Thoughts On "The Dark Knight"

(Okay, I have visitors, I'm getting comments, and people are clicking on my ad, which makes it official: I'm a happy camper. But anyway...)

I was supposed to have a workshop last night, but it was canceled due to lack-of-interest (Only four people signed up).

So since I had a little unexpected time on my hands, I saw The Dark Knight again (I don't typically see movies more than once anymore - partly because of money constraints, and partly because most movies don't really warrant it. But this movie is, in my opinion, worth a second look).

Once again, I marveled at Heath Ledger's "Joker".

As an actor, I have all kinds of questions about the performance that will probably never be answered - How much of the performance did he come onto the set with, and how much was worked out during shooting? Were all of his asides and little bits of business indicated in the script, or did he improvise some of them? Did he create a backstory for his character? Did he create his character from the outside-in, or from the inside-out? Did he get to offer any feedback on his "look"? - but long story short, however he did what he did, it's an amazing performance, a cinematic villain-for-the-ages.

In other words, color me impressed.

And after seeing this performance, for a second time now, I'm more saddened than ever that we lost such a talented, versatile actor so early.

I want to address two other things that seem to be big topics of discussion about the movie...

1. Christian Bale's "Batman voice".

I was less distracted/put off by it the second time around, but it was still...problematic.

As an actor, I totally "get" it - You're a guy dressed as a bat. You're playing a scary character , so you have to have a scary voice (Beyond that, you have to do something vocally to help "the suspension of disbelief". Otherwise, the audience would wonder why people weren't "putting two-and-two together" - "Gee, Batman sounds exactly like billionaire industrialist Bruce Wayne...").

But the trouble with "the voice" is that it's too one-note and inflexible.

Worse, it sounds, to my ears, too "put-on" - that's not a guy with a low, raspy, threatening voice, that's a guy affecting a low, raspy, threatening voice.

I don't know quite what you do about it. Have him work more with a vocal coach? Alter it mechanically? (Certainly "Lucius Fox" could come up with something.)

Maybe get Clint Eastwood to come in and dub his lines?

(Eastwood would have been a kick-ass "Batman" back-in-the-day. Though he would have sucked as "Bruce Wayne".)

Or maybe since the movie has made a Ba-jillion dollars at this point, they'll chose to just leave well enough alone.

2. Maggie Gyllenhall's looks/attractiveness/sex appeal.

While Katie Holmes got raked over the coals for her work in the first movie - I personally think she was mis-cast, but not egregiously awful - Miss Gyllenhall has been ripped to shreds in some quarters for being too "fugly" to be the "romantic interest" in this, or any, film.

I have to assume, since I've read this criticism almost entirely on the Internet, that the detractors are probably young guys, who aren't yet hip to the sexiness of "the total package". Cause personally, I think M.G. is plenty sexy; I actually like her looks (I think she's got beautiful eyes and a very pretty smile), but beyond that, she's smart and funny and talented, and "smart and funny and talented" always turns me on.

Well, I could keep waxing lyrical about the movie - As a "Batman" fan since I was in single digits, I think The Dark Knight is the best "Batman" movie yet - but if you're reading this and you've seen the movie, I'm actually more interested in what you thought.

Comments?