I wrote my BA thesis on why the Joker is a great villain I kind of got it down to two reasons, both stemming from storytelling: first, he was created by actions of the hero, and second, the hero, by definition, cannot defeat this particular villain (without getting himself out of the equation).

I really see both Batman and Joker as concepts, so I'm not really down on the psychological aspects of the Joker - most people would start analysing even Ledger's Joker from a psychology point of view, but I think that's wrong.

The same way Bruce Wayne became Batman, some random guy became the Joker. Real persons becoming "concepts" or "ideas", thus becoming indestructible by real people. That's the idea behind Batman, and Joker realises that. So, in order to stand up to Batman, he became the Joker, to match him on his own level.

Gordon talks about Batman's effect on society, about escalation, and that leads, of course, to the arrival of the Joker. And I think Batman only ever thought of defeating real people, and never even devised a plan to defeat a Joker-(or Batman-)like entity. That's why he fails, because he's stubborn in his methods or weapons against this new threat. This is apparent in the interrogation scene ("You have nothing to threaten me with").

So in a way you have the hero who is indirectly responsible for this new villain, and who is essentially stubborn and short-sighted and is incapable of defeating this threat by his usual methods. Then, at the end, he realises that he has to vanish in order for the other threat to vanish as well. Both on a conceptual and physical level.

Because physically, of course, we know that he disappears from Gotham, but on a conceptual level: because of his murder of Dent, he is not Batman anymore. And, as the Joker is right to assume, the only way Batman can defeat him is by murdering him, and he won't do that. But the Joker makes Batman murder someone anyway, so at that point Batman, the original idea or concept, ceases to be. And that's why it's a powerful situation, from a storytelling point of view. The hero's fate is entangled and inseparable from the villain's fate. And it's also a bit like a paradox: Batman can only win if he loses.

So, not talking about any other aspect of Ledger's Joker (portrayal, etc.), I think these are at least some of the reasons why this villain works so much more than most recent blockbuster villains.

Here's a recent interview with Michael Jai White (Gambol in The Dark Knight) talking about working with Heath Ledger.

Responding to the OP after reading a couple pages of nonsense, lol.

He's playing a guy with a green vest and hair, purple coat, white power, lipstick, yellow teeth, and a deranged higher voice in a grounded world that Nolan established, and this could have come off so hokey or unconvincing. On paper, when I was explaining this to my then fourteen year old sister (before she saw any trailers, and she wasn't/isn't very aware of Batman lore), she just sat there and laughed at the idea. A clown going around and terrorizing Batman and his ideals? That's just too ridiculous, especially for the Nolanverse. When my sister saw a trailer with him for the first time as he sauntered through a street of downtown Chicago, she shut up then and there. When she saw the film itself, she freaked. She didn't love the Joker, she was petrified of him.

Heath Ledger came in, and played the implausible very plausibly. He played it menacingly. He played it with that ever so wry bit of levity that it would make any such included dark moments more so sadistic, and a lot of that was improvised. We can credit Zimmer for the shepherd's tone score, but as it didn't mean very much to me in the opening scene because we didn't get a glimpse of Ledger in full force yet, it only oozed with much more trepidation from the audience when it started coming into full form because of his brooding presence from the scenes prior. Jack Nicholson's Joker was nightmare creepy, and Heath Ledger's Joker was dark alley creepy. The very fact that my first thought of him goes to "terrorist" before "clown" is borderline absurd, but it's the truth.

Honestly, I think a lot of it was just that people didn't think he could do it. Now, I don't think his death glorified his performance any more, but it made his performance scarier to me, that's for sure. It made it seem like he was a madman on the brink in preparation for the role. When he was on screen, I didn't see Heath Ledger even if I wanted to try to (with the exception of the interrogation scene with Gordon in the room, where we later learn it was one of his first filmed scenes so I guess that makes sense). There's no real behind the scenes stuff with his performance, so all we get is just... Joker. It helps create that mystique of the abyss that Heath must've found himself in to become such a bereft soul in every word that he uttered. While other characters feel there was an existence to them before we first saw them on screen, it almost feels as if this Joker character was just birthed out of thin air to counter Batman's fight.

