I’ve just been commissioned to produce a painting showing the triumvirate of best-known cinematic Jokers. This will be an interesting task because, although I have caricatured them all separately before (shown here, throughout), I have never approached them as a grouping. Finding a way to tie them together into a coherent composition will be the key to the painting’s success.
I suppose the unifying factor of the three character interpretations is that they were all very dark, in their own ways. Jack Nicholson’s exuberant performance featured in a movie that seemed especially dark on its release, largely because it was such a departure from the silliness of the ‘60s TV incarnation of Batman. Heath Ledger took matters much further, with his vision of a terrifying ‘agent of chaos’ with no hint of any redeeming qualities. And Joaquin Phoenix’s take was no less terrifying, but we were at least shown a transformation from a highly vulnerable, forgotten individual to an attention-seeking, unpredictable killer.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Face Ache to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.