I feel like his death is one of those unsolvable mysteries, and I love those kind of stories! Like Anastasia, The captain of the titanic, and other urban myths of actual people that disappeared. Here's a film review I wrote, You can totally tell I'm a little bias of the Joker, :) but I'm cool with that!
A dog chasing cars
In most action packed films you see the villain and the super hero go head to
head and the screenplay is written for the audience to cheer for the good side. When I
watched The Dark Knight by Christopher Nolan, I was floored by the Joker. Heath
Ledger took on the role of the Joker, changing the character from the silly circus clown
of previous Batman movies, to a mad genius who finds the fun in taking everyday life,
and flipping it on its head.
I must have seen that movie 7 different times in the theater because I was blown away with the intelligence, and tension kept throughout the whole movie. A man, who isolates himself from the way of society , dresses up as a clown, and walks into the most dangerous mob dealers in Gotham and tricks and steals from all of them, because he simply sees the fun in chaos. Health Ledger was a very dedicated actor and took the role very personally and let himself become the Joker, unfortunately it found its way into Ledgerʼs mind and drove him crazy. In interviews with cast members they recall numerous times that Ledger would creep around the set like he couldn't get himself back to real life. The Joker became real. Ledger told a lot of his family that he couldnʼt sleep at night because he would have dreams of the disturbed clown. I find it fascinating that the Legend of a comic book character could in some way come to life.
Most villains have 1 of 2 objectives. To take over the world, or be filthy rich. This film objects to that rule. The Joker describes himself as a “dog chasing cars. I wouldnʼt know what to do if I caught it. I just do things”. I love the way he relates those two.
I must have seen that movie 7 different times in the theater because I was blown away with the intelligence, and tension kept throughout the whole movie. A man, who isolates himself from the way of society , dresses up as a clown, and walks into the most dangerous mob dealers in Gotham and tricks and steals from all of them, because he simply sees the fun in chaos. Health Ledger was a very dedicated actor and took the role very personally and let himself become the Joker, unfortunately it found its way into Ledgerʼs mind and drove him crazy. In interviews with cast members they recall numerous times that Ledger would creep around the set like he couldn't get himself back to real life. The Joker became real. Ledger told a lot of his family that he couldnʼt sleep at night because he would have dreams of the disturbed clown. I find it fascinating that the Legend of a comic book character could in some way come to life.
Most villains have 1 of 2 objectives. To take over the world, or be filthy rich. This film objects to that rule. The Joker describes himself as a “dog chasing cars. I wouldnʼt know what to do if I caught it. I just do things”. I love the way he relates those two.
Thereʼs a scene where the joker is talking to the Italian mob dealers and he has all the
money the joker promised him, and he is burning it. For the the mob dealers it proved
the clownʼs insanity. They all ended up dead from being fooled by the joker into giving
him their resources to finish a job they knew was too big for themselves: To kill the
Batman. The Joker found that if everything goes according to plan that nobody panics,
but if you take away a leader, then everyone loses their minds. The city of Gotham
looked up to their government and to Batman for their safety. The Jokerʼs plan was to
take those, and to make their godʼs bleed so that people would stop believing. He didnʼt
want to kill that Batman, he wanted to show Gotham that in some ways, Batman was
more like him--a vigilante.
Having a villain out smart the hero is rare when it comes to happy endings. This film isnʼt a film that answers all the questions. It leaves it open for the mystery of the Joker to expand. How did he get those scars? Having the hero become the miscreant of the town wasnʼt what I was expecting, which is why it left me craving for more.
Having a villain out smart the hero is rare when it comes to happy endings. This film isnʼt a film that answers all the questions. It leaves it open for the mystery of the Joker to expand. How did he get those scars? Having the hero become the miscreant of the town wasnʼt what I was expecting, which is why it left me craving for more.
