演出很精彩，可惜你不在——紀念永遠的希斯·萊杰

記得第一次看到希斯·萊杰還是在2001年，當時就因為這個有著燦爛笑容的澳州金發(fā)少年居然讓原本無比挑剔的我看完了平淡如水的《騎士傳奇》，并深信：假以時日，他必定在好萊塢大放異彩。果然，《格林兄弟》、《卡薩諾瓦》、《斷背山》接踵而來，直至《蝙蝠俠6：黑暗騎士》為他短暫而輝煌的一生添上了最濃重而絢麗的色彩。《蝙蝠俠6》上映了，好評如潮，演出很精彩，可惜你不在！

It’s July 2007， in downtown Chicago， and the actor was originally scheduled to be shooting a scene in which he uses a pencil as a 1)lethal weapon. But the sequence has been postponed， and Ledger has the day off. Instead， we’re watching the cameras roll on a somewhat less 2)riveting moment in The Dark Knight: Billionaire Bruce Wayne， exhausted from his late-night crime-fighting 3)escapades， slumps into a a chair and falls asleep in the middle of a business meeting. That’s right， we’re watching Batman 4)take a nap.

No matter. Ledger is all over this set in another way—he’s all that anyone working on the movie wants to talk about. Director Christopher Nolan calls Ledger’s acting in the film “fearless.” Christian Bale， the Caped Crusader himself， says it’s “intense—a superb performance.” And 5)Morgan Freeman， who plays inventor Lucius Fox， 6)chimes in with a simple “extraordinary.” Even before a single frame of the film has been seen， Ledger’s twisted turn as the Joker—a part once played by no less an icon than 7)Jack Nicholson—is already building buzz as a dazzling， demented

8)tour de force.

“The guy has serious nuts，” Nolan says. “What I need was someone who wouldn’t be afraid of the comparison with Jack Nicholson. And then I saw Heath’s incredible performance in Brokeback Mountain. Such a lack of vanity. This was an actor who wasn’t afraid to bury himself in his character—to a massive extent.”

Nolan was right: Ledger was fearless. The actor seemed to have no misgivings at all about trespassing on Jack’s old 9)turf. On the contrary， Ledger’s 10)feral take on the Joker make Nicholson’s more gentlemanly clown in Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman look about as scary as 11)Cesar Romero. Of course， at the time—the summer of 2006—Ledger had reason to be confident. He’d just been nominated for his first Academy Award for Brokeback Mountain. A major role in a big studio franchise was the next logical step for Ledger’s career.

Nolan and Ledger 12)hit it off from the start. “We had the same take on the character，” the director says. “We didn’t have a script yet， but we had ideas. The idea of 13)anarchy as an absolute. The idea of chaos as the most frightening thing to society. The idea of a motiveless criminal， somebody who just wants to watch the world burn.” Some of those ideas were pretty 14)radical for a summer tentpole with a reported budget of $180 million. The Joker， for instance， is given no backstory in the film; he simply bursts into Gotham with the terrifying randomness of a 15)drive-by killer. Even as Nolan started folding those ideas into an actual script， Ledger was already slipping into the character’s skin. He spent months working with a voice coach 16)finetuning the Joker’s cackling 17)cadence. Ledger also gave plenty of thought to the makeup that would be splattered across his face throughout the film.

As the cameras started rolling in April 2007， Ledger continued to dig into the Joker’s coiled psyche. 18)Gary Oldman， who’s played a few nutjobs himself， recalls， “Heath is sort of looking at me， kind of under his brow， and then he just starts clapping. I remember going over to him between takes and saying， ‘You know， you remind me of Alex from A Clockwork Orange.’ And Heath said， ‘Yeah， yeah， yeah. Funnily enough， I was just watching that movie in my 19)trailer.’”

As serious a journey as Ledger took into the character， though， nobody recalls seeing the actor fall down any mental rabbit holes. Contrary to the speculation after his death， his work on The Dark Knight didn’t appear to 20)ruffle Ledger’s psychological health in the slightest. “Heath got the same kick out of acting that I do，” Bale says. “He enjoyed the sort of crazy immersion of acting. He took it incredibly seriously but simultaneously recognized how ridiculous it all is.” Oldman got a similar impression. “I know there are these rumors out there that playing the Joker drove him to his grave，” he says. “But I never say anything of that. He was always on time. He knew his part backwards and forwards. I just thought he was a really sweet kid.”

21)Perversely—or maybe predictably—the tragedy of Ledger’s death may draw ticket buyers who aren’t Batman fans but who want to pay the actor their last respects. Some observers predict that the movie could surpass Spider-Man to become the highest-grossing comic-book-based movie of all time. In an irony the Joker would appreciate， Heath Ledger’s last film is about to be the biggest hit of his life.

2007年7月在芝加哥的鬧市區(qū)，那位演員原本按計劃是要拍攝一場戲，戲中他將一支鉛筆用作了致命的武器。可是那幕戲被推遲了，于是萊杰那天可以休假一天。而我們看到攝像機拍攝《黑暗騎士》中另一幕不那么吸引人的場景：億萬富翁布魯斯·韋恩由于深夜忙于同罪惡做斗爭而筋疲力盡，在一次商務(wù)會議的中途倒在椅子里睡著了。沒錯，我們正看著蝙蝠俠打瞌睡。

沒關(guān)系。萊杰的影響力已經(jīng)以另一種方式彌漫了整部影片——每一個為這部電影工作的人都只想談?wù)撍?dǎo)演克里斯托弗·諾蘭稱萊杰在影片中的表演是“無所畏懼的”。克里斯蒂安·貝爾，這位斗篷戰(zhàn)士本人，也說萊杰的表演是“極端強烈的—— 一場華麗的演出”。而在片中飾演發(fā)明家盧修斯·福克斯的摩根·弗里曼則簡單地說了一個詞“非凡的”以表示贊同。盡管未上映的影片還處于完全保密的狀態(tài)，萊杰所扮演的“小丑”那扭曲的面容卻已經(jīng)以其耀眼而狂亂的絕活廣為流傳了，而這個角色之前是由傳奇偶像杰克·尼科爾森扮演的。……