Every Heath Ledger scene in Dark Knight

The Cussing Channel has produced a Dark Knight Joker supercut, featuring all the on-camera Heath Ledger scenes. It rather stopped me in my tracks -- Ledger really put in an astounding performance, something that is underlined three times in red by ten straight minutes of Ledger doing his thing.

Rules: Just The Joker, just the on-camera dialogue. Now, there are many shots in this film over the Joker's shoulder, with the focus on the character he's talking to... those lines didn't make it... only the clips where the Joker is the focus of the shot (otherwise this becomes a 30-minute affair).

The Dark Knight - Just The Joker (Thanks, Phillip!)

• [Brad H.]

  That always seemed to be the thing about Batman movies; the villains usually had all the fun bits or were simply eating celluloid, like Nicholson did, more-so than most comic book adaptations.

  Although I certainly would not complain about the fact regarding The Dark Knight.

  • [Michael Crumpton]

    One thing that would make this much more impressive would be to also show him in another very different  role, say Brokeback Mountain, and that would better show the amazing range and artistry of this tragically short lived actor. Plenty of actors (Robert Downey comes to mind) can do crazy, because that is kind of who they are, but Ledger was really an amazing actor.

    • [Brad H.]

      From my hometown too. Know his brother. 

• [corydodt]

  Meh, this is kind of a crap supercut. I don’t have the film for reference, but it seems obvious that he is cutting out some of the Joker’s lines to keep his face on screen. Isn’t this supposed to be a tribute to the performance? The lines spoken off camera also count.

  Stopped after 1 minute.

  • [akbar56]

    Did you not read the “rules” for this cut?

  • [Michael Crumpton]

     I think they were trying to keep under the youtube time limit.

  • [TimmoWarner]

    Meh, kind of a crap comment. I’m not the commenter so I can’t be sure, but it seems obvious that he is commenting without bothering to read the text below the video. Isn’t this supposed to be a blog informing us of interesting things? The words below the post also count.

    Stopped reading after second sentence.

• [thatbob]

  See?  These things are totally subjective.  I tend to think of Ledger’s performance as just a big ol’ distraction from the amazing work turned in by Aaron Eckhart and Gary Oldman.  Which rather echoes the plot, I guess.

  • [Paul Balbas]

     Not sure about it being totally subjective…This performance was considered to be one of the best on film that year by most critics, public and the academy.
    I think it was one of the most disturbing, fun and kick ass performances I have ever seen. 

• [ado2102]

   Agreed. Big fan of this movie and his performance. Cut “rules” aside, the result is a poor substitute for any one of the complete scenes in which he appears.

• [digi_owl]

  I swear the BBshop is becoming self-ware, it is offering the Arch Enemy t-shirt right now.

• [bcsizemo]

  Audio normalization, it’s a hell of a function…

• [shavedlummox]

  worst editing ever.

• [Saxton Hale]

  Guess you just have to be a fanboy.

• [Nylund]

  Who does he sound like?  Is it Al Franken?  The voice he uses reminds me so much of someone else’s.

  • [retchdog]

    bits of it sound a lot like george carlin to me, which isn’t totally inappropriate (they’re both nihilists and… uh… comedians, just to much different degrees); especially the “tryouts” scene, @ 1:53 in this cut. edit: okay, the rest of it only sporadically; but that one scene, with my eyes closed, i could swear it was george carlin.

  • [Terazilla]

     His voice and mannerisms are hugely like Tom Waits.

• [Brett Myers]

  I believe he got the voice from old Tom Waits interview videos.  

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCSc6E4yG9s 

  • [Nylund]

    I’m convinced he go the voice from Al Franken.

  • [saurabh]

     Yeah I was going to post this – the voice is spot-on Tom Waits. Uncanny.

• [darrrrrrn]

  I think on some level it should be noted that people’s view of heath ledger’s performance as the Joker has been inflated by the hindsight that he is dead and it was his last film.

  It is a good bit of acting, I can’t find any fault in it, but it seems like there was a push from the studio from the start that emphasised his death as somehow lending to a kind of transcendental acting experience. I really don’t see it. It reminds me of when Brandon Lee died making The Crow and it seemed everyone was at pain of death to exclaim how powerful his performance had been. There is certainly something powerful in watching something knowing it was an actor’s (or a painter’s or whatever’s) last work, but we should be aware of confusing that emotion with a critique of an actors skill on screen.

  It also rather scares me when I see a single opinion on any aspect of culture appearing to be unopposable. 

  • [saurabh]

    Meh. The Joker is an iconic character. Ledger really delivered. It is a great performance. The film is extremely popular. It is a great film. You are reading this on a blog populated by mutants who grew up reading Batman. I don’t think the level of adulation you’re observing is unwarranted.

  • [penguinchris]

    I agree to a certain extent, but I do also think it’s a genuinely great performance and will be long-remembered and praised on its own merits.

    Especially since it’s not actually Ledger’s last performance – he died during production of The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (directed by Terry Gilliam). That was still before The Dark Knight was ready for release, of course, which led to people thinking Dark Knight was his last film since Parnassus was delayed as they re-shot and reworked the whole thing and because Dark Knight was such a huge smash-hit.

• [B E Pratt]

  Was waiting for the scene where ‘nurse’ Joker is miffed at the hospital not blowing up on time, but then read the ‘rules’. Guess it was left out for lack of dialogue. Still……

• [TimmoWarner]

  Edited for misposting.