I think the funniest thing I read about Heath's performance was that it was completely overshadowed by Aaron Eckhart's performance as Harvey Dent. Christopher Orr of The New Republic you contrarian bastard you.
We'll get back to that. He's wrong, by the way. Dead wrong. And stupid.
And not good looking (possibly, I don't know).
Again, Christopher Nolan and company proved with The Dark Knight that summer blockbusters don't have to be total suck-fests of explosions and bad dialogue. 2005's Batman Begins expanded my expectations of what could be a good superhero movie, which continued evolving with Knight. As my latte-sipping-film-connoisseur friend said of this latest Batman flick, "It's not a superhero movie. It's a great film." Sure, whatever - the guy still wears a cape and fights crime. It's a great superhero movie that also happens to be a great film.
All the cast members known and loved from Begins return here (yes, all of them. No one liked Katie Holmes because she lost her teenage-Dawson's-Creek-charm and married a friggin' psycho. And Maggie Gyllenhaal is way cooler, actually acts well, and looks like less of a chipmunk), with a handful of highly anticipated characters, specifically Harvey Dent and The Joker.
(Spoilers kept minimal and insignificant, regrettably)
Now, how anyone could call Aaron Eckhart's performance as Harvey Dent a 'show stealer' over Heath Ledger's joker is beyond my comprehension. The uniqueness to Harvey Dent resides in tragedy. The role of a tragic character has limitations in how the character develops as tragedy unfolds. Not to take any credit away from Eckhart's performance - he was well-cast and executed a gut-wrenching, sympathetic performance. (Everyone knows through Batman folklore that Harvey Dent is Two-Face, but if you haven't seen The Dark Knight, he can fall from grace without becoming Two-Face yet, spoiler haters...)
But don't we tire of the tragic, fallen hero? Even more specifically, the hero? This film's central theme segues nicely into my point that The Joker stole the show and was my on-screen hero. "Why So Serious?" indeed, said the villain/comic relief. The brilliance of Ledger's performance had been lauded an obscene amount before the film's release, to the point of early-July Oscar buzz from critics and Maggie Gyllenhaal. Now I see why people would say crap like that, but that trivialized his performance more than it drew attention to its finer nuances that one can't gauge with a golden naked anatomically incorrect statue. When I think of an obvious Oscar-winning performance, I think of Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood or Helen Mirren in The Queen. Neither of these had mass appeal, which was why Ledger's Joker thrived - the intricacy, brilliance, irony, subtlety, blah, blah, and blah of Ledger's Joker lied in its mass appeal.
(Sorry, gotta start a new paragraph for the posthumous jerking off of how hard this performance rocked...)
What Ledger did was make us forget he was acting. Make us forget he was brilliant. Make us forget he rehearsed these lines. Make us forget they said that Jack Nicholson was born to play the Joker. Make us forget we all raised a collective eyebrow upon the news of Ledger's casting. Make us forget, in the face of a media that would not let us, that this was his swansong performance. As Christopher Nolan predicted, none of this could impact the audience's reaction. The audience need not analyze anything about his performance to enjoy it; on the other hand, they could analyze everything. When he says "...kill the Batman," we all just laughed, everyone. It was funny. Or, you could analyze Ledger's delivery of the line. He understood the monotony and cliche behind such a line, but he also recognized that it is the penultimate goal of a villain, if not specifically the penultimate line. Since when was it a secret the villain wants to kill the hero? Why do other films/villains/actors pretend it is a secret? The Joker mocked the question asked of him by potentially fellow villains with his reply; at the same time, Ledger winked at the audience because his character created an anticipation of the bizarre and unthinkable, yet delivered the obvious response. Almost but not quite playing to the cliche of "easier said than done," in regards to "...kill the Batman." Well-played, Heath. Well-played.
In retrospect, I can't say much about Harvey Dent other than important plot points. It's not as good, period. And now that I've written a full rebuttal to Mr. Orr's claim, I'm going to actually read what he said instead of the tagline.
Oh, but see the shit outta this movie. Nothin' but rock and roll, here.
