The character clown played by the late film star Heath Ledger not only subverts the impression of the villain in traditional works, but also sets an insurmountable obstacle to the clown he interprets with his life. The Joker in "The Dark Knight", although chilling, makes the audience fall in love with him involuntarily, and the charm exuded by this character cannot be ignored. Today I will introduce the five characteristics of the Joker, and then I will thoroughly analyze the Joker's every appearance in "The Dark Knight", and take you to experience the charm of this character by understanding his plan.
The reason why the role of the Joker can be called "the first villain in film history" is not only due to Heath Ledger's interpretation, but also the choreographer is of course indispensable. The five major qualities of clowns in the movie are:
"Self-realization": He knows exactly what he is doing. Insight: He knows what others want. "Planning": He has a very meticulous and interlocking plan. "Execution": It is not enough to have a plan, the Joker relies on self-restraint and improvisation to ensure that each of his plans will succeed. "Detachment": He is not bound by worldly norms.
When I first watched "The Dark Knight", I felt that the Joker had no humanity at all, and only thought about killing and destroying, which should be a brain problem. Because he disregarded his own safety, he put himself in danger many times. Opening your mouth to the gangster lion is simply the act of a madman.
But a closer look at his words and deeds revealed that the Joker was not only not crazy, he was one of the few people who knew exactly what he was doing. The bridge section that best reflects his "not being crazy" is that when he blackened Dante in the hospital, he actually used dry cleaning hands to sterilize. He didn't have anyone around him at the time, so instead of showing it to others, he knew the importance of "hygiene."
Because he has no other characteristics of paranoia, this is proof of his clarity of mind. After understanding his "self-realization", I admire his wisdom and self-confidence in using himself as bait many times to win in danger.
The reason why the Joker can hit the opponent's pain with every word and every strategy is that he has a strong ability to observe. The gangs care most about money, and he robs them of it. Boss Gamble wanted his life, so he sent his own "corpse." Batman wants to protect the citizens, and he forces Bruce to comply by threatening them.
Dante originally hated him to the bone, but he easily pushed the responsibility on the corrupt system and people's hearts. His unique trick is to "borrow power and make force." As he put it: Madness is like gravity, you just need a gentle push.
The clown always seems to live in the belly of a gentleman with the heart of a villain, but sadly, in fact, every gentleman still has a villain's side, but whether he has exercised restraint or not, so every sentence of the clown only tells the true thoughts in the hearts of others.
For example, the reason why he was able to force the police to cooperate with him was to see that everyone had his weaknesses. Of course, it is easy to buy with money, but when he encounters someone who cannot be bribed with money, he starts from his family. Because the Joker knows that no matter how righteous and awe-inspiring the policeman is, he will give in and give up his original beliefs when he encounters danger to his beloved.
Joker's serial plan is the essence of the whole movie, but the reason why Joker's plan can always go smoothly is his "execution". The best embodiment of execution is "self-control". The Joker himself has a high level of self-control, and when he is called a "madman" or a "freak" by the gang, it can be seen that he is not happy. But he would never let emotions sabotage his plans, and this is definitely not something that a mentally ill person can do.
The "madness" he shows is also a precisely calculated act, in order to make the other party unable to understand himself. And when there are variables in his plan, such as an accountant who wants to secretly break the news, he can quickly formulate a response and let the variables be used by him.
The last trait of the Joker, which also made him sublimate into the "first man in the past", is his "detachment". Unlike other villains, most of them have some worldly weaknesses, whether it is money or power, or even family. The Joker has nothing to rely on, but he also has nothing to worry about. He doesn't want money or power, and he can even take his own life.
When he doesn't want anything, naturally there is no weakness, and he can say to Batman in a dashing manner, "You have nothing to threaten me." And his confidence in the fact that he is right gives him the greatest motivation. But unlike other characters who are arrogant because of self-confidence, the Joker's self-confidence stems from his understanding of himself and even human nature, so he can stand in an invincible position.
