DARK KNIGHT
As the latest Batman adaptation arrives on the silver screen, Alan Bissett explores the colourful history and enduring appeal of the caped crusader's arch nemesis, the Joker
‘ ait’ll they get a load of me . . .’ It is w 1989 and Warner Bros have taken movie marketing to new heights. The logo is everywhere: baseball caps, T—shirts, Prince albums. But even as we scribbled the insignia on our school jotters. there was only one real star of Batman, and it wasn’t Batman. A brooding insomniac billionnaire whose life is, uh, complex? No thanks. Kim Basinger‘.’ Mere eye candy. No, this guy had all the coolest lines. ‘Never rub another man’s rhubarb.’ ‘This town needs an enema!’ ‘If you gotta go . . . go with a smile.’ I’d never heard of Jack Nicholson until Tim
Burton resurrected the pointy-eared staple of
kids’ TV for the big screen. I was too young for One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest or The Shining, but after Burton’s Batman even those seemed like dummy-runs for Nicholson’s true- calling: that of Batman’s cackling arch nemesis, a day-glo, psychotic funster. Like the devil, he had all the best tunes. such as the film’s soundtrack song ‘Partyman’ which called him ‘the funkiest man you’ve ever seen’. High praise coming from Prince. After a decade in the doldrums, the role was iconic enough to re- energise Nicholson’s career. He is the Clown
E Leigh Rafferty traces the highs and lows of the caped crusader's cultural career
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Prince of Crime. The Harlequin of Hate. The Ace of Knaves. And he’s back in Christopher Nolan’s new Batman film, The Dark Knight.
‘Pleased to meet you. Hope you guessed my name.’
Frequently rated among the greatest fictional villains of all time. the Joker is the same chaotic trickster who appears in every culture, from Loki in Norse lore to the Judeo-Christian Lucifer. or the Dionysus of Greek myth. inspirer of ritual madness. His literary antecedents are Shakespeare’s Fool, happily ridiculing King Lear; Professor Woland from Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita. a lurid showman who wreaks havoc in Stalinist Moscow: and Victor Hugo’s The Man Who Laughs. Indeed. the idea for The Joker first came to Bill Finger after seeing Conrad Veidt in the film adaptation of Hugo’s book. a German expressionist nightmare with a permanent smile.
A classic piece of pop—culture design himself — with his fixed grin and chalk-white face — we can see the Joker’s visual influence on Vfor Vendetta. Stephen King's It and Bono’s ‘Mr MacPhisto’ persona from U2’s Zoo 'IV tour. His anarchic spirit eackles in Tyler Durden. Jack Sparrow and Andy Kaufman. lf Batman is the classic anti-hero then the Joker is surely an ‘anti— viilain’. charismatic and colourful. a glam-rock hood thumbing his nose at authority. Politically. he is an anarchist. Philosophically. he’s exisentialist. His art school is surely Dada. He doesn’t commit crimes. he commits ‘performances’. Life for the Joker is a cosmic farce. the only logical reactions to it being laughter or murder. Batman’s great dilemma is: how do you defeat someone who cares nothing about his own existence? In The Dark Knight we see the Batpod speeding towards a raving Heath Ledger. ‘C’mon!’ taunts the Joker. ‘Kill me!’ Batman bottles it. swerving at the last moment. The Joker. we sense. is almost disappointed. liven the great supervillains from the comic world — Lex Luthor. The Leader. Doctor Doom — are mere variations on the mad scientist theme. hellbent on world domination. The Joker doesn’t want to run the world. He wants to fuck with its head.
For such a well-known figure. his fictional back-story is not clear. All versions. however. have him falling into a vat of chemicals which bleaches his hair green and his skin white. causing insanity and a trademark grin. Burton‘s treatment intertwined the origins of Batman and the Joker: a young hoodlum kills Bmce Wayne’s parents. inventing the Caped Cmsader: Batman later drops him into the vat. inventing the Joker. As though proving themselves mirror images of each other. in fact the Joker first appeared in l9-l()
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