Film: The Dark Knight

[ugly]

hehe, I will post here again after I see the flick. I'm thinking maybe that would be a fun time to roll. It's been about a month since I last rolled. I only roll now when I have something fun to do while I'm rolling. Or should I just see it sober? Is it one of the greatest movies of all time?j That's pretty much what everybody tells me.

 

[ego_loss]

What a waste of a roll.

If you NEED to be fucked up, get drunk. Better yet, get really stoned. Save the roll for something that will be more fun.

 

[DarthMom]

evryone is praising heath ledger, which is normal
but i wonder how much of this specific joker character is his creation and how much is due to the makers of the film

his acting is great, that's not the question
but when everyone says that he gave the jocker what he was needing, i can't help but wonder if he was just following othe people's advices or if he indeed "created" this joker himself

i'm pretty sure for instance that he didn't choose the make-up
so what about the mimics, etc. were they his ideas or someone else's?

wierd that you would bring this up, i found the same criticism when i first got home from my exciting viewing and running to google. it seems such a wierd critique, as no matter how much someones ideas can be fabulous, the ending result will be a world of difference one actor to another....i can't imagine knocking him in any way.

whether it was his creation or not, i was enthralled. i didn't even want to see the movie. i only went because i wanted to spend some time with the family after dinner, and was supposed to meet some girlfriends afterwords for mama mia....but TDK lasted longer than i thought so that didn't happen

anyway, it was nothing but pure entertainment from the opening scene. and when ledger came on, his portrayal of the joker was enough to elicit actual goosebumps. it was pure brilliance. i had to get angry at myself a few times though, the joker would be on, he would be speaking such magnificence, and i would be so enthralled at the cinematography, i would be so ADD i would totally forget to pay attention to him and kick myself in the ass. it was proof that as incredible as he was, the film was so full of fab, you don't know what to focus on. it is simply the best movie of the year.

it is almost sad to think that this man really should receive acknowledgment for this role, but there will always be talk of how it is a sympathy driven award, which it should not and won't actually be.

 

[ego_loss]

^^
I actually think it is going to be sympathy driven... at least in part.

As brilliant as Ledger was, declaring him to be the de-facto best actor is getting ahead of the game. I don't dispute that it is a performance worthy of a nomination, but there has to be a point where people take a step back from the hype and look at it with a truly critical eye.

I also believe the earlier questions of just how much Heath himself brought into the character are completely valid. Let's not forget that the Nolan brothers wrote some spectacular dialogue for him. His monologue in the hospital was the best part of the whole movie. On the same token, it's obvious from some weak performances in Christopher Nolan's past movies that he isn't a director who really puts too much effort into shaping the actors into any particular kind of character... so it's entirely plausible that Ledger was given a lot of freedom to interpret The Joker as he saw fit.

 

[tambourine-man]

I don't get this idea that there's a split between the dialogue that was written by someone else and the performance of the actor.

You can't submit an Oscar-winning performance on a shit script... can you?

 

[L2R]

just got back from imax. triple wow. seriously, the change in aspect ration is seemless. the amount of imax footage is more than i expected.

it was nothing short of beautiful

funny, tonight i did wonder how much of the jokers triumph was due to the writing as opposed to mr ledger. i even asked myself how jack nicholson would've faired with such exquisite material.
but then the thought vanished pretty quickly as i was distracted again by the little nuances of heaths performance.

my wife even liked it

 

[jeffers1961]

What a brilliant film!

I won't say a lot, because I hate people who give spoilers, but I just saw it today at the very first showing here in Amsterdam. I took off from work early so I could see the very first show.

Oh my God! What a movie! I had expected a good summer action flick, but was totally unprepared for such a dark, exquisite examination between good and evil, and how easy it is to switch from one to the other. The end of the movie with the "Batman Searchlight" just about broke my heart. When my girlfriend and I were outside discussing it afterwards, I had to fight back tears when talking about it. It was well worth the price of admission and I plan to see it again.

