Daily Dialogue — December 26, 2011
The Joker: Oh, you look nervous. Is it the scars? You want to know how I got ‘em?
[He grabs Rachel’s head and positions the knife by her mouth]
The Joker: Come here. Hey! Look at me. So I had a wife. She was beautiful, like you. Who tells me I worry too much. Who tells me I ought to smile more. Who gambles and gets in deep with the sharks. One day, they carve her face. And we have no money for surgeries. She can’t take it. I just want to see her smile again. I just want her to know that I don’t care about the scars. So… I stick a razor in my mouth and do this…
[the Joker mimics slicing his mouth open with his tongue]
The Joker: …to myself. And you know what? She can’t stand the sight of me! She leaves. Now I see the funny side. Now I’m always smiling!
[Rachel knees the Joker in the groin; he merely laughs it off]
The Joker: A little fight in you. I like that.
Batman: [off-screen] Then you’re gonna love me.
The Joker (Heath Ledger), Batman (Christian Bale), The Dark Knight (2008), screenplay by Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan, story by Christopher Nolan & David S. Goyer, characters by Bob Kane
The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is parties.
Trivia: It’s Sir Michael Caine’s opinion that Heath Ledger beat the odds and topped Jack Nicholson’s Joker from Batman: “Jack was like a clown figure, benign but wicked, maybe a killer old uncle. He could be funny and make you laugh. Heath’s gone in a completely different direction to Jack, he’s like a really scary psychopath. He’s a lovely guy and his Joker is going to be a hell of a revelation in this picture.” Caine bases this belief on a scene where the Joker pays a visit to Bruce Wayne’s penthouse. He’d never met Ledger before, so when Ledger arrived and performed he gave Caine such a fright he forgot his lines.
Dialogue On Dialogue: This BOB [Bit Of Business] in which the Joker explains the ‘truth’ about the origin of his scars — something he does twice, then begins to do once more in his final confrontation with Batman — is a great example of a Nemesis wearing a trickster mask in the moment, underscoring how he simply can’t be trusted.