Heath was pretty amazing the whole film, but highlight moments for sure are:

- Response to him being crazy: "No I'm not. No. I'm. Not."
- Brian Douglass pre-execution footage, especially demanding that he looks at his face and his maniacal laugh at the end.
- Scars story to Rachel. "She can't stand the sight of me!"
- Taking Bale Batman's punches and laughing them off (of course, with that score in the background).
- His knife usage explanation and intimating the detective's friends acted cowardly upon death (plus mouthing "six").
- Hospital explosion. Frickin' improvising the "button's not working" moment during the accidental pause.
- Him laughing as he was thrown off the building (at that moment, I was thinking "oh shit" like it was Ledger channeling Joker channeling Ledger).

There are more, but I'm good stopping there.

In short though, he played somebody memorable, and somebody who you wanted to root for in spirit but not in heart. His act has been an influence on several movie villains written in the past decade, and unfortunately some real life psychopaths. A lot of credit goes everywhere, but this isn't a role that just anyone could have done. Others potentially could have, but the best praise I could have done was call it "good acting," or "great acting." When I watch Ledger, I'm not watching somebody "act." I'm watching somebody transform.

But as somebody else said: we don't have to convince you. Nobody can convince me that rap is music I'd like to listen to. I'm just explaining away what makes Ledger's performance so special to me.

Heath Ledger improvised and made the entire film one hundred times better than it would have been if another actor played the part.

As much as Ledger did bring to the role, he had a script and a director to work with/off of. It wouldn't have been as acclaimed of a role if the direction and script were bad or not as on their A game. I've seen one individual say that the movie is not remembered for anything other than Heath Ledger, which beyond being one of the most ridiculously out of touch and idiotic statements I've ever heard (said by a guy who's made the strangest, most poor criticisms of Nolan ever constantly, not to mention getting basic facts about his movies like this wrong), does such a disservice to not only this film's influence but also the work the Nolan brothers, the rest of the cast, Wally Pfister, Nathan Crowley, Hans Zimmer/James Newton Howard, Lee Smith etc did in making the film what it was.

P.S. Those basic facts include:
Forgetting that the Years of Messages scene in Interstellar contains a shot that lasts nearly a minute in favour of saying the scene is cut very quickly.

Also saying The Dark Knight has bad editing with only one example and that it is "just Heat"

Agreeing that The Batman was "objectively better" than the DK trilogy. Don't like the use of the word objective and the agreement.

His first criticism of Rises is "Why did Gordon send all those cops into the sewer?", which is a "plot hole" that is actually easy to comprehend. Simply put, Bane's a terrorist, he's got a straight up militia down there, not to mention Gordon straight up says that he wants to smoke him out, which if Bane didn't plan ahead could very likely have happened. Maybe less of a fact than a difference of opinion, but still a worthy point.

Thinking that The Shape of Water came out the same year as Tenet and thinking that Tenet won the best editing Oscar (Dunkirk won the best editing Oscar the same year Shape of Water came out) when it won the Best Visual Effects Oscar, which I think even people who didn't like it could agree was a deserved win.

Waitedalongtime wrote: ↑

July 5th, 2022, 9:57 pm

As much as Ledger did bring to the role, he had a script and a director to work with/off of. It wouldn't have been as acclaimed of a role if the direction and script were bad or not as on their A game. I've seen one individual say that the movie is not remembered for anything other than Heath Ledger, which beyond being one of the most ridiculously out of touch and idiotic statements I've ever heard (said by a guy who's made the strangest, most poor criticisms of Nolan ever constantly, not to mention getting basic facts about his movies like this wrong), does such a disservice to not only this film's influence but also the work the Nolan brothers, the rest of the cast, Wally Pfister, Nathan Crowley, Hans Zimmer/James Newton Howard, Lee Smith etc did in making the film what it was.

P.S. Those basic facts include:
Forgetting that the Years of Messages scene in Interstellar contains a shot that lasts nearly a minute in favour of saying the scene is cut very quickly.

Also saying The Dark Knight has bad editing with only one example and that it is "just Heat"

Agreeing that The Batman was "objectively better" than the DK trilogy. Don't like the use of the word objective and the agreement.

His first criticism of Rises is "Why did Gordon send all those cops into the sewer?", which is a "plot hole" that is actually easy to comprehend. Simply put, Bane's a terrorist, he's got a straight up militia down there, not to mention Gordon straight up says that he wants to smoke him out, which if Bane didn't plan ahead could very likely have happened. Maybe less of a fact than a difference of opinion, but still a worthy point.

Thinking that The Shape of Water came out the same year as Tenet and thinking that Tenet won the best editing Oscar (Dunkirk won the best editing Oscar the same year Shape of Water came out) when it won the Best Visual Effects Oscar, which I think even people who didn't like it could agree was a deserved win.

