Every once in a while, I go into a rabbit hole of watching random clips from movies. And while most of these are just random, there is one performance from one movie that I have rewatch religiously for several years. And based on the views on the movie clips, people seem to be doing the same.
Heath Ledger's performance in the Dark Knight is one of the most perfect acting performances I've seen. It's strange that a comic book film produced a performance that rivals acting performances in art house scenes across the world, but that's the reality we live in.
And while Heath Ledger deserves a heap amount of credit for his performance, there is more to acting than just acting. And in this info dump, Im going to make sense of that very paradoxical sentence.
A common adage in filmmaking is that a movie is made three times during it's production. It's made in the script. It's made in the filming. It's made in the edit. This adage is important because the movie has three opportunities to drastically change for the better or the worse. Sometimes a production can shit the bed in two of the steps, but do it so right on the other it makes up for both as was the case with the original Star Wars. Sometimes a production could have their shit together but completely fail on one step to the ultimate detriment of the movie.
This applies to acting, and I think the Dark Knight is a text book example of the three parts enhancing a performance in their own way.
The Screenplay
For brevity's sake, let's single out one sequence from the Dark Knight. Im going with the hospital sequence which will feature two important scenes. One is the Joker and his scene with Harvey Dent. The other is Bruce Wayne and Gordon protecting Coleman Reese from people out to kill him after the Joker stated he would blow up a hospital if he isn't dead.
Now obviously, the main contribution of the screenplay is the story. No duh. It escalates Joker's threat as a villain. It sets up the main theme of the Dark Knight that will get paid off in the ending. One that speaks on order clashing with the warped view of anarchy. A view that corrupts Harvey Dent with the supposed claim of its fairness. What I want to focus though are the unique qualities the script provides that help inform Heath Ledger's performance.
The stuff I always loved about Dark Knight's writing is how multilayered it is. Throughout the movie, you feel like the heroes are dealing with an avalanche of problems. For example, it is never just that Batman has to save Rachel and Harvey. It is the intuition that you know one of them isn't going to make it. It's the Joker left alone with an ill-tempered cop. It feels like every intense scene is a perfect storm whose aftermath will be felt.
This ties into the hospital scene which recreates that overwhelming chaos. Gordon and Batman are left protecting Reese while the police are evacuating hospitals. All the while Joker is left alone to a grief stricken Harvey Dent. And we know from the last scene from the cop, you do not want to be alone with the Joker especially when you look strikingly familiar to another iconic Batman villain.
It sets the stage for Joker in this sequence: that he is in control, knows how to manipulate, and is very interested in Harvey.
The Acting
So with one part done, the relay baton is passed onto Heath Ledger and the filmmakers. Now, I won't have much new to say on what Heath Ledger and the creative team did to make Joker. The whole of him is iconic, and many people have pointed all the eccentricities that got Heath Ledger an Oscar.
Rather, I want to highlight the changes as we jump from script to screen. This is why if you're a movie buff, it's always fun to read the script of your favorite movies. There is always an assumption that a script is law. And maybe for certain directors, that is. But here, we see a script being used as a foundation and a suggestion.
In the hospital scene, The Joker never says exactly what's on the page. Some lines are rearranged or disregarded. Heath Ledger caters the words to the cadence and movement of the character creating dialogue that feels more organic than it should be. Because no matter the grit and realism you put into it, it is still comic book dialogue. It is not how real humans talk to one another. But through performance, he is able to sucker your audience into a really gripping scene.
Everyone talks about Heath Ledger's contribution to improvising the delayed explosion, and yeah that's great as is Viggo Mortenson kicking the helmet. However, one additional contribution I want to emphasize is when the Joker says "you know what I notice" before going into his nobody panics spiel. It's not in the script, but that turn of phrase adds so much to everything that comes after it. Joker meets Harvey on his level. HE notices the injustice. There is no hacky line where Joker says "we're one in the same." He simply empathizes with Harvey which I feel is the final trick that causes Harvey to turn.
