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I Wanted Jim Carrey as the Joker, But Heath Ledger is…God!
At last!!!!!!! I watched The Dark Knight on the date I’d been waiting for over more than two years now – July 18th 2008! Never have I been more overexcited at any movie before. From the moment I had the tickets in my hand in the morning I was restless the whole day. It felt like I was going to get laid after a 2 year drought or something.
Boy did I love the film! Yes, the film IS worth all the hype, all the attention it’s got. Heath Ledger, may his soul rest in eternal peace, has done a Bruce Lee / Jim Morrison / Kurt Cobain. This is the stuff of legends – people who go out in a blaze of glory like a supernova instead of slowly fading into the twilight. If I had to die young, I would be truly happy to have died after a performance like Ledger’s Joker. I can’t praise it enough. My heart still thuds a bit faster at the indelible memories each scene of his has left. Sure, I’m going to watch it again and again.
Where the hell do I start about this movie? Everything was so absolutely divine! I’m glad I got to watch it with an enthusiastic audience of intelligent Batfans. There were cheers and whistles, especially for Ledger and the Batbike.
Friggin hell, I have no words for Ledger’s Joker! He’s made it one of the scariest, cleverest, most interesting villains of all time. His lines, his walk, his make up, his scars – stop reading this and watch the movie if you haven’t already!
Nolan’s effort with both the Batman movies has been to keep things in the real world as much as possible – that makes the joker’s origin very chillingly more plausible than falling into a vat of chemicals, which was the case with Jack Nicholson’s Joker. I know it’s just a movie, but I love the Batman comics too much not to indulge myself in a little bit of discussion. I didn’t particularly like any of the first four Batman movies, and I didn’t really find Nicholson’s joker all that memorable, although I think I’ll watch it again just to see why so many people loved it. Danny DeVito’s Penguin was okay, but the Riddler and Two-Face in Batman Forever and everyone in Batman and Robin were all cartoons.
Ledger and Nolan’s version of the Joker eclipses all previous villains. Over the last two years or so I’d been following the news of the casting for The Dark Knight. I’d seen Ledger only in The Patriot, where he didn’t really have very much to do, but I wasn’t at all happy when he was cast. My fantasy casting would have been Jim Carrey. I mean, if you want an actor to play a character described as a ‘maniacal psycho clown’, isn’t he the first guy that pops into your head? Give him a couple of slow sinister RGV-style extreme close-up slow-glare pauses in between all the maniacal clowning, and you have a great, unpredictable villain. But then, I’m not the Warner Bros boss.
But as soon as I saw Heath Ledger in full make-up and costume, oh man I was sold! This is it! Perfecto! Then I heard the laugh on the trailers, and I was convinced some great work’s been done!
The Joker to Batman – “You complete me.” What a greattttttttt line! People who’ve seen Jerry Maguire will get this joke. Also, “I won’t kill you. You’re too much fun.” But I’ll come back to that later.
The Dark Knight could easily also be titled The Tragedy of Harvey Dent. If you know the comics, you know that Harvey Dent becomes Two-Face. What I didn’t expect was that Nolan would give such serious, in-depth treatment to Dent’s psyche and what led him down the abyss.
The more love you have for someone, the more intense the hate when the love goes bad. Ex-girlfriends, ex-boyfriends, anyone? People with great potential for good also have great potential for bad. I used to wonder a lot before about why there’s so much pain and suffering in the world, but now I’ve come to understand a bit, or at least have come up with a personal philosophy to justify a bit of self-imposed apathy. Good and evil will always concurrently exist. Positive and negative. Male and female. Yin and yang.
Frank Miller’s explored this in his wonderful graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns. The Joker exists because the Batman exists. Yin and yang. In case of Harvey Dent, it’s more obvious. He’s almost literally two sides of the same coin himself. My salutes to the Nolans for so beautifully keeping this theme in the movie.
A last word about Two-Face. The make up and CGI rendering is obscenely marvelous and looks EXACTLY like the comics. Tommy Lee Jones’ Two Face seems like a pathetic joke in comparison now.
Another thing I loved about the story is it doesn’t have a happy ending. With superhero movies we always have a feeling that everything will be set right at the end, but oh, no, things aren’t so convenient in the Batman universe. The Nolan brothers have pulled off a wonderful ending – that’s among the best things about the movie for me, ‘cause life’s like that too. There’s no black and white and no easy answers.
I’m sure by the time I go and have my tea now I’ll remember many more things I wanted to say, but I’m sure they’ll all have been said many times by people all over the world. I had a really deep, contented sleep last night and I was shocked to see I woke at 9.50 this morning – I’m usually never later than 8.30. That’s the kind of satisfaction I got from The Dark Knight.
