Case studies
J
ack Nicholson famously brought
The Batpod
The Joker to the screen in Tim
Burton’s 1989 Batman film, and
now he’s back once more, his macabre
visage lighting up the screen in The Dark
Knight, the $100 million-plus sequel to
2005’s Batman Begins. Here director
Christopher Nolan casts The Joker as a
truly elemental force, a whirlwind of
anarchy and destruction who rips across the
screen wreaking havoc on Gotham City,
laying down a challenge to Batman and
attacking his psychological weakness,
urging the Dark Knight to give in to his
own darker urges, hopping around like a
devil on his shoulder, tempting him to
unleash his pent up lust for vengeance. and everything, and that seemed what the What did you and Heath talk about in terms
We talk to director Christopher Nolan film was about. So I think it fits quite of influences for The Joker?
and star Christian Bale about Heath nicely. It also prompted us all to really try Johnny Rotten, Sid Vicious, these kinds of
Ledger, Gotham and shooting what looks and make this some kind of definitive punk influences were some of the things
to be the best blockbuster of the year. statement about the character because the we talked about. We also talked about the
title, I think, promises that. character of Alex in A Clockwork Orange.
The Joker is very anarchic and yet somehow
Heath Ledger as The Joker is absolutely has great charisma, both in the book and in
astonishing. He truly exceeded my the film. We talked about a lot of different
expectations. You must feel very happy influences, and Heath talked about an
about all the Oscar
®
talk? extraordinarily diverse set of influences like
I feel a sense of relief that people are ventriloquist dummies and things like that;
receiving the performance the way I know the way they would talk, the way they
Heath intended it to be taken. And my would move and all kinds of peculiar ideas.
responsibility as a director has been to make I wasn’t really able to get a handle on it
sure that we were crafting a performance in until I saw him perform the scenes and
the right way. You always feel that show how the character moved, how the
responsibility to someone who’s given you character gestured, and how the character
a great performance on set. But we obviously spoke with this extraordinarily unpredictable
felt that responsibility many, many times voice. The range of the voice, from its highest
Chris Nolan
over in post-production. So it’s very pitch to its lowest pitch, is very extreme,
gratifying and a real relief to hear people and where it shifts is unpredictable and
Was there a lot of pressure making responding to it. sudden. Everything about the character
this film because of the huge success really seems aimed at keeping the audience
of Batman Begins? He had an incredible amount of dialogue… on the back foot, not knowing exactly what
I think we all felt a challenge every day to Once you start writing for a character like to expect.
try and build on what we’d done in the that, it’s hard to stop. It’s just pure fun. It’s
first film. For me, the idea of doing a sequel, fun to hear him talk; it’s fun to hear him
you have to really acknowledge that you’re pontificate, really. Then there’s a certain
going to try and make something better: amount of discipline that has to come in
otherwise why bother? So the challenge for the writing, and indeed in the editing to
everyone involved was to try and move try to pull that back. But Heath had such a
forward from what we’d done and do fantastic voice and such a fantastic way of
something bigger or more important or looking at the world, that it was interesting
more vital. to sort of find out what he had to say.
This is the first time there’s no Batman in Batman is a tortured character. Is it time to
the title. Was that your idea? free him from all this agony and torture?
Yes. I think what I was feeling was there Batman thrives on angst, definitely. Yes, he
was something very evocative about the could use a break, certainly. I don’t see it
phrase The Dark Knight that really is any time soon. He’s put himself in a very
synonymous with Batman. But it also makes terrible place with a terrible responsibility
you think about Batman in a certain way that he now has to take on. The Dark
that seemed very relevant to the story—in Knight, I think, pushes that further and
terms of expressing who Batman is in further and suggests that perhaps that’s
Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes
and Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent
relation to Gotham, in relation to the City going to be inescapable.
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