Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2011 9:43 amIs there anything about this movie that hasn't been dissected a hundred times by this point? Probably not. The following is just more of a personal observation that has steadily grown on me recently.
It's not subtle that the Joker doesn't fear death in this movie. What I hadn't fully grasped until recently is just how consistently suicidal he appears to be. In almost every scene he appears in, he places himself in potentially fatal jeopardy, and often actively pushes people to try and kill him. It feels like dying was always part of his plan, and he would have been okay with dying at almost any point during it. It starts off with relatively lower risks, like his coat full of grenades, or appearing at the mayor's assassination attempt in person. But once he gets to the point where Harvey's downfall is pretty much guaranteed, and the plan could continue on without him, it starts to ramp up. During the interrogation, he tries to goad Batman into killing him. He gives Harvey a 50/50 chance of killing him at the hospital. He laughs hysterically when he falls from the building, and seems genuinely disappointed when Batman saves him. It feels like he would have considered any of those deaths as a fitting punchline, since they would all involve dragging someone down to his level.