I've been meaning to write this for a while. I would love to sit down with the creaters of the Dark Knight and see how they arrived at the character they created.
Alright, let's get this out of the way: Heath Ledger is one incredible bad ass of an actor. His reinvention of the Joker gave us the best villain that Hollywood has seen since Hannibal Lecter (who isn't technically a villain anyway). The film itself is a well-written examination of human nature that gushes with dark irony.
For many, it is a favorite because of its action and suspense. For me, it is a favorite because of its bold venture into the farthest and darkest corners of humanity. It goes beyond the scope of good and evil and is so steeped in the greatest pains of reality that I exited the theater chilled and unnerved.
What chilled me most was the level of research that seems to have gone into recreating the Joker. He is, in the truest sense of the term, a psychopath, illustrating sociopathy in its most severe form. The unsettling reality of the film is that the Joker has existed.
1. "It's not about money, it's about sending a message. Everything burns." -- "You know the thing about chaos? It's fair."
Enter: Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber. He was an antisocial anarchist, labeled a domestic terrorist. His basic goal was to disrupt order and, more importantly, instill fear. He was also a genius, believed to have an IQ around 167, more than four standard deviations above the norm. He became a professor of mathematics at UC Berekely when he was only 25. He built bombs from scratch and made them impossible to trace. He was cunning, meticulous and conniving. His manifesto makes for an interesting and ironic read.
2. "Some men just want to watch the world burn."
Enter: Dennis Rader gave himself the media name of "B.T.K," which stands for "Bind. Torture. Kill." It's fairly self-explanatory. Taking 10 victims, he terrorized the state of Kansas by sending letters to the media and mocking police. "How many do I have to kill to get a name in the paper or some national attention?" He delighted in the headlines, sending police puzzles revealing his identity and dolls bound in rope and gagged to resemble his victims. When he was not killing or reenacting his crimes, Rader was a middle-aged husband and father who was active in his church. It took 30 years for police to arrest him. When asked about his crimes, he shows a characteristic lack of emotion, speaking of his killing methods as he would a simple task at work. This is a psychopath.
3. "Do I really look like a guy with a plan? I'm like a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it, you know? I just do things."
Enter: Theodore Robert "Ted" Bundy, perhaps the most famous serial killer in American history. A charming, intelligent, maniacal schemer, Bundy was known for his charisma and cunning as a serial killer. Faking some kind of disability, he would lure women to his car, asking for help carrying something. When he opened the passenger door, he pushed them into the space where a seat should have been. He was known to engage in rape and necrophelia. His victim count is estimated to be betwee 30 and 100 with the typical estimate settling on 35. He escaped police custody twice and, rather than going into hiding, he took more lives, unable to restrain himself. Bundy was executed in 1989.
(The following was the most difficult one for me)
4. "Do you want to know why I use a knife? You see, guns are too quick. You can't savor all the little...emotions."
This particular remark from the Joker bears a nauseating resemblance to a statment from a man by the name of Tommy Lynn Sells:
"There's something about the blade, making a slice on the--seeing it peirce open...seeing the gap and watching to sensation of it all. Maybe I became addicted to that. I don't like guns. They're dangerous."
Sells has been definitively convicted of 2 murders, is the chief suspect for 4 others and claims he lost count of his victims when the number passed 70. He ran away from home at 14 and committed his first murder two years later. He was a drifter, hopping on and off trains and earning the nickname "The Cross Country Killer." His methods varied, though as illustrated above, his preferred method was with a knife. He was indiscriminate with his victims, sometimes killing a man, a woman or an entire family. He did not develop a pattern, which is part of the reason he was so difficult to apprehend. His own words illustrate him well: "The people don't matter, it's the crime. It's the sensation of the blood. The rush itself is the high." Sells is currently on death row in Texas. His execution date is currently undetermined.
These men are the Joker's reality. There are many more. I opted not to mention Timothy McVeigh, partially because he was motivated by twisted ideology and partially because my personal history causes the very mention of his name to incite a visceral reaction. Still, I think he manages to illustrate my point. Even as he faced lethal injections, he considered himself the victor because "The score was 168 to 1."
These are the ill of the world, the incredible truth of one of the most raw movies of the decade. The Joker's theatrics are the only thing keeping him one tiny step further into fiction than the real psychopaths who inspired him.
N.D.
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