The Batman since Batman #1 in 1940. For 80 years, the Clown Prince of Crime has tormented the Caped Crusader by challenging his moral code and attempting to corrupt Gotham City, all with a smile plastered to his face. He has been brought from the pages of comic books to the big screen in several incarnations, performed by Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, and most recently, Joaquin Phoenix in the notorious clown paint.
It's Heath Ledger's portrayal that indelibly resonates the most. He appeared in The Dark Knight Rises, the middle film of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy that arguably changed the superhero movie genre forever. By extensively reading the source material, his chaotic, hysterical, and confounding performance managed to capture all of complexities and perplexities of the most famous villain in DC comics. Here are 10 of The Joker's mannerisms he completely nailed.
HIS UNPREDICTABILITY
Rest-assured, Heath Ledger's Joker has a plan in The Dark Knight. For all his stoking of the fires of chaos, he wields anarchy like a weapon in pursuit of his goal; bringing Gotham City and Batman to their knees. The Joker masks it with his unpredictability, letting it play out in the background, while Batman, the Gotham PD, and Harvey Dent are all helpless to stop it.
One moment, he's condescendingly applauding Commissioner Gordon's promotion, the next minute he's goading Batman to pummel him senselessly in an interrogation room. And of course, who could forget him blowing up the hospital dressed as a nurse? The inability for anyone to guess his next move is how he could make Gotham City his playground.
HIS COMPLETE DISREGARD FOR THE RULES OF SOCIETY
In many ways, The Joker's disregard for the codified order of society makes a certain amount of sense. He was nothing if not astute in many of his observations about what it represented; the thin barrier between humankind descending into animistic chaos and turning on one another.
When he tells Batman that he's a freak like him, his contextualizes it within the boundaries of society, wherein a "freak" is only considered "good" while they're "useful", and when Gotham City no longer needs Batman, they'll "cast him aside like a leper". Which they do.
HIS UTTER LACK OF MORALITY
No member of Batman's Rogue Gallery ever claimed to have a moral center. Each villain operated by their own sets of rules, or code of ethics, as they saw fit. Some were slightly more moral than others, but most had sociopathic tendencies that made them turn their back on morality long ago.
The Joker is only devoted to chaos, and nothing else, making it impossible for him to have a concept of morality. Everything he does is in the pursuit of destroying morality in others, which is why in The Dark Knight he uses Harvey Dent as his pawn to spread an alarmist message of moral extremism, which he knows Gotham City will not be able to uphold in the face of his diabolical actions.
HIS TWISTED SENSE OF HUMOR
The Joker loved, if nothing else than to get a rise out of his nemesis in the Batman comics. He constantly hounded Batman for "not being able to take a joke", even if the "joke" was causing pain and misery to the helpless citizens of Gotham City.
Heath Ledger's approach was a bit more visceral and personal in The Dark Knight, as he brought in an element to the Joker's sense of humor only seen in some of the darker Batman comics (like The Batman Who Laughs); the joke is on him. His maniacal laughing in say, the interrogation scene, in which Batman could easily kill him, brings to mind the Monty Python quote, "Life's a laugh and death's the joke".
HIS OBSESSION WITH BATMAN
Depending on what elements of The Joker's origins you believe to be canon, either The Joker came about because of Batman, or in response to Batman. Heath Ledger's performance posits their relationship within the latter most framework, almost as though it was inevitable.
"This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object," he tells the Caped Crusader (Christian Bale). He accurately pinpoints, as The Joker did in the comics, that Batman will never be able to kill him because of his sense of self-righteousness, and The Joker won't kill Batman because trying to corrupt his nature brings him amusement.
HE COMPETES WITH BATMAN FOR THE SOUL OF GOTHAM
The entire reason The Dark Knight- era Batman came into being was that Gotham City had descended to a point where a vigilante hero of his kind was necessary. Criminal society had taken over-polite society, gangs roamed the streets, and it would become a breeding ground for villains such as The Joker to exist.
The two have always competed for what in essence is the "soul" of Gotham. For all his cynicism, Batman believes Gotham City and its inhabitants to be good and law-abiding, which is part of the reason why he can't fathom when they betray him. But The Joker knows better, declaring that they'll "eat each other" if given half the chance.
HIS DESIRE FOR CHAOS
As far as the Batman comics are concerned, The Joker was different than a variety of the villains Batman faced. None of the things he did were in pursuit of dominating the world, but simply to make the world a reflection of his fractured point of view.
Heath Ledger delivered on The Joker's desire for pure, adulterated chaos in the first half-hour of The Dark Knight when he casually lights a mountain of money on fire. To him, material possessions, power, and status are meaningless, because they fit into archetypes, stratification, and societal rules, all of which he doesn't believe in.
HE ALWAYS TOLD A DIFFERENT ORIGIN STORY
By now, many Batman fans have seen The Killing Joke, in which some of The Joker's origins are explained, and in which he contends that it only takes "one bad day" to turn an otherwise normal person into a deranged lunatic. He believed both Batman and himself could be victims of circumstance.
The Joker has had many backstories in the comics and onscreen, perfectly represented by the fact that Heath Ledger tells a different story about the origins of his scars to everyone he meets. At one point he even explains that his father may have had a hand in creating the monster he became, utilizing the nature versus nurture motif, but just as likely he didn't. Heath Ledger's Joker perpetuates the chaotic mystery that the character has always represented.
HIS ABILITY TO MANIPULATE
The Joker has always been a masterful manipulator because he understands the human psyche. While most view him as insane, in the comics he was always extrapolating about the complexities of the human mind. He used his astute observations to taunt Batman, by altering his worldview and breaking his will.
Heath Ledger does the same thing throughout The Dark Knight, pointing out uncomfortable truths like, "If I say a gangbanger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will die, nobody panics". He understands that perspective is powerful, which is how he gets Harvey Dent to be his straw man, and turn Gotham City against its heroes.
HIS JOKES ARE IN THE PUNCHLINES OF HIS ACTIONS
One thing that's easy to get wrong about The Joker is to assume he's always cracking jokes and can never be serious. It was one of the aspects of Jack Nicholson's performance in Tim Burton's Batman that tended to trivialize the threat of the character. The jokes The Joker tells are through the punchlines to his actions.
Throughout The Dark Knight, Heath Ledger appropriately tells "jokes" by inflicting physical and psychological torment. Take "the pencil trick" for instance, or his ultimate joke of blowing up Gotham. He was gravely serious when it served his purpose because he knew the punchline was coming, whether Batman or Gotham City knew it or not.
