The Joker!!

There are times when a certain character influences you so much that you totally sink yourself into that character. The heroes are usually the glorified ones in films but when I saw "The Dark Knight (2008)", I feel in love with "The Joker". I rarely watch latest movies and when it comes to English flicks the rarefaction is even higher. After a lot of persuasion from my friends, I saw "Inception (2010)" about a year ago and was taken aback by the film. Christopher Nolan's dialogues, narration, casting, screenplay and the enormous amount of research pumped in crafting that film was truly phenomenal. Then, recently one of my friends gave me The Batman Trilogy and Nolan didn't disappoint me in this either. All three movies were fast with a lot of science and I enjoyed watching every second of it.The second part was the BEST.

Coming to "The Joker", played by Heath Ledger, his dialogues were the ones that caught my attention first followed by his acting. He has lived that character in the movie; not just acted.Though, he isn't alive now, he continues to live in the minds of people as "The Joker". All his dialogues, are like quotes which are to be inscribed in a stone and make people understand the reality of Life.He was rightly rewarded the in the Academy Awards (also called as Oscars) as "The Best Supporting Actor" but sadly he couldn't collect it himself.

I restate some of his dialogues here and for some I give my opinions about it. Some are harsh, some might not apply to all, some could be very extreme but all these are in a way true and are unobjectionable.

1."If you're good at something, never do it for free." - This quote is self-explanatory.

2. "Oh, you. You just couldn't let me go, could you? This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You truly are incorruptible, aren't you? You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness. And I won't kill you because you're just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever."

- This quote was addressed to "The Batman" in the movie and "I" refers to him. But, I look at it otherwise. I see "I" here as our conscience. All of us have this battle of decision and to always do the GOOD things in our lives. Our mind raises an enormity of questions as to "What to do?" when a tinge of EVIL starts infecting us. No human is immune to EVIL in this world. This is a harsh reality but true. What keeps us incorruptible as it's mentioned here is "the misplaced sense of self-righteousness". The unstoppable force meets an immovable object is an omnipotence paradox. And this battle of choosing the right over wrong have to be done by us forever. 

3. "All it takes just one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day."

-This quote is not from the movie "The Dark Knight" but it substantiates the previous quote. We need to keep thinking good and doing good always and every time. We are vulnerable to EVIL.

4. "Do I really look like a guy with a plan? You know what I am? I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it. You know, I just... do things. The mob has plans, the cops have plans, Gordon's got plans. You know, they're schemers. Schemers trying to control their little worlds. I'm not a schemer. I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are.You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that, like, a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all "part of the plan." But when I say that one little old mayor will die, well then everyone loses their minds! "

- This is an interesting observation. We lose our minds when the sequence is missed. Most of us want to lead a structured life or rather a limited life, in the words of Steve Jobs. We want our life to be the way we have visualized it to be. When a little anarchy sets in, we lose almost everything. There are many external factors which influences our Life apart from our thoughts and actions. We can't channelize our life based on any algorithm. We just have to let it flow through the meanders and with the hope that it will definitely reach the sea.

5. "Don't talk like one of them, you're not! Even if you'd like to be. To them, you're just a freak, like me. They need you right now. But when they don't, they'll cast you out, like a leper. See, their morals, their code... it's a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They're only as good as the world allows them to be. I'll show you, when the chips are down, these... these civilized people will eat each other. See, I'm not a monster, I'm just ahead of the curve."

- This is my favorite "The Joker" quote. It explains how people in reality use you. I find most of the people in our world will be in conformance to the above quote. "They will drop you at the first sign of trouble" is the bitter reality which is existing in our world. Most of them want to keep "their hands clean". Darwin's theory of Survival of the fittest has a different explanation now.

6. "You see, madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push!"

- Wonderful explanation as to how people become lunatic very easily. Also explains the vulnerability of human mind in getting eclipsed with EVIL.

7. "Why so serious?" 

-The smallest quote but can be interpreted in many ways. I don't want to get serious with this :P Try to be calm and lets coexist with this world and accept certain realities instead of fooling ourselves by not believing it.

Love,

Ram Thilak