Of course, part of Heath Ledger's lightning in the bottle performance also stems from the performances he is opposite with, and everyone does a great job complementing the performance. It's slick filmmaking that almost every major character has a scene alone with the Joker. You want that if you got an interesting character like this in the same way you get a cool flavored jam. You want to put that shit on everything just to see what it tastes like.
But Aaron Eckhart in the hospital scene is mainly why I singled it out. There's a great interview where Eckhart talks about this scene and he and Ledger worked together to craft this scene. It's brilliant, and it shows the kind of technique on display when everyone is at the top of their game.
The Editing
Finally, we got the editing. And despite most of my background being in editing, I don't think I got much to say with this one, but I'll try my best.
One last script thing that was cut out is the section in the television broadcast where the Joker calls in. There is a moment where an old lady calls in, and we soon find it is actually the Joker. Creepy as it is, it is likely removed for pacing purposes.
The pacing needs to do a lot of heavy lifting here. You got two scenes intercutting between each other. And in the context of the story, all of this is taking place in one short hour before a hospital explodes. You do not want anything to be dilly dallying including the movie.
I thought it would be interesting to show long before they cut back to a different scene, and it looks like this:
Joker (1:29) ==> Gordon (0:13) ==> Joker (0:11) ==> Wayne (0:13) ==> Joker (1:31) ==> Wayne/Gordon (0:17)
Notice that even when Joker is getting most of the screen time in this scene they still throw in one chuck that's very short. It creates momentum as the tension builds. If they merely sandwich the part of Gordon and the part of Wayne between two lengthy Joker sections, the pacing will feel predictable and sluggish. It also separates the two longer sections further apart, but Ill get to that later.
Notice the times themselves are rather close in length. All the sections involving Gordon or Bruce are around fifteen seconds. And aside from the outlier that I already mentioned is there to get momentum going, the Joker scenes are one second apart from being 90 seconds.
Notice that two longer sections with the Joker are spread apart. You can visualize this as a ramp. The immediate danger is that Coleman Reese is about to be killed unless Gordon and Bruce can save him. The Joker section ramps up the tension followed by a little more with Gordon. The eleven second section Joker has Harvey attempt to grab Joker viciously which causes a little pay off before back up the ramp again with Wayne. Then, one long ramp yet again before the big pay off where Wayne and Gordon simultaneously avert two assassinations attempts.
If this gives you the sensation of a roller coaster, it's because it is. You got to respect the physics of storytelling. In the same way you can't build a roller coaster that's a series of similarly sized hills, it's hard to craft a thriller where every section is the same. If they meshed all the Joker sections together and all the Wayne/Gordon sections together, it would still function, but would it be as exciting?
Lastly, that music and sound design. I know the Hans Zimmer and Nolan soundscape has been memed on, but it is used to perfect effect here. The way the stings punctuate the end of a section. The music is great. The strings amping up Joker's panic speech is all great.
It's also funny rewatching these scenes noticing the amount of restraint the soundscape is compared to Nolan's other movies. Like, compared this to Oppenheimer and you almost feel like the Dark Knight is the historical drama. I imagine if the Dark Knight was made today, the soundscape would be unbearable, and the Joker would probably not blow up a hospital and instead get elected to Congress.
Conclusion
I don't want to come off as saying Heath Ledger's performance is only good because of the filmmaking and writing around him. Far from it. Im saying it wouldn't have been as good if everyone else was not up to the task to match Heath Ledger's effort. A movie is a piece of art where the whole is better than the sum of its parts. Heath Ledger is one contribution to a grander piece. In a vacuum, it's great. But put in the right score, the right dialogue, and the all the ingredients that make up a movie, and it can take something great and turn it into something spectacular.
That's the magic of filmmaking. It is such a difficult and collaborative art form where anything can go wrong. But every once in a while, the stars will align, and a man made form of expression becomes like a work of nature: effortless and totally miraculous.
