exudes this quality of the character, and he does this throughout the film. As does his peculiar manner of speaking, the way he drags certain words out, or cuts them off. The way he switches so suddenly, so unexpectedly from whimsical and humorous to violently aggressive.

And yes, The Joker IS funny in “The Dark Knight”. Those who think not are missing subtleties in the performance, and those all belong to Ledger.

An example is when Gamble becomes outraged and yells at The Joker ‘You think you can steal from us and just walk away?!’ and The Joker responds with ‘Yeah.’ It is Ledger’s delivery of that line, his facial expression and the inflection in his voice, that makes it a laugh out loud moment. Instead of delivering it with a matter of fact tone, smugness or self-assuredness, he darts his eyes to the side while backing away, his tone conveying a sort of confusion, as though he’s asking, “Well, yeah, why wouldn’t I be able to?”. It’s as though he genuinely wouldn’t understand why that would be a problem.

It’s absolutely hilarious.

And it’s all in Ledger’s delivery.

He goes from that to a scene like the one where he’s captured Brian, the Batman impersonator, and he seems absolutely mean, absolutely cruel in the way he taunts and intimidates the man. Or how he dismisses his own men as worthless, as exampled when one of them tries to remove Batman’s cowl and is met with electrocution. The Joker laughs maniacally at his misfortune, running up to him as he’s lying unconscious on the ground, and in an instant, his hilarity switches to malice and disgust as he mocks how the henchman spazzimed before spitting on him. You can feel the hatred just oozing off The Joker in that moment, and how little he really respects those who work for him, how little he cares for them.

Again, it is in Ledger’s performance. The subtlety of how quickly and abruptly his moods can shift. One moment he’s screaming at Batman with viciousness to run him down, the next he’s skipping with apparent glee towards the hero after he’s crashed, and just as suddenly, he’s showing disdain towards his own hireling. And though the changes are abrupt, they somehow flow and seem perfectly acceptable and appropriate.

What Heath Ledger did was, he took a wide variety of character traits, ones which seemed to contradict one another, ones which seemed as though their coexistence within the same person would be an impossibility, and made it seem entirely plausible, right even. As though it could be no other way.

Character shifts are generally regarded as a no-no within writing, but paradox is a part of The Joker’s character, its part of what makes him up, and Heath Ledger made that paradox work beautifully.

He’s as convincing holding a blade alongside the corner of Gamble’s mouth, ready to slice it wide as he is dressed as a nurse, trotting out of the hospital like some little boy, or acting taken aback when yelled at by Harvey Dent and jumping in surprise when the bombs he set himself explode.

He’s at once frightening and intimidating, violent and vicious, mean and cold and cruel, but he’s as well funny, and even cute, and you as a viewer find yourself so enthralled and captivated by the character, that you end up on his side, desiring for him always to be on screen, sympathetic towards his philosophy with the realization that he’s right about the world and the people in it.

I think, equally, credit should be given both to the writers and to Heath Ledger for doing the character of The Joker justice for the first time in a major motion picture. The writers provided the characterization, characterization more like The Joker as he exists in the comic books then has ever been provided in any other medium, in terms of The Joker’s essence and the varying facets of his personality.

Heath Ledger brought that characterization to life. He made it palpable, he made it real.

As the author of the article which promoted me to write my own said about Mark Hammil, I say Heath Ledger was The Joker, and that the character was written for “The Dark Knight” exactly as he should be, a charismatic, engaging, humorous villain who, above it all, is an utterly frightening, vicious and dangerous being, deserving of his title as Batman’s greatest foe.