A great insight into the final mental resting place for Heath Ledger, his character development “The Joker” diary is now being shared with the public. Since his untimely painkiller overdose in 2008, it’s been rumored as near fact that the embodiment of the Joker role for The Dark Night, outlined through these pages, was the cause of his death.
His diary is being shared as a video narrated by his father, Keith Ledger, as part of a recently released German documentary, Too Young To Die.
Opening the childish cover that hides twisted menacing thoughts, his father talks about the month Heath locked himself away in a London apartment to find his headspace for his character. The pages inside flip to reveal collages of images and text inspiration: clippings of comic strips, an iconic portrait of Alex DeLearge from A Clockwork Orange, photos of hyenas, clowns, and Batman’s previous Jokers.
The clip ends with Keith opening to the pages dedicated to the hospital scene, reminiscing on a young Heath being dressed by his sister in a nurse’s uniform and smiling at how it was funny then and even still silly and quite fitting in the film.
Such analytical, involved research seen page after page, is broken up with shots of the Oscar he won post-mortem for his role as a reminder this journal is the map that leads to his death. The very noted and detailed outline ends in a very fitting “BYE BYE” largely scribbled at the end of his otherwise, clear, analytical, in the lines, notes.
More from his diary is available to be seen on Too Young To Die.
Damn