The Joker's ultimate goal is to prove his argument that "no one cannot fail." Looking at gotham City as a whole, Batman, the "symbol of justice," is the Joker's only obstacle, so dealing with Batman becomes his goal. To this end, he also developed a series of meticulous plans.
Here are each of the Joker's appearances in The Dark Knight: bank robbery - rule the gang - threatening Batman - killing the top brass, breaking into the party - assassinating the mayor - being arrested and imprisoned - kidnapping Dante and Rachel, interrogation room - escaping - burning the money - blackening Dante - ferry incident - final showdown.
If you sort out a few scenes, you can see that his plan is basically divided into four stages: the preparation period, the execution period, the adjustment period, and the harvest period. In addition, these events were planned by the Joker in advance, but there were still three "accidents".
That's the boss Gamba who privately issued the wanted order, the Batman who broke into the party, and the accountant who wanted to reveal Batman's identity. Gotham City is a place of dragons and snakes, and even with Batman in town, the criminal forces underground are still not to be underestimated. The Joker knows that defeating Batman can only "attack the heart". Therefore, he must first get Batman's complete attention, so he must first deal with other evil forces, so as not to interfere in disrupting the plan or distractIng Batman from dealing with other crimes.
So he began to lay out, first robbing the gangsters' banks and having them gather together to discuss countermeasures, and then breaking into the meeting. Use what they want most, "Batman," as an inducement to entrust themselves to come forward. But he also knows that gangsters are not so easy to obey, so he must kill chickens and monkeys. So he continued to provoke in the meeting, and at this time, the hook was the grumpy Gamble, who announced in a furious manner: 500,000 rewards for the body of the clown, and 1 million if caught alive.
After anticipating that Gambo was expecting to be caught, he disguised himself as a corpse and successfully approached Gambo and brutally killed him, the gang also formally accepted his proposal to have the Joker act on their behalf against Batman. By this point, the Joker and Batman can face each other head-on without hindrance.
The Joker's first move to get Batman's attention is very sharp, directly capturing a citizen who pretends to be Batman and killing him in public, broadcasting the process to the whole city, and then threatening Batman to reveal his true identity, otherwise he will kill the citizens every day. It should be known that although Batman is a symbol of justice, he is essentially not governed by the law, so the Joker points out the fact that Batman is "illegal", positions himself as a "whistleblower", and then pulls all the citizens together as a "sanctioner" to force Batman to obey.
However, he will not wait foolishly, and he knows that Batman will not give in just for the sake of ordinary citizens, and immediately proceed to the next plan. Killed the more influential and powerful police chief and judge, and targeted attorney general Harvey Dante.
When he breaks into the fundraising dinner that Bruce helps Dante organize, he does not find Dante, but meets the intruding Batman. Here he gets his most unexpected gain, which is Batman's attention to Rachel. Even though he didn't know Batman's true identity, he saw that Batman would fight for Rachel, so he had a new idea.
The Joker proceeds to his next step, which is to assassinate the mayor of Gotham City. Although Bruce follows in pursuit and relies on Gordon's deception to prevent the mayor from being killed, Bruce is helpless against the Joker and decides to give in and reveal his identity. Unexpectedly, Dante took a step ahead of him and pretended to be Batman. The Joker didn't expect Dante to impersonate him, but he definitely didn't believe Dante was Batman. However, this gave him an opportunity to decide to adjust his plan, planning to kill two birds with one stone and solve Dante and Batman at once.
So he pretended to kidnap The transferred Dante, but the real purpose was to get himself caught by Gordon, who was tricked to death, and then sent to the prison of the gang's accountant, Mr. Liu. And even after his arrest, he had already planned his next step, buying the police to kidnap Dante and Rachel and hide them in two different places.
Interestingly, during his arrest, the Joker confronted Bruce, who was galloping forward. But Bruce gave up at the last minute, choosing to throw himself rather than kill the Joker. This actually made the Joker see the opportunity to gamble to see if Bruce could "break the ring" because of his impulsiveness. So when Bruce fell on himself, the Joker showed a disappointed expression of residual thoughts.