About besura Hindi film heroes
Anyone noticed how it’s funny that heroes and heroines are so besura when they’re singing on their own, and only become sureela when a proper song is on? That really jarred in Jaane Tu, where everyone’s deadly besura when singing Jaane tu ya jaane na in chorus and suddenly become sureela when singing Kabhi kabhi aditi etc. I was more acutely aware of this in Jhankaar Beats, one of my favourite movies, where Sanjay Suri sings flat all the time except during the actual songs.
Contract
I wasn’t interested in watching Contract. I went for it only because there’s no electricity in my building for the whole day today because of maintenance work. Pnu (I think) had said the hero pronounces ‘secret’ as ‘cigarette’, and he was right! It was an amusing aside in an otherwise humourless film (except for some welcome comic relief from Upendra Limaye, but even that was too loud at times). The film would’ve worked better if hero Adhvik Mahajan had a voice and dialogue delivery to match his good physique.
The supporting characters were great, as is expected in an RGV movie. Kishore Kadam (Black Friday’s policeman), Prasad Purandhare (Ab Tak Chhappan’s villain) and Zakir Hussain were fantastic. I love watching Zakir Hussain – he creates new characters every time: Sarkar, Johnny Gaddar, Black Friday, now this.
There was even a chink in the movie. I don’t mean a flaw, har har har, just realized that pun myself. I mean an oriental chappie. And I can use that racist term coz I’m a chink myself. He was good with his kicks, although he does get clobbered by the hero in a pathetic fight. I hate it when people who have no knowledge of martial arts are shown to have outstanding kicks. Worst example – Fardeen Khan in Fida – kicking bottles while being pulled up by wires in slow motion.
Christopher Nolan amar rahe! Christian Bale amar rahe!
15 Responses to “I Wanted Jim Carrey as the Joker, But Heath Ledger is…God!”
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Kenny amar rahen!!!! nice post….love you for this….
Jim Carrey as the Riddler was at his best….”riddle me this riddle me that”…..and yeh both the Joker and the Riddler were mind freaks wanting to control minds……Riddler with his Green-Light-Emitting-Sand-Clockish designed some mumbo jumbo frequency thingy….while the Joker was pure Brain Menace…PURE EVIL…none to beat that…The Joker’s quest was far more exciting….to give Gotham a class of criminals….how cool is that and to get the Best of the Good Guys to be the Baddest of them all….GENIUS…..
I love Jim Carrey and love him from his first vampire movie(forget the name….and also a Geena Davis film too…he was there…doing nothing much…but was there) to his Ace Adventures to his Truman avatar…..the Greeny Grinch……even his pretentious Majestic….and Eternal Sunshine…Class Act…..but with so much exposure and histrionics in the better part of his career…..that X thing required in THE JOKER might have just not been there…speculating….just speculating…could he have pulled off that….”I’ll make the pencil disappear”. Thought that scene was very much in the Carrey Zone….something which Ledger did over there….proved very very effective….probably that scene ended the debate for me…. as I too somewhere was picturing Jim Carrey in there….as the Joker….
a strange coincidence…..Ace Ventura and the Joker both put their heads out of the car and feel the wind caressing their faces….AAAAAAALLLRIGHTY………THEN
Kenny..please renew your work search with an added skill of a screen writer…man, you have the flair for drama!!
valid point on the besuraaas kenny…
Arre, Vasan tu toh mera bichhda hua bhai nikla… :-)
The Geena Davis film was Earth Girls Are Easy. I’m with you all the way on Carrey - he’s shown what he can do in Truman and Eternal Sunshine…wind caressing their faces..yeah!
@indraneel
I’m 70% through with my first feature script which I’ll be submitting for Sankalan. It’s a rom com. Got 5-6 other ideas to. Have to decide soon which 3 to send
@DPac
Right-o
Got my tix…Gonna watch this today, dying to see Heath Ledger as Joker..:)
yeh earth girls are easy….right…it also had jeff goldblum na?
It felt like you were going to get laid after a two-year drought, haha, couldn’t agree with you more. This masterpiece of cinema had me so engaged within the first fifteen seconds of film, that I didn’t even notice the absence of opening credits. I was in awe throughout the entire experience of The Dark Knight. Every moment with the joker on screen was amazing. Not only was Heath Ledger’s performance phenomenal, but so many of his scenes were visually stunning, especially the one with him riding in the police car sticking his head out the window and his last scene, where he’s hanging upside down. I can’t praise this film enough. Here’s a big “Thank You” to the Nolan brothers for the ecstacy that this film drips with.
Many aren’t going to like this but I just feel that if Heath Ledger was still alive today such accolades about his performance as the Joker and talks of a posthumous Oscar nomination would be somewhat more subdued. The situation right now is just like talking good and more good about someone only after the person has died.
