Chapter 606: This Is the Joker

To prove that Spielberg was a mediocre director, French director Jean-Luc Godard once angrily declared: "If you really want to know why he's mediocre, I'll break his movies down shot by shot for you to see, and explain it to you."

Of course, in the eyes of the vast majority of people in this world, Spielberg was absolutely not a mediocre director.

However, Jean-Luc Godard's words were not without reason. If you broke any movie down into individual shots, they all looked quite mediocre.

In other words, no matter how brilliant a movie was, it was fundamentally composed of shots that looked very mediocre when viewed individually.

This was a trial.

Nicolas Cage and Anne Hathaway sat confidently at the prosecutors' table. Even though they were facing Gotham's most famous mob boss, they were confident they could bring him to justice.

Sitting behind the director's monitor, Duke kept his eyes entirely on Nicolas Cage. Compared to Anne Hathaway, who was acting as eye candy, and the other actors serving as background dressing, he was the focal point of the scene.

Perhaps because his early preparations had been thorough enough, Nicolas Cage's performance was excellent.

"Since Marconi is in a psychiatric hospital, someone will definitely step up to take charge of this so-called family."

Walking over to the witness stand, Nicolas Cage used body language to enhance his performance. "Is that person in the courtroom today?"

The witness slowly nodded.

Nicolas Cage offered a confident smile. "Please point him out yourself."

"You win, prosecutor." The witness suddenly flashed an eerie smile. "That person is me."

Hearing this, the smile on Nicolas Cage's face instantly vanished, replaced by a look of surprise, but he reacted extremely quickly. He walked over to his table, grabbed a deposition, and said righteously, "You swore to this testimony. This person..."

He pointed at the character played by Eric Roberts. "Salvatore Maroni is the new head of the Marconi mafia family."

"Maroni? He's just a puppet," the witness said naturally. "I am the real boss."

Laughter erupted in the courtroom. Nicolas Cage walked up to the judge and said, "I ask the court to rule this as malicious testimony."

"Malicious testimony?"

Before the judge could speak, the witness interjected, "I'll show you what malicious means!"

With that, he pulled out a black handgun, aimed it at Nicolas Cage, and pulled the trigger.

Nicolas Cage looked slightly stunned, seemingly bewildered as to how the man had managed to bring a handgun into a courtroom with such strict security. However, the gun only emitted the click of a firing pin. No bullet fired.

He reacted incredibly quickly, grabbing the gun with one hand and throwing a punch with the other, knocking the witness straight to the floor. He then snatched the gun away.

Up to this point in the shoot, Nicolas Cage's performance left Duke very satisfied. The former Oscar Best Actor winner seemed to be in excellent form today.

Next, however, Duke frowned slightly. When Nicolas Cage dismantled the handgun, he made an obvious little mistake. He had to try ejecting the magazine twice before it finally came out.

However, Duke didn't call cut. Cage was in great form right now, and even if this take needed a reshoot, Duke could use this opportunity to let him become more familiar with the role.

Nicolas Cage also realized he had made a mistake. Seeing that Duke hadn't called cut, he continued his performance.

"Carbon fiber, .28 caliber..." Looking at the handgun, he stepped up to the main camera and said, "Made in Russia!"

He turned to look at Maroni. "If you want to kill a public servant, Mr. Maroni, I recommend you buy American."

The scene ended there. Duke watched it back once more before calling out toward the set, "Nicolas, come here for a second."

Nicolas Cage immediately walked over. "Sorry, Duke. I made a little mistake."

"It's fine."

Filming had only just begun, so actors making mistakes was a very normal occurrence. Duke had the assistant director replay the shot they had just filmed for Nicolas Cage before speaking again. "That punch of yours wasn't fast enough, and then there's the gun."

Seeing Nicolas Cage nod, Duke continued, "This isn't an isolated shot. It has an important connection to Harvey Dent's later transformation. A clean, swift punch shows he's not just a simple desk-jockey prosecutor. Expertly popping the magazine out afterward, and even making the motion to clear the chamber, sets the stage for his proficient use of firearms later on."

