What a performance! What a movie!! Heath Ledger’s Oscar winning Joker changed the movie industry, the superhero genre, & awards season. We discuss how he got into character, the historical significance, his evil deeds, & all the most memorable Joker scenes.

What is This Episode/Series? - Top of Show

Episode Layout/Index - 1:29

NONSPOILER JOKER ANALYSIS:

Movie Background - 2:47

Getting Into Character - 4:51

Historical Significance - 17:34

SPOILER WARNING - 25:35

SPOILER JOKER ANALYSIS:

Secret Spice/What Made It Work - 26:40

How Evil Was the Evil Deed? - 34:45

Most Memorable Quote/Action - 47:53

On a Scale of 1 - Joker… - 1:01:01

Your Homework/PLEASE LEAVE US 5*’S - 1:02:57

What’s Next From MMO/Words of Wisdom - 1:04:48

The Dark Knight was a momentous movie going experience for us both, and although this episode is focused on Heath Ledger’s turn as the Joker, we can’t help but gush about what a masterpiece this movie was. So we begin with some specs about the film & a short bibliography about our research. Then we dive into our usual segments of The Joker Character Study.

As we’ve done throughout this series, we go behind the scenes & into hollywood lore to discover how the actor got into the character of the Joker. This is a particularly loaded backstory, full of urban legends, method & improv, expert collaboration between cast & crew, and most unfortunately, terrible tragedy. We do our best to outline several perspectives on how the role of the Joker affected Heath Ledger, but we also choose to celebrate him as much as possible.

The other major segment of our non-spoiler segment is the Historical Significance of the performance. Here, we break down how the character had evolved in the Joker’s history, the decisions Ledger & Nolan made to distinguish this iteration of the clown prince, and the effects this role & this movie had upon the industry at large.

After a spoiler warning, we dive into the plot & the particulars of this most peculiar take on the Joker. We begin a bit out of order in this episode to transition upon the previous segment as we open spoilers with a discussion on the secret spice(s) or what made it work so damned well. The answer is of course, everything. Then we break down the Joker’s many evil plans in How Evil Were My Deeds, where we cannot help but conclude that the Joker kinda won this movie, and not in the ways you’d expect. Further research and film study has opened up our eyes on many new takes we didn’t think we’d have, and this is certainly a film worth revisiting.

To finish the episode, we recap all of our favorite quotes or actions the Joker took in this harrowing plot. Of course, we could have gone on and on forever, (and maybe we will, if we ever get to do The Batman Character Study before the upcoming Robert Pattinson film), but we certainly had a blast with reliving all of the many highlights. Finally, we rank Heath Ledger’s take on the character on a scale of 1 to Joker.

Stay tuned as we’ll finish this rewatch series with our look at Jared Leto’s Joker before we take in the new Joaquin Phoenix version in our penultimate episode in The Joker Character Study. Then as we do, we’ll eventually culminate the series with a Joker centric awards show and rank all our favorites.

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How do you rank Heath Ledger’s role on a scale of 1 to Joker? Let us know! We’re at MMandOscar on Twitter, and we are on Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, and Gmail. You can subscribe / rate / review / like / share / & listen to us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Google Play, Tune In, Spotify, and just about wherever you listen to podcasts. When reality sucks, keep watching movies with us. We’re Mike, Mike, & Oscar!