9 comments:
I gotta agree that Eckhart didn't steal the show from Ledger. But, I think they both stole the show from bale. Nolan alluded to this in many pre-release interviews, but this movie was less about Batman and more about The Joker, Harvey Dent, and Gotham City. Not what you'd expect from a Batman movie, but it worked brilliantly and kept the movie from dwelling on the same ol' Batman/Bruce Wayne dichotomy that made the first 4 Batman movies dreadfully monotonous and predictable.
Agreed. There were a lot of thoughts I had that I ended up eating because I was posting at work and kept getting interrupted by - get this - work.
But these specifically:
Bale's rasp as Batman? I had to hold back laughter at times, honestly. It was pretty excessive this time around (I'll credit the venerable Orr for reminding me of this). Definitely cared very little about Batman or Bale here, save the 'hero until villain' theme, which was well done.
But Chicago as Gotham kicked the shit out of the more CG based Gotham of Batman Begins (still Chicago-based, but much more...cartoonish). This Gotham breathed along with its characters and the people and stories inhabiting with it. Definitely its own character. Loved that, too.
Although I really enjoyed Ledger's performance, I just felt the character of Harvey Dent was more compelling than the Joker.
The city was definitely more compelling this time around than in Begins, which I felt was a little too sci-fi futuristic for me.
Bale's rasp kept making me think he was trying to be Clint Eastwood.
I especially liked how they pulled off all the batman wanna-bes without making it seem cheesy. Gives me hope for Watchmen and its "costumed adventurers."
One thing that I've always thought about when watching Batman movies is we just call him Batman, but all the film characters call him "the batman." I'm not sure if there's some significance in that, but I've thought about that "the" more than any other article.
Ya know, just to stick it to Mr. Orr, I nailed Eckhart worse than I really wanted or meant to in retrospect. I loved his performance a lot.
I am intrigued, Aaron, that you were more compelled by the character of Harvey Dent, especially since he's goaded by the Joker to rebel. I dunno. Differnt strokes, differnt folks. At the very least, Dent's character plays out like a tragedy of Shakespearean proportion, whereas the Joker has a more contemporary connection. Hard to say. Thanks for commenting, bruvva.
I like the raspy voice. I've always felt that Batman just talking like a normal dude, specifically just like Bruce Wayne, kind of defeated the whole point of of the disguise which is meant to intimidate. I especially love it when he kind of growls when he's getting more intense, aka, "WHERE ARE THEY?"
Yeah, I don't want him to have the same voice as Bruce Wayne. I just found his growling in this particular flick comical.
To put it in D&D alignment terms (I'm a nerd, I know,) the Joker is Chaotic Evil. He doesn't really care about anything except causing destruction and chaos. In this respect, he's more a force of nature than a human.
Dent, on the other hand, starts off the film Lawful Good, as opposed to the Batman's Chaotic Good. Batman achieves his good with more or less disregard for the rules, whereas Dent follows the letter of the law. In the course of the Joker's gaslighting of Dent, we see him start to adopt the Batman's Chaotic Good attitude when he holds the gun to the Mafia dude's head, and eventually reach Chaotic Neutral when the Joker confronts him in the hospital.
I guess I like Dent's character more because he evolves a great deal over the course of the movie, whereas the Joker doesn't evolve at all. I realize that the Joker is the catalyst for Dent's transformation, but...I guess I don't think that makes him a terribly interesting character in and of itself. Like I said though, Ledger's acting was brilliant.
Your D&D lingo will henceforth be welcome on my blog anytime - love the analogy.
I really like your statement that Ledger's Joker is more a force of nature than a human. Couldn't put it better myself (or I would have, dammit). But that's what I feel drawing me towards the Joker, because not often can a human become more of a force of nature. Drops me jaw, mate.
Harvey Dent is definitely the round character here, you're right, while the Joker is static. I could see why you'd prefer character development - pretty natural when experiencing a narrative. I think the quality I'm trying to hit is the Joker's otherworldliness. Harvey Dent: definitely worldly.
Did you know they originally wanted Mark Hamill for the Joker?
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