Why did Harvey Dent become so formidable after turning into Two-Face? These things all needed foreshadowing. This courtroom scene was actually establishing that this prosecutor wasn't just brains, but also brawn.

This shot inevitably had to be filmed again. Nicolas Cage gave another NG take, but on the second redo, Duke called it a pass.

"Moving on!" He turned his head, just about to give the assistant director a few instructions, only to find that the person behind him was now Tina Fey. He couldn't help but ask, "When did you get here?"

Tina Fey first handed him a cup of water before answering, "I got here right around the time Nicolas Cage said the gun was made in Russia."

Duke took the cup, took a sip, and said, "Have someone go check on Heath Ledger and see if he's done with makeup."

As the crew continued their transition to the next set, Duke temporarily handed the reins over to Anna Printz while he chatted a bit with Tina Fey.

Over these past few years, Tina Fey had spent less and less time hovering by his side, gradually taking charge on her own. She was responsible for negotiating many of Duke's affairs, and she also handled the work he found inconvenient or had no time to deal with.

For instance, heading to the other side of the Pacific Ocean in July to attend the formal signing for Warner Fox World.

Warner Brothers and News Group had already signed the formal contract, with an investment amount reaching as high as 30 billion dollars. The project's design phase would follow shortly, but construction wouldn't begin until around 2009 at the earliest, and the grand opening would take even longer.

However, Duke wasn't worried about the speed of capital recovery on this front. From the moment the project contract was formally signed, Warner Brothers, News Group, and even Tina Fey—representing Duke—had become the number one PR targets for countless banks on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. Securing a loan would be an absolute breeze.

The joint project team formed by Warner Brothers and News Group had also finalized their loan strategy. Ninety-nine percent of Warner Fox World's construction funds would be acquired through bank loans, using the park's future ticket revenue as collateral.

Chatting about matters on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, Duke and Tina Fey walked onto the adjacent shooting stage. The space had been dressed as an interrogation room. A fully made-up Heath Ledger was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, seemingly trying to find the feel of his character.

Following behind Duke, Tina Fey glanced at the young actor. The vibe this Australian gave her was extremely eerie, just like the makeup smeared across his face.

She then looked to the other side. Christian Bale had already donned the Batsuit and was pacing back and forth beside the interrogation table, seemingly muttering something under his breath.

Although she hadn't gone down the path of an actor, Tina Fey had been by Duke's side for many years. She knew very well that every actor had their own quirks, which were often their way of getting into the right mindset.

Walking over to his chair, Duke waved over an assistant director. After getting a rundown on the progress of the various preparations, he had him notify the crew to start rolling.

"Scene two, take one..." The clapperboard was placed in front of the camera lens. "Action!"

The set lights suddenly flared. Like a phantom, Batman appeared behind Heath Ledger, grabbed his head, and slammed it "heavily" onto the table.

Heath Ledger held his forehead with one hand and looked at Batman, who had moved around to the front. What came out of his mouth seemed like complete nonsense. "Never start with the head. The victim gets all fuzzy. Then they can't feel the next... punishment..."

Batman attacked again, but the Joker showed no reaction.

"See?" He looked at Batman.

"You wanted me. Here I am..."

Watching the monitor, Duke could tell this was an unbalanced scene even without paying too much attention. Heath Ledger slipped into character incredibly fast; he had clearly done ample preparation. It wasn't that Christian Bale's performance was bad, but in the face of the Joker, it just seemed inferior.

Fortunately, he still had a mask on his face, which could make up for the character's shortcomings to some extent.

It was just that Heath Ledger in his Joker getup in front of the camera was far too eye-catching.

On that decaying face caked with white powder was a bizarre, twitching mouth. The blood-red lips looked as if they were continually tearing apart at the edges, spitting out string after string of