(x-posted)
I'm not giving anything away when I say Heath Ledger's Joker is brilliant. I know other people were less impressed with the Dark Knight, but I adore that movie, because it filled the main tenant of my expectations: the Joker needed to be incredible, a villain for the ages. When faced with a well crafted villain, I am one of the ones sitting in the theatre barely paying attention to the protagonists because I'm waiting for each yummy little Joker moment.
What I love about Mr. Ledger's performance is how fresh and different it is- it has the best traditions of a complex villain, but it also has something new.
In addition to being totally psychotic, there's also a kind of neurosis to the Joker- even a slight nerdiness- he's a little too well spoken for someone whose ultimate goal is chaos, and there's a poetic and prophetic aspect about him. He's got this Alex DeLarge complex in his manifesto of chaos. His mannerisms give you the sense that even though he's trying to negotiate with the mobsters, he thinks their agenda is banal.
All these things combined make him just that much more disturbing. I love all of the little things that you almost miss, like his quip about how his suit isn't cheap, or the giggly little geek-boy- laughing-at-own-joke thing he does with his dog chasing cars metaphor. Or the "why so serious" monologue. The delivery of the lines "why so serious" is brilliant, because typed on the page, it's the same line repeated three times in a monologue, but the delivery of each "why so serious" means something entirely different.
From a directing or acting standpoint, I wonder about objectives- I mean, how do you direct that character?
Some of the things are obvious- the whole tongue thing makes sense, because when your mouth is cut you can't help but tongue it. Those kind of choices are my favourite- I like to give physical directions because they're actions, straight up facts that the actor can play without asking 'why'. It just becomes part of the character, self-evident. There were different facets of the Joker, but I just figured out the one that threw me for a loop. There are moments within a scene, or even within the same moment when the Joker goes from being gleeful, to angry, to patronizing.
The patronizing confused me for a moment, not because it didn't work- but because it did. Frequently, that tactic can come off as cardboardish, but I realized why the nasally voice and sarcasm worked for me. It reminded me exactly of one of the waitresses at work, who has a slightly nasally voice but also has this totally sarcastic, impatient way of dealing with dumb customers. The speaking slowly to stupid people tactic, "No, we don't have waffles. It says on the menu that we don't have waffles. No, we can't make an exception, because we don't have a waffle iron, moron."
So in a way, when he wants something from someone (besides to intimidate them) he has this bitchy customer service school of negotiation. I feel like I could call up Amazon.com and get the same kind of blah- but then throw in getting impaled in the head with a pencil, and it becomes something unique. Not to mention hilarious.
The Dark Knight is the kind of film that inspires me. I want to learn to approach writing characters and stories the same way I analyze them, because I know enough to see the craft and materials behind a character like the Joker. A character acted this well accomplishes what few actors can accomplish- the performance is like a rich desert. It plays like a symphony, and resonates with the viewer. That's the best storytelling.
Clubs
Mesmerized
Pride
Neutral