I hadn't expected to be so moved, and I certainly never even imagined that it would be an Oscar contender. This was Hollywood film making at its finest.

 

[AmorRoark]

As brilliant as Ledger was, declaring him to be the de-facto best actor is getting ahead of the game. I don't dispute that it is a performance worthy of a nomination, but there has to be a point where people take a step back from the hype and look at it with a truly critical eye.

I agree. It's only August. Was Ledger's performance better than Javier Bardem's? I'm not so sure. The question is a bit nullified as its the next year and they're not in competition but those are 'best supporting actor' standards. If we just go off that its not like it should be an open and shut case for Ledger. We don't know what we haven't seen. That said, I think sympathy will play into the decision-making. If another performance is as fantastic as Ledger's was it will still probably go to him.... for better or worse.

 

[poopie]

there was a great interview with nolan in newsweek, and the subject of what ledger brought to the film.

What about Heath made you cast him?
I'd met Heath a couple times over the years about different projects, but nothing ever worked out. One time he gave me a speech that a lot of young actors have given me, where they basically say that they haven't achieved, as serious actors, what they want to before they're pushed into being movie stars. And of all the actors who've given me that speech, he's the only one that I would actually want to pay $10 to see give that kind of performance. And he did it in "Brokeback Mountain." The stunning lack of vanity, the sheer loneliness of that character—it's a staggering performance. So when I heard he was interested in the Joker, there was never any doubt. You could just see it in his eyes. People were a little baffled by the choice, it's true, but I've never had such a simple decision as a director.

You and Heath evidently had lots of conversations about shaping the character.
He'd call me from time to time, just to talk about what he was doing. And frankly, it was pretty hard to relate to on the other end of the phone—when he'd talk about looking at ventriloquist dummies and the way their mouths moved, the way the voice would sound as if it's disembodied.

When you heard him talk about ventriloquist dummies, did you think, "Where the heck is he going with this?"
[Laughs] Well, as a director, you say, "OK, that's kind of frightening." But what you're also hearing in the actor's voice is passion and intensity.

You've said that when you see the Joker, you can almost imagine what he smells like.
Yeah, you feel like there's a grime to him. I showed Heath some Francis Bacon paintings, which have a particular smudged, smeared effect that I thought was very evocative of human decay and corruption.

To me, the most unsettling part of his performance is that tic where he licks his lips.
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.

 

[LoveAlways]

Wow thanks Poopie that was really interesting

 

[alasdairm]

^ you should read the recent article about the making of the movie in the last wired magazine. it was great.

alasdair

 

[L2R]

bwahaahahahahahahahahahahhaaahaahahhh
I KNEW i knew those eyes! oh shit hahahhlol

from imdb
Nestor Carbonell who plays the Mayor in "The Dark Knight" coincidentally also played "Bat Manuel", a parody of Batman in the comic-based live action "The Tick" (2001) TV series.

and i've been revisiting that superb series lately. :D

 

[felix]

just got back, this is the opening day in the UK.

wow. everything i want to say has been said (especially by Axl), it was fucking amazing. :D

highlights!

NSFW:

the magic disappearing pencil

"i won't even die if you throw me from this high" ... "i'm counting on it"

i did feel it was slightly too long, though. the whole two-face part just seemed... unnecessary and tacked on. and his anger towards batman & gordon didn't seem justifiable.

minor quibble in the grand scheme of things. what everyone's saying about heath ledger is true, he was this film. a legendary performance.

9/10

 

[L2R]

^2 faces anger bothered me on the first screening too. one point i forgot though is the indescribable pain he would be in. if anything, he could've used more screen time, but the film was long enough as it was.

i must say, i was more moved by this than batman bagins.

 

[His Name Is Frank]

Here's an interview with Heath Ledger by MTV News a couple of months before his death.

November 12th, 2007

MTV: There's this little film called "The Dark Knight" you're doing ...

Ledger: Done.

