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JACK
NICHOLSON’S Joker was a blast. Heath Ledger’s Joker is
as dark and anarchic a figure as Randle McMurphy in
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the role that
brought Nicholson his first Academy Award. Ledger’s
performance in the Batman tale The Dark Knight is
so remarkable that next January 22, the one-year
anniversary of his death, he could become just the
seventh actor in Oscar history to earn a posthumous
nomination.
“I do
think that Heath has created an iconic villain that will
stand for the ages, and of course, I would love to see
him get an award,” said Christian Bale, who reprises his
Batman Begins role as the tormented crime
fighter. “But you know, to me, you can witness his
talent, celebrate his talent within this movie. Anything
else is gravy.”
Superhero flicks usually are not the stuff Oscar dreams
are made of. Yet Ledger delivered so far beyond anyone’s
expectations that he could end up as the second
performer to win Hollywood’s top honor after his death.
“He may
be the first actor since Peter Finch. He may even win
the damn thing,” said Gary Oldman, who costars as noble
cop Jim Gordon in The Dark Knight, which hits
theaters on July 18.
Finch is
the only person to win posthumously, earning the Best
Actor prize for 1976’s Network two months after
he died.
News of
Ledger’s death at age 28 from an accidental drug
overdose broke just hours after the Oscar nominations
were announced last January, darkening what normally is
one of Hollywood’s happiest days. The nominations next
year fall on the same date because they were moved back
two days from their traditional Tuesday announcement to
avoid conflicting with the presidential inauguration.
With
nothing remotely like the maniacal Joker among his
credits beforehand, Ledger had been a surprising choice
to fans, some feeling he was too young, others sensing
he would not live up to the campy but earnest
performance Nicholson gave in 1989’s Batman. (The role
earned Nicholson a Golden Globe nomination, though he
did not make the Oscar cut.)
As
filming progressed last year, word began leaking from
the set about the feverishly psychotic persona Ledger
was creating.
With a
marketing campaign heavily focused on the Joker, the
movie trailers that followed presented a Joker with
sloppy, ominous clown makeup that looked as though it
had been applied in a windstorm. The brief footage
revealed a character whose cackling humor cannot conceal
the malevolent soul beneath.
“Whatever Heath channeled into, he’s found something
quite extraordinary,” Oldman said. “It’s arguably one of
the greatest screen villains I think I’ve ever seen.”
Fans
were hooked, but some were skeptical when Oscar buzz for
the performance started circulating after Ledger’s
death. Comic-book tales and other big action flicks
rarely are taken seriously by awards voters, who are
willing to honor them for technical achievements but
generally not for acting.
Skepticism dissolved once Warner Bros. began screenings
for The Dark Knight.
“Heath
Ledger didn’t so much give a performance as he
disappeared completely into the role,” filmmaker and
lifelong comics fan Kevin Smith said on his MySpace blog
after seeing The Dark Knight. “I know I’m not the
first to suggest this, but he’ll likely get at least an
Oscar nod [if not the win] for best supporting actor.”
Ledger’s
performance is surpassing even the sky-high expectations
hard-core fans have going in.
“He was
better than I thought he was going to be,” said Bill
Ramey, founder of the fan web site Batman-on-Film.com,
who caught an advance press screening. “I think he
legitimately would deserve an Oscar nomination, not just
out of sympathy to his passing, but because he was just
fantastic in the movie....It’s right up there with
Hannibal Lecter,” which earned Anthony Hopkins an Oscar
for The Silence of the Lambs.
Along
with Finch, past posthumous Oscar contenders include
James Dean, who was nominated for best actor twice after
his death, with 1955’s East of Eden and 1956’s
Giant.
The
other actors nominated after their deaths were Spencer
Tracy (1967’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner);
Ralph Richardson (1984’s Greystoke: The Legend of
Tarzan, Lord of the Apes); Massimo Troisi (1995’s
The Postman); and Jeanne Eagels (1929’s The
Letter).
The aura
surrounding Ledger since his death is a sign that, like
Dean, he could endure as a mythic figure of talent
silenced before his time. Ledger had a Best Actor
nomination for 2005’s Brokeback Mountain and was
considered a gifted performer just coming into his own.
That
will not necessarily improve his Oscar chances. Dean had
two shots after his death and lost both.
“The
fact that only one actor has ever won an Oscar from the
grave tells us that in general at the Oscars, the
feeling is when you’re dead, you’re dead,” said Tom
O’Neil, a columnist for TheEnvelope.com, an awards web
site. “Maybe the point is that the Oscars are all about
hugs. Nobody wants to hug a dead guy.”
Oscar
voters tend to hand out the trophies for heroic or
sympathetic roles, so Ledger’s supremely evil
characterization could prove a drawback along with the
action-genre stigma.
Yet
there are notable instances when actors playing villains
made such an impression that academy members could not
resist voting for them.
Besides
Hopkins as cannibalistic killer Lecter, bad guys who won
include Fredric March in the title role of 1932’s Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; F. Murray Abraham as Mozart’s
mortal enemy in 1984’s Amadeus; Kathy Bates as a
novelist’s demented fan in 1990’s Misery; Denzel
Washington as a corrupt cop in 2001’s Training Day;
and Charlize Theron as a serial killer in 2003’s
Monster.
The last
two years have brought Oscar wins by Forest Whitaker as
brutal dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of
Scotland, Tilda Swinton as a murderously ruthless
attorney in Michael Clayton, Daniel Day-Lewis as
a savage oilman in There Will Be Blood and Javier
Bardem as a psychopathic killer in No Country for Old
Men.
“When a
performance as a villain is that memorable, it can be
held up as being that much more special,” said Chuck
Walton, managing editor of online movie-ticket site
Fandango.com. “Oscar voters have a lot of respect for
actors willing to really let themselves go and inhabit
darker roles.”
Warner
Bros. and the filmmakers are profuse in their praise of
Ledger but have been diplomatic about the Oscar talk.
Awards publicity generally pads a movie’s box office and
DVD receipts, and the studio has cautiously avoided any
appearance of profiting from the added attention
Ledger’s death has brought to the film.
The Dark
Knight
director Christopher Nolan sidestepped the Oscar
question, saying that he was simply happy that early
viewers were responding to the performance the way
Ledger would have liked. |
