The opening sequence begins as the lights dimmed, the first images were revealed, of a gleaming and bright with an overpowering view of Gotham City, this establish the location and the setting. The camera cuts to a tracking shot on a building when suddenly the calm is shattered, quite literally, by a broken window, which suppose to make the audience feel that they being led somewhere. At the same time, it starts off with a non-digectic sound, mostly a loud siren noise underscored later with a pulsing beat, which creates suspense and tension. It then shows a close-up shot of a clown-mask-clad robber using a grappling hook gun. The clown points the grappling hook at the building and pulls the trigger, then the hook fires into the air and clamps onto the edge of the building. It then cuts to a tracking shot on the street level, of a unknown man from behind then lead us to a close up shot of a clown mask, showing the viewers that this is one of the main props that is being used through out this film, then a car screeches to a stop to pick up the last member of the ground attack . Then it cuts again, of the two clown-mask-clad robbers to gliding across a zip-line on to a bank’s roof from a high-angle shot then to a low angle shot from where they landed, this shows the audience that they have achieve for what they aimed and to give an insight of the surroundings. A group of clown-mask- clad robbers are about to seize a bank. They bicker about the mysterious man who has employed them. “Why do they call him the joker?” one asks another. It’s a refrain almost identical to those rooftop thugs who wonder about the mysterious ‘bat’ in the opening frames of Tim Burton’s ‘Batman’. The first robbery sets things off with a bang, giving us the first bitter taste of just how sinister the Joker really is.
Soon it leads us to tracking shot and we are inside the bank as a tense standoff is under way. It shows all the clown-mask-clad robbers running in, shooting their guns up in the air, making the viewers feel that something terribly is going to happen and someone is going to get hurt. This imagery changes the atmosphere and mood of the scene. None of the employee resist, save one played by character-actor extraordinaire William Fichtner. This is a mob bank, we learn, and the wrong place to mess with, even for a group of seasoned criminals. The controlled heist degenerates into a mess quickly enough, with each of the robbers mysteriously getting taken out. But it’s not Batman knocking them off- rather, it’s one of the robbers themselves. Just as the final two robbers are set to leave, one pulls a gun on the other shown as a close up shot. ‘I bet the Joker told you to kill me as soon as we loaded the cash,’ he says, clearly with the upper hand. The eerily calm but playful response comes, ‘No, no, no. He killed the bus driver.’ Before the gun-toting clown can finish asking, ‘What bus driver?’, he is taken out by a school bus crashing into the bank. ‘School’s out. Time to go!’ screams the sole survivor of the gang. These shot are reverse shot sequence which follows shows that they are having a conversation. All that remains for him is the bank employee (Fichtner) lying at his feet in a long shot. By now we’re pretty sure these are going to be his last words, ‘The criminals in this town used to believe In things. Honor. Respect. What do you believe in?’ he screams it again, louder, ‘What do you believe in?’ And the mask comes off. The grinning, scarred face of the joker is revealed at last in an extreme close up shot. His face filled the complete screen as the clip played, ‘ I believe whatever doesn’t kill you simply makes you,’ he said. He pauses on the last word: ‘stranger’. As one employee gets a small bomb placed in his mouth.
Nolan’s dark star Ledger inhabits the clown prince of crime, embracing Joker’s hard-R American accent, smeary make up, puppet-master body language, freakish facial tics and brilliantly perverted logic with a ferocity that electrifies in the scene. With his cracked white pancake make up, black-rimmed eyes, smeared lipstick and greasy, greenish-tinged hair, and prosthetic scars creating a ghastly grin on puffy cheeks. The Joker bears no resemblance to the strikingly handsome actor who played him. In fact, the character is like nothing we’ve seen or heard before. It’s a performance as entertaining and memorable as anything we’ll see all year. I would describe the Joker as a psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy. I feel that The Joker look reflects his personality, - that ‘he doesn’t care about himself at all’, he appears to be scruffier and grungier.
The Dark Knight works so extraordinarily because of its stellar performance, as the Joker Ledger almost steals the show. He’s satanic and psychotic with his permanent grin, fading, runny, makeup and scarred face. Ledger masterfully inhabits the character.