MTV: Michael Caine told me recently that you'd created "one of the scariest performances" he'd ever seen. Is that part of the goal, to scare the crap out of people next summer?

Ledger: It was one of the goals, yeah. There are a few more surprises to him. I don't know what I'm allowed to say. Warner Bros. and DC [Comics], I'm sure they have hit men ready to attack this room if I say anything. They'll shoot me when I leave.

MTV: Is there anything redeeming to this character?


Ledger: Not at all. He has zero empathy. You'll just have to wait and see. It's the most fun I've had with a character and probably will ever have. The movie itself is far exceeding my expectations. I think it's going to be a really fun movie to watch.

MTV: Christian Bale has cited "A Clockwork Orange" and Sid Vicious as two inspirations for your performance.

Ledger: Yeah. "A Clockwork Orange" was a very early starting point for Christian and I. But we kind of flew far away from that pretty quickly and into another world altogether. And Sid Vicious, yeah, I guess so. There's a bit of everything in him. There's nothing that consistent. It was an exhausting process. I actually had quite a bit of time off between scenes — weeks sometimes. But it was required because whenever I was working, it exhausted me to the bone. At the end of the day, I couldn't move. I couldn't talk. I was absolutely wrecked. If I had to do that every day, I couldn't have done what I did. The schedule really permitted me to exhaust myself.

http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1574035/20071112/story.jhtml

 

[Rated E]

the whole two-face part just seemed... unnecessary and tacked on.

See:

... He [Joker] cared more about the cause than himself. He wanted chaos and anarchy in the world. He is an anarchist. He wanted to "watch the world burn."

He's not loud (for the sake of it) and cocky or stupid. For example,

Spoiler: Dark Knight

Illustrative of the point, is the scene where Joker is conversing with Harvey Dent (with burnt off face), and Joker places his gun into Dent's hand and cocks it at his own head, letting Dent decide whether to kill him or not. The act does not seem egoistic at all, I believe he was doing this to influence Dent into a total moral collapse, which would contribute to Joker's vision of a chaotic world (as Dent was a symbol for justice and order). Joker saw the cause as more important than himself, just as Batman saw the cause of justice as more important than himself when he made himself a scape goat for Dent.

This is why Two Face is in the movie. Two faces, justice and chaos. Batman and Joker.

I don't mind the criticism leveled against Two Face being in the movie, but I've yet to see anyone actually back up said criticisms.

 

[felix]

we're not in a courtroom, mate.

i understand what you've said up above, but it hasn't changed the way i feel about it.

perhaps if i could have paused the film about 90 minutes in so i could go out for a smoke i would have enjoyed that part more. :D

 

[DarthMom]

NSFW:

i was shocked at how fast it went, and not being a comicgeek, i didn't know about 2 face (until my kids and hubby got all giddy and "YAY" when they figured it out early on) and his appearance didn't bother me, but they had the same complaint, that it wasn't necessary, but i thought it fit perfectly. there was a lot of duality in this film, and how far someone would go when faced with dire straits, and the irony that the golden boy went to the dark side, and a boat full of convicts and even "regular" (haha) people didn't decide to do that...well it was a big part of the film. at least, i thought so.

and the joker seems to think everyone has a dark side, and the boat fulls and batman shows that isn't the case. classic archetypal hero theme done well.

ok, quick question, the joker gives two stories to his scars, is this something that is evident of nothing being trusted in his words, did i miss even more explanations, and are there any real explanations for those who know the comic in depth?

 

[vibr8tor]

^you didn't think it was too graphic for your kids? I don't know if mine have seen it yet, cuz they're with their dad at the moment, but i think some of the stuff would be disturbing for them. and they're older than yours. i'm sure he'll take them, though, if he hasn't already. just wanted to know how yours handled it...

 

[vegan]

is this something that is evident of nothing being trusted in his words

he also says that he doesn't have plans, which is obviosusly false
he may improvise, but around a central plan