This person topped all of these by being recently expressing that they were pissed off that this movie was added to the National Film Registry, despite it clearly fitting the "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" grouping. He even said he understood why Memento was on the list but not this one, which is strange because although Memento does deserve it's placement, DK deserves it more because of it's heavy influence and cultural impact. So beyond just not liking the fact that a movie you think is overrated got recognition, I can't see why it's undeserving of it's placement.

All that said, the reversal of this person getting worse is Logan Kenny, a guy who has notoriously not liked CN coming round to The Dark Knight. His review is genuinely really well written and it goes into several personal and interestingly analytical places, not all of it I agree with, but in every facet of analysis it's honest and doesn't just blatantly lie. Still not a big fan of him (though I used to be I did drift away from him) but he goes into a lot of different aspects of the film including Heath and even gets why he works better than a lot of imitators. And the fact that he doesn't fall into saying "this movie only works because of Heath" or "People wouldn't remember or think this movie is good if not for Heath" (which are both bullshit statements of the highest order) is great too: https://letterboxd.com/arkhamoutlaw10/f ... rk-knight/

P.S. Though him saying Paul Dano wasn't good as The Riddler stung a bit (he does love The Batman though, just to let anyone know)

Today marks the 15th anniversary of Heath Ledger's passing. Man time flies. I remember the news came out very shortly after new viral marketing material and I thought that maybe the news was part of some sick meta promo for the movie. Unfortunately, it was true.

I hope there is an alternative universe somewhere where he didn't pass and actually got to do all the amazing work he could have.I know he was rumored to take over Mad Max from Mel Gibson. Apparently he was also supposed to be the lead in Inception. And obviously he would have been one of the main antagonists in the third Dark Knight movie. Probably Bane wouldn't be the anatogonist and the movie would focus on Joker if Heath lived but still it is fun to imagine Hardy's Bane and Joker rewritten from Talia's role interact. I imagined an alternative story like this: Bane's plan to create a revolution by threatening to use a nuclear weapon in Gotham would be real and he would partner with Joker as a victim of Dent's act but then Joker would double cross Bane and actually want to detonate the nuke.

Actually I think this was one aspect of the trilogy that I wanted more of - the villains meeting and interacting with each other. Some might count Falcone and Scarecrow or Talia and Bane but they were already partners by the time we see them on screen. We only got a true meeting in TDK between Two-Face and Joker and it was one of the best scenes in the movie.

Here's also a couple of colleagues from set remembering working with him:
CHRISTIAN BALE (starts 6:55)


AARON ECKHART


CHRIS NOLAN

LelekPL wrote: ↑

January 22nd, 2023, 7:57 am

Today marks the 15th anniversary of Heath Ledger's passing. Man time flies. I remember the news came out very shortly after new viral marketing material and I thought that maybe the news was part of some sick meta promo for the movie. Unfortunately, it was true.

I hope there is an alternative universe somewhere where he didn't pass and actually got to do all the amazing work he could have.I know he was rumored to take over Mad Max from Mel Gibson. Apparently he was also supposed to be the lead in Inception. And obviously he would have been one of the main antagonists in the third Dark Knight movie. Probably Bane wouldn't be the anatogonist and the movie would focus on Joker if Heath lived but still it is fun to imagine Hardy's Bane and Joker rewritten from Talia's role interact. I imagined an alternative story like this: Bane's plan to create a revolution by threatening to use a nuclear weapon in Gotham would be real and he would partner with Joker as a victim of Dent's act but then Joker would double cross Bane and actually want to detonate the nuke.

Actually I think this was one aspect of the trilogy that I wanted more of - the villains meeting and interacting with each other. Some might count Falcone and Scarecrow or Talia and Bane but they were already partners by the time we see them on screen. We only got a true meeting in TDK between Two-Face and Joker and it was one of the best scenes in the movie.

Here's also a couple of colleagues from set remembering working with him:
CHRISTIAN BALE (starts 6:55)


AARON ECKHART


CHRIS NOLAN

Can't believe, he still wouldn't even have been 45 this year. Crazy how young he was when he both died and took on this insane role. Left a legacy behind indeed with this film and his other movies.

Anyway your speculation on potentially what the third film could have been with the Joker is really interesting, I don't think Bane would work with him at all since he's too much of a manipulative wild card plus not interested in the city being destroyed at all. I feel like he'd be working to try and destroy Bane's operation for his own benefit and that would have been a potentially cool sideplot.