Why so Serious?

Rating: 10/10 (4 October 2013)

Why so Serious?
Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight is a critically acclaimed movie that skyrocketed The Batman franchise back into popularity among youth and adults alike. The movie has already been rated as possibly one of the greatest movies of all time; IMDb lists it as number six on their top 250 movies. While many casual movie watchers may think the movie is such a success due to the mysterious mental stability of Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne, more analytical and serious critics recognize that the true reason for The Dark Knight's success was the acting of Heath Ledger as the character known as "The Joker".
Throughout the movie, it is clear that Christopher Nolan was attempting to give the movie a dark composition through both the setting and the character's actions. The fact that all of the fights and action occur at night or in the dark, in addition to the way that Batman speaks when he is in uniform give a subconscious peril to the movie. This allowed Nolan to give The Joker the opportunity to be as sinister and insidious as necessary. Instead of having a serious and always watchful tone, this setting allowed Ledger to give a cynical tone to The Joker. This allowed for a much more intimidating villain. While strong, powerful villains with fortitude are common and depending on the character can instill fear in an audience, a deranged and somewhat psycho enemy is much more frightening. This is because they are willing to do things that other villains would not attempt, such as when The Joker sewed a cellphone into his pawn's stomach. Like the mob boss Salvatore Maroni said to Batman, "You got rules. The Joker, he's got no rules." (The Dark Knight). This shows that even though Batman is powerful, he is limited to what he can do as a vigilante, because he cannot push the limits that The Joker can. This allows for The Joker to gain an advantage on Batman in regards to attempting to destroy Gotham. However, this is not the only reason that The Joker is able to best the Batman multiple times.
The Joker as a villain dominates every opposition he faces not due to his sadistic motives, but rather his psychological supremacy to all others. As a human, The Joker can safely be labeled as borderline psychotic. He clearly has mental instability issues; however this does not draw away from his character. Instead, it allows him to think past opposition and create devious plans that are nearly fool-proof. Included in his mental capabilities are his powers to manipulate people. Almost like a jedi-mind trick, he makes people listen and adhere to exactly what he is saying, not necessarily because it is true, but the way he approaches his point. This is evident multiple times inside the movie. One event that clearly depicts this is The Joker's inaugural scene, where he attempts to convince the mobsters that the only way to secure their money is by killing the Batman. Although they think this idea is ludicrous at first, they see that The Joker operates on a different rule set than they do, in addition to him eliminating any other option to follow by murdering some of their pawns. In addition to this, he also convinces Harvey Dent to turn on then Commissioner Gordon. Harvey Dent was a good-willed man, and had very little bitterness and anger inside of him until the death of Rachel Dawes at the mistake of Batman and Gordon. Realizing this, The Joker manipulates him and drives thoughts into his head that he normally would not have considered. The Joker tells Dent as he is laying in bed, "Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I'm an agent of chaos. Oh, and you know the thing about chaos? It's fair!" (The Dark Knight). After this, he gives Dent a gun and turns him mentally inside out, turning him into Two-Face. This effect that The Joker has on people even works on Batman at times, such as when he interrogates him and loses his cool about Dawes. This is all credited not only to Nolan, but the acting capabilities of Ledger.
Unfortunately Heath Ledger died due to a drug overdose shortly after filming, but nonetheless he was brilliant in depicting a psychopath. Examiner.com reviews says that Ledger "was somehow able to embody The Joker in a way that is frightening, maniacal, and even hysterical all at the same time. You will wind up holding your breath and trying not to make a sound every time he comes on screen because you don't want to miss a second of his mesmerizing performance." () Ledger was quoted saying that "I sat around in a hotel room in London for about a month, locked myself away, formed a little diary and experimented with voices."(). This shows that his character was only able to be developed through a nearly psychotic experience that he forced himself through. Even though he may have developed detrimental habits while locked up, he truly established a character that made the dark side of the Batman franchise exponentially prevalent. This character has helped establish this movie as a true success.