This is definitley not to say that he was just about ok in TDK. No. The Joker was a creepy heartless manupilative psychopath and HL portrayed this character very well. But still somewhere the line has been crossed I feel.
Bardem’s character Anton Chigurh in NCFOM was as..as evil as this if not more. Bardem’s performance was superlative too but the whole world didn’t go ga ga the way it is now. He won the Oscar, deservedly so, but the hype before and after the film released was no where close to this…
Don’t you think it should be “Heath Ledger” Amar Rahe?
Trivia: (Source: IMDB)
*When asked, “Why Heath Ledger as the Joker?” Christopher Nolan said, “Because he’s fearless.”
*To prepare for his role as the Joker, Heath Ledger lived alone in a hotel room for a month, formulating the character’s psychology, posture and voice (the last one he found most difficult to do). He started a diary, in which he wrote the Joker’s thoughts and feelings to guide himself during his performance. He was also given Alan Moore’s comic “Batman: The Killing Joke” and “Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth” to read. Ledger also took inspiration from A Clockwork Orange (1971)’s Alex and Sid Vicious.
*Director Christopher Nolan and co-writers Jonathan Nolan and David S. Goyer decided not to explore the origins of the Joker in order to portray the character as “absolute.”
*Heath Ledger’s sudden death on January 22, 2008 prompted immediate speculation as to the state of this film. Late the same day, Warner Bros. released a statement declaring that Ledger had completed all his scenes and post-production work, thus making the Joker the actor’s final completed appearance in a film.
(READ THIS)
*It’s Sir Michael Caine’s opinion that Heath Ledger beat the odds and topped Jack Nicholson’s Joker from Batman (1989): “Jack was like a clown figure, benign but wicked, maybe a killer old uncle. He could be funny and make you laugh. Heath’s gone in a completely different direction to Jack, he’s like a really scary psychopath. He’s a lovely guy and his Joker is going to be a hell of a revelation in this picture.” Caine bases this belief on a scene where the Joker pays a visit to Wayne Manor. He’d never met Ledger before, so when Ledger arrived and performed he gave Caine such a fright he forgot his lines.
*Heath Ledger improvised when he started clapping inside his jail cell in a mocking and sardonic capacity as Gordon is promoted. The clapping was not scripted but Christopher Nolan immediately encouraged the crew to continue filming and the sequence was included in the film.
@Arthi V
You’re probably right. Like I’ve said, people who die young become more legendary. And Anton Chigurh comes to my mind as soon as I think of all-time greatest villains. I was absolutely blown away by Bardem.
@srinivas
Thanks for the trivia. I agree that Ledger has topped Nicholson. Someday I’ll write a post about how far an actor can let himself go into character. Most veteran actors have said it messes with your head. Nicholson said so about the Joker’s character. Even Dilip Prabhavalkar has said he enacts his roles keeping a safe distance from the character. My personal belief is the bottomline is what shows on screen. In Ledger’s case, all his preparation definitely showed results on screen. If he had managed the same performance without going through all that he did, that would’ve been even better for him as a person I guess, but we don’t know whether he’d have been able to deliver the same goods that way.
2 pics showing HL becoming TJ: (No detailed make-up process but gives a peek)….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFNzIBl6W14&eurl=http://www.cinematical.com/
NO. please, i urge you. let’s not get into this comparison game bullshit about which joker was better. they were made for two different times and audiences as were the two movies. burton’s adaptation was fucking brilliant in its own right, and he took the comic portrayal of batman. accordingly, jack nicholson molded the joker’s character. what’s wrong in that? let’s not forget that if it wasn’t for burton, nolan’s batman might not even exist.
the greatness of an actor isn’t just restricted to how well he portrays his character internally, but also how he fits into the entire film. i’m sure jack nicholson could’ve taken ledger’s twist on joker, but do you think that would’ve worked for that film? no way in hell. what nicholson did worked for that film, and all i’m saying is let’s not forget that.
it’s easy to go ga-ga over heath’s performance, and he fully deserves it, but don’t dis-credit the world burton created in a much different era. in fact, i loved the portrayal of gotham city way more in burton’s films than i did in the dark knight, where it was just chicago’s high rises staring at you in the face.
@striker
You’re right. Ledger’s work wouldn’t have fit in Nicholson’s Batman and vice versa. In the end, I guess, it all boils down to personal tastes and experiences and what works for one at an individual level. As for Chicago playing the role of Gotham City, I haven’t been to the US, but I did overhear a couple of guys behind me remarking that this was Chicago.
I actually thought Jim Carrey would make a good “Joker” also. I did a photoshopped image of what he would kinda look like. You can see it here: http://www.noddegamra.co.uk/if-jim-carrey-was-the-joker/197/
@Noddegamra
Fabulous! Just what I wished someone would do!