Considered one of Christopher Nolan’s masterpieces, The Dark Knight, is perhaps one of the most revolutionary portrayals of the Clown Prince and the extent of his mad mayhem, as projected through the eyes of Heath Ledger. As volatile and dismally terrorizing as Ledger was on the screen, his performance remains the only one that has gone from raucous fan upheaval at the time of casting to an Oscar-winning aftermath that makes The Dark Knight one of the most beloved adaptations of the Batman v Joker saga, to date.
The Heath Ledger Epiphany That Scared Christopher Nolan
One of the most subtle yet prominent tics that makes Heath Ledger’s Joker so visually bloodcurdling is the repetitive flicking of his tongue. Almost unnoticeable at first, the act registers in the audience’s brain so gradually and inadvertently that it fools them as to whether this is supposed to be a part of the performance. Apparently, Christopher Nolan thought so too.
“Yeah, it’s almost like this lizard thing. It’s very insidious, very creepy. Well, as with a lot of things that Heath would do, at first I thought it was a mistake because the prosthetics on his mouth would come a little unstuck. But then it became apparent that he’d really found something.”
The tic which would normally recede into the background under the overbearing shadow of Ledger’s chaotic performance rather takes a front seat in his delivery. The constant and repetitive act makes the Joker menacing and animalistic, almost like he falls short of baring his teeth to screech at his prey. And even though Ledger’s lip-smacking doesn’t have a such villainous origin, it does go on to make his performance the epitome of villainous portrayals on screen.
A Medically-Backed Study of Heath Ledger’s Joker Tic
In his book, Batman and Psychology: A Dark and Stormy Night, Travis Langley puts forward a clinical thesis that makes one wonder if Heath Ledger’s Joker tic was an accidental on-set discovery or whether the actor went all-in by diving into the psychological depths of his character:
“This character who attracts psychotic henchmen may have lingering symptoms from his own past psychosis. He keeps making involuntary, repetitive movements — flicking his tongue, smacking his mouth — which suggest tardive dyskinesia, a condition that arises as a consequence of long-term or high-dosage use of antipsychotic (neuroleptic) medication.”
It has been said that the role of the Joker has often driven actors to the very edge of dissociation. Often, that would mean going so method that they would lock themselves up in isolation to break open a crack in the surface of the psychosis that they were expected to portray.
But Heath Ledger was a step beyond. His portrayal is a masterclass in mania and abnormality and it makes the Joker manifest as an actual psychopath rather than the oddball vain agent of chaos that his predecessor had paraded off in Tim Burton’s 1989 film. Ledger’s contribution to cinema has forever revolutionized the perspective of a villain and the limits that can be reached only if appropriately exploited.
The Dark Knight is available for streaming on HBO Max.
Source: Digital Spy