As for the Joker's initiative to be arrested, there are two reasons: one is to rescue Mr. Liu, and the other is of course to get the opportunity to face Batman face to face. In the interrogation room, the Joker finally has a chance to meet Batman and uses his big trick: "Fate's Choice". He tells Batman where Dante and Rachel are, but deliberately says the opposite. And he knows that Bruce will definitely choose to save Rachel, and with his ability, he will definitely be able to save it. Therefore, his intention is to let Bruce save his enemy Dante, and the two will turn against each other for Rachel's death.
Honestly, the Joker's chess move to this point has actually won. Because just letting Batman make the decision to "save his sweetheart rather than his love enemy" is enough to prove that Batman will give in to "human nature" as well.
So then the Joker was satisfied and began to enjoy the final harvest he planned. When Batman rushes out of the interrogation room and goes in two ways with Gordon to rescue Dante and Rachel, of course, it's a good time for the Joker to escape.
He provoked himself to be attacked, then took advantage of the situation to subdue a policeman and then detonated the human bomb he had already planted in the detention cell. This move is another two-pronged move: creating chaos and escaping, and then taking advantage of the opportunity to rob Mr. Liu. And to rescue Mr. Liu is ostensibly to fulfill his promise to the gangs and get their money back. But in fact, he wanted to take the opportunity to break up the gangs in Gotham City, so he burned all the money. Because without money, the gang is useless.
His first "gift" to the Prince of Crime in Gotham City was to provoke the public to assassinate the accountant who claimed to reveal Batman's identity. This move once again reveals the Joker's insight and improvisation, and he does not allow others to defeat Batman before him. And with just one phone call, the citizens of the city became his helpers and helped him deal with the accident. At the same time, he gave a small hand to Gotham City to let everyone know his means.
Then the Joker prepares to take his second fruit: Harvey Dante, who has been pulled off the altar by him. In the hospital, he confronts Dante and confesses his transgressions. Faced with Dante's anger, the Joker uses his strength to push the blame on the law enforcement officers who are easily bribed by himself.
This trick is very vicious, because Dante has always been based on laws and institutions as the norm, but he did not expect that his lover would eventually die in the laziness of the police. Physical and mental trauma, combined with the accumulation of new hatred and hatred for corrupt law enforcement officers in the inspection team, makes Dante's sanity broken, and he becomes the Joker's best assistant, The Two-Faced Man. Dante also gradually helps the Joker get rid of the remaining gang bosses and corrupt cops who have lost their usefulness.
After blackening Dante, the Joker continues his harvest journey, and his next harvest is the complete destruction of the "morality" of the citizens of Gotham. Taking advantage of the chaos in the city and the scramble to evacuate, he threatened to hold two ferryes full of passengers: one for ordinary citizens and one for prisoners in prison.
Then he once again unleashed the "choice of fate", asking both sides to blow up each other's ships to save themselves. Unexpectedly, both parties couldn't be bothered, and the Joker himself was caught by Batman before he could manually detonate it. Until then, the Joker was like a god, and everything happened according to his plan. Only the final plan failed because it misjudged the humanity of the passengers on both ships.
In fact, the clown in the movie loses to the screenwriter, not to human nature, because he himself represents human nature. One or two people may be able to hold on to the moral bottom line, but are the entire ship, and hundreds of people on both ships, willing to sacrifice themselves for strangers?
But seriously, when the Joker successfully blackened Dante, his ultimate goal was achieved. Because even without the ferry incident, Dante would kill the police, kidnap Gordon's son, force Batman to kill Dante, and then carry the black cauldron. Even though the ship didn't explode and he was captured, Batman was defeated by him and became invisible with the belief that he was completely destroyed. Although the joker's laughter at the end of the air is a little lonely, he is indeed the one who laughs last