This weekend, moviegoers will get the chance to see Jared Leto’s method-acting take on The Joker, the popular comic-book villain played by Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, Mark Hamill and Heath Ledger before him. Reviewers are split on his performance, with our own Rodrigo Perez noting in his review that Leto “doesn’t come close to matching the iconic performance” given by the late Ledger. But playing the Joker isn’t a walk in the park. The character is a deranged, maniacal clown-centric psychopath, and getting into that mindset is not an easy feat. And while the YouTube channel Wisecrack isn’t donning the clown make-up (at least as far as we know), they nevertheless get into the philosophy of The Joker in their 15-minute video essay.
Making his first appearance in 1940’s “Batman #1,” The Joker, dubbed “everyone’s favorite nihilist,” has made over hundred comic-book appearances. He was also heavily inspired by Conrad Veidt’s smiling lead turn in the 1928 Victor Hugo adaptation, “The Man Who Laughs.” But despite multiple interpretations, the character’s outlook has remained consistent. His origins are intentionally left murky, even though most veer close to the backstory laid by Alan Moore’s “The Killing Joke,” but much like Batman, The Joker comes from a place of tragedy and alienation, left to fend for himself in a world without meaning. Bruce Wayne decided to dress as a bat and fight bad guys to restore his faith in humanity in a senseless world; The Joker became a merciless clown criminal who embraced meaningless violence in a seemingly meaningless world. Who is to say one is completely crazy and the other is completely sane?
In recent iterations, animators, filmmakers and other storytellers have felt the need to explore the kinship between The Joker and Batman. Tim Burton’s 1989 “Batman” bridged them one step further by having The Joker be the original killer of Wayne’s parents, while Batman let The Joker fall into the chemical that made him become the supervillain. Burton had the characters essentially “give birth to one another,” as the video editor notes. And Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” blurs that line even further.
To simply call The Joker mentally ill would sell him short. The character is dark, radical and prone to outlandish behavior, but he’s not completely crazy either. He’s more an existential villain than anything else, and that’s what has made him such a fruitful and fascinating character throughout all these decades. While Leto’s methods for getting into character were, well, controversial, to say the least, he does want to capture that mindset — even if he isn’t nearly as successful as Ledger. While I’m a little 50/50 on his work in “Suicide Squad,” it is merely a small part of the bigger picture. The character lives on because his philosophy — twisted and depraved as it might be — still rings true. To see that for yourself, check out this video essay before you see Ayer’s new film. [AV Club]