Why so serious?

Alright. I am in a good disposition. I watched Jeremy Clarkson: Heaven and Hell tonight and had a good laugh before AGT came on. (There is a great irony to spending the evening watching these two back-to-back. Two Aries men who loathe each other but who I like. Good times.) I've said this before but it's worth repeating: Jez is one of the funniest men on TV. I can be having a crapper of a day and if I watch Top Gear, I am happy again, laughing my ass off. The ep where the boys go to America is classic for many reasons. One of the parts I love is when Jeremy picks up a turtle (probably a mean-ass snapping turtle like we have around here) and I guess it tries to bite him or pee on him and he flings it down and screams, "Don't do that, tortoise!" It's like on Mr. Show when Bob dresses up as the milking machine (www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4xr-C9ecZk) and sings his little heart out. It goes from simply being funny to being outright precious.

On to the Joker - Mephistopheles connection.

THIS WILL CONTAIN FILM SPOILERS! BE ADVISED!

I still wish I could find the exact image I saw on the preview that spawned this line of thought. If I am ever able, I will create a split-screen for you so you can better appreciate just how similar the facial expression is. I think the pronounced widow's peak and severely upturned eyebrows of Emil Jannings relate well to the pronounced red smile over knife scars and black, smeary eyebrows of Heath Ledger's Joker.

As characters, this is what I would put in the similarities column:

*I think the chief aspect the two have in common is that they are both instigators. In both Goethe's Faust and Murnau's Faust, Mephistopheles goads Faust into doing things he wouldn't do with his own devices. Once the situation crumbles, Mephisto offers no comfort to Faust and instead laughs at his misery and uses it to persuade Faust to get into even more problems. In like fashion, the Joker in TDK likes to create dilemmas for people and laugh as they attempt to escape. An example of this is his planting of bombs on the boats and waiting to see which set of people will detonate the bombs first. One can imagine Mephisto convincing Faust to kill someone and then laughing at the consquences-- just as he did when Faust kills Valentin.

*Both characters infuse their conduct with humor. This is very clear with the Joker as he is laughing, making jokes and wearing clownish make-up in the film. But it is also Mephisto's way, too, although he is less obvious. Throughout Goethe's Faust in particular, Mephistopheles has some of the best lines and is downright laugh-out-loud funny in places. He is a lively character who serenades with a guitar and compares himself to a horny tomcat climbing up fire escapes looking for sex. Like the Joker, no matter how wicked he may be, he is never dull.

*Both characters have a flamboyant style of dress. The Joker, of course, is in clown make-up and in the film, he wears custom suits in the standard blue, green and purple. In Goethe's Faust, Mephistopheles changes his wardrobe several times but for the occasions when he and Faust are going out about the town, he wears a scarlet and gold outfit with a large plume in his cap and a sword at his side. When they go to a witch's kitchen together, the witch does not even recognize Mephisto as either Satan or an agent of Satan (take your pick on this issue) because he is so well-groomed and is not displaying his cloven hooves to her. In Murnau's film, Mephisto wears such an ensemble complete with a cape and rapier.

*As I mentioned in my comparison of Hannibal Lecter and Mephisto, I believe both Mephisto and the Joker have their own senses of justice. The Joker either does not believe in the concept of justice or does not care. In the film, he tells Harvey Dent that anarchy is preferable to a predictable, orderly society. Likewise, Mephisto prods Faust to live a life that involves doing whatever he wants, whenever he wants with no thought to the consequences. Mephisto envisions Faust living as a law unto himself and suffering for it.

*Both characters engage in criminal and/or immoral behavior, also like the Mephisto-Hannibal comparison.

Disparities:

Overall, I think Heath Ledger's Joker is more fatalistic about life. He doesn't value his life, doesn't value the lives of others and does not seem to have a clear goal in mind. He seems determined to amass tons of money yet we never see him going on a shopping spree to enjoy the cash. It's almost like he's stealing it because it's there, he's a criminal, and it will screw up someone else's life. He kills his own henchmen. He seems to have a genuine mental illness as opposed to Jack Nicholson's Joker who was an arrogant mobster dumped into a vat of chemicals. Yep, that'd make anyone go nuts if they lived through it. Jack Nicholson's Joker had been bad from the start of his life, it seemed, and appeared to be the typical gangster gone mad. With Heath Ledger's Joker, we don't really get any exposition like that. The Joker appears, does what he does and no explanations are made. In a way you could compare that to Hannibal Lecter who insists that no circumstances "made" him the way he is, he just is. With Mephistopheles, in Goethe's play and in Murnau's film, he serves a purpose. Like it or not, he is an agent of God. He tries to tempt Faust away but in the end, Faust is forgiven. Mephisto wants Faust to stop striving, to stop having a conscience, to just be sated and complacent. But Faust does not do this and it spoils Mephisto's plan. Nevertheless, with the Prologue in Heaven, we understand that Meph is part of an orderly universe that God has created.


Ok. It's about time to wind it down for the night. I feel the sleep crowding in the corners of my eyeballs.


zzzzzzzz