Years after the city of Gotham have first marveled at their masked vigilante Batman, organized crime is at its weakest and the streets are becoming safer each day. But a new threat emerges to wreck the havoc of the city that can’t catch a break. This new villain happens to be the most intriguing character in the film.
For the second film of the Batman series, Director Christopher Nolan crafted the character of The Joker -Batman’s all time nemesis- in an angle that is very different from the standard green haired mischievous prankster. Although he kept the purple suit and the enduring smirk, Nolan’s Joker is immoral, deeply philosophical and scarily unstable. Thanks to the late Heath Ledger’s brilliant performance, it is hard not to find Batman’s archenemy fascinating. All throughout the movie, Ledger makes the viewer feel what any actor wants his audience to; that he is not really acting. The Joker’s character is so unique and so well portrayed that you cannot remember it is Ledger behind the clown makeup.
The movie explores chaos and morality. Are humans inherently good, or are we selfish egoistic creatures? Batman represents one side; he chooses to sacrifice his life for the city he loves even though its people hate him. The Joker on the other hand, strives to unveil Gotham’s true colors by mocking people’s so called civilization and seeking to bare the world naked of all pretensions, rules, and false self-righteousness.
The joker is unpredictable and deviant. And if you were so curious as to what made him the troubled man he is, don’t sweat it, we never really get to know. “You wanna know how I got these scars?” he asks many times in the movie, and each time telling a different traumatizing experience from his past that he ends with the powerful catchphrase ‘Why So Serious?.’ These stories show us even more, the depth of his psychotic personality and abnormal demeanor.
Expectantly and very well deserved, Ledger won an Academy Award for best supporting actor in The Dark Knight, which was accepted by Nolan on his behalf. His death in 2008 was met with deep grief and regret, but needless to say, his iconic portrayal of the joker will forever immortalize him in the history of film.
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