Heath Ledger Was No Joke
Dark Knight Will Be Ledger's Enduring Legacy
By: Charles Giuliano - Aug 19, 2008
Batman is a year older than I am. The character created by Bob Kane (1915-1998) first appeared in Detective Comics #27 in May, 1939. That would make the caped crusader and action hero a hopefully retired pensioner kitting at the senior center and collecting social security checks. Just like me.
During the war years of the 1940s I grew up with Batman, Straight Arrow, Bobby Benson and the B Bar B Riders, The Shadow, Captain Marvel, Spider Man, Superman, Green Lantern, Aquaman, Plastic Man, The Lone Ranger, Dick Tracey, Terry and the Pirates, GI Joe, Flash Gordon, Wonder Woman, Hopalong Cassidy, Tom Mix and other action heroes in comic books, on the radio after school, and in the Sunday funnies.
Unfortunately, evening dinner overlapped our favorite radio shows. We dined at the ungodly hour of 5:30 because my physician parents alternated office hours at 6:30. It was my job to go down stairs, put the lights on in the waiting room, and open the front door.
One of mom's clever patients rigged up a radio with two pairs of head sets so my sister and I could listen to our favorite shows during dinner. This allowed our parents to engage in adult conversation. Mostly about their patients who often seemed to take a turn for the worse.
Of all the action heroes Batman and Robin were far and away my favorites. I had a huge stack of comics in my bedroom. One day I came home from school and discovered that mom had thrown them out. She decided that it was time that I outgrew comics. Today, I shudder to think what those vintage comics would be worth. Who knew?
During the war years, I was five when it was over but still have vivid memories, the action heroes were often involved in fighting espionage. This continued into the era of the Cold War when we were facing the menace of communism. One of my favorite TV shows was "I Led Three Lives: Citizen, Communist, Counter Spy" (1953-1956) based on the autobiography of the patriot Herbert Philbrook. I bought an autographed copy of the book at Brown's Department Store in Gloucester and gave it to my dad for father's day. Don't know if he ever read it. On the street car I kept a keen eye on suspicious looking characters. In the early days of TV we watched the live HUAC meetings chaired by Senator Joseph McCarthy (1908-1957) Republican from Wisconsin.
Because the enemies of democracy were Japanese, German, and later Korean there was a lot of racism in how they were depicted in comic books. All that profiling and stereotyping was ok because they were the enemy. As a nation we seemed immune to the racism in arts and entertainment. We laughed at Stepin Fetchit or Charlie Chan. The family gathered around the TV to watch hilarious episodes of the all black Amos 'n' Andy. Americans routinely shared terrible jokes.
So the comics and entertainment media were hardly innocent in perpetrating racism or serving the agit prop needs of a politicized culture. As a child of the era and tabula rasa I lapped it up largely unfiltered. It was only years later that parents lobbied against such overt content. By then, for my generation, the damage was done.
There is guilty pleasure in coming back to Batman and the magnificent film "The Dark Knight" after all these decades. Perhaps it will trigger some flashbacks. Mostly I miss Robin. But the now macho Batman appears to be purged of a homoerotic relationship to his often bungling "ward." In the updated version, directed by Christopher Nolan, Batman/ Bruce Wayne is played as straight if a bit stiff by the chiseled and unemotive Christian Bale.
Bruce/ Batman appears to be competing for the affection of Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) whose other suitor is the ambition DA, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). She knows Wayne's dark secret but will marry him only when he decides to hang up the cape. Wayne dates but appears not to bed a gorgeous ballerina. In a moment of intimacy all of those tell tale scars would be revealed. How to explain why a society playboy is so beaten up? In one scene Wayne's servant Alfred (Michael Caine) looks on as he stitches a nasty gash resulting from being attacked by the rottweilers of a Russian gang.
Wayne is a pampered aristocrat born into wealth and privilege. We are left to wonder whether his war on crime stems from a need for public service or is just an enormous ego trip. His crusade is undertaken outside the law. Arguably, Batman is himself a criminal and ersatz noble savage. But he has the support of the police lieutenant James Gordon (Gary Oldman).
Like 007, in his private war on crime, Batman can afford state of the art R&D headed up by the CEO of Wayne's sprawling business enterprises Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman). This film is well stocked with gadgets, stunts, and special effects.
What makes 'The Dark Knight" memorable and possibly a classic of its genre are its psychological depth and intensity. The Batman series was graced with the most colorful and fascinating master criminals. They were always misunderstood souls who by twists of fate and life traumas turned to the dark side. The dichotomy of good and evil mirrored each other. In this case, Harvey Dent, the handsome DA, morphs into Two Face when he is horribly disfigured revealing a deeply rooted penchant for evil and vengeance.
With the Penguin coming in a distant second no Batman character was ever more engaging than the Joker. He was a criminal just for the fun of it. In this character Heath Ledger created the signature role of a too brief lifetime. He died under murky circumstances at the age of 28 shortly after filming his final scenes. This film provides Ledger's best performance and artistic legacy.
While Ledger was good in "Brokeback Mountain" he was truly magnificent as the Joker. We will have to see how the year plays out but right now he is the frontrunner for a posthumous Academy Award as Best Actor.
In the Joker Ledger crafted a multifacted character. Ledger devoured the screen in riveting close-ups with clown white face, blackened skeletal eyes, and those smarmy smeared lips and scars where his father cut him a macabre smile. We learned that he was abused as a child and, as is too often the case, has devolved into a consuming passion to mutilate others. He prefers the knife because it is so slow and painful. He also appears to have no concern or regard for his own life. The Joker is amused when Batman spares him.
What is most tormenting about Ledger's Joker is that he is beyond compromise. There is no way to reason with, seduce, or bribe him. Money means nothing to the Joker. To make this point he burns a pyramid of cash to the horror of criminal accomplices. It is the game that amuses and motivates him. When tables turn he informs Batman that he has no intention of eliminating him. That he needs Batman. The most brilliant chess masters require worthy opponents. It is all too clear that Joker is far more brilliant and charismatic than the uptight, repressed Batman. Joker may have nothing to lose but he is no loser. Ledger played him as a total gonzo, existential humorist. This was accented by a deranged laugh, inner humor, and absorbing range of mad giggles and gestures such as lip smacks or a darting tongue.
Ledger's Joker was so layered, clever, and richly nuanced that compared to this master criminal, Batman, was, well, a cartoon character. It is tempting to look deeply into an actor's performance to find clues to their real life persona. How deep and darkly do performers have to dig down into their private inner hell to craft such horrors as the Hannibal Lecter of Anthony Hopkins, Marlon Brando's Kurtz, Robert De Niro's Jake Lamotta, or Ledger's Joker? After giving so much to create a character is there any self left over? Having inhabited the heart of darkness how then to return to everyday life?
Too often the greatest artists pay the ultimate price in creating their work. In pursuit of their muse, like Dante in the Inferno, they seek that dark place from which no traveler returns. On medieval maps, at the edge of the ocean, was the legend "Hic transit dracones," Here reside the dragons. Ledger appears to have been just such an explorer and the Joker will endure as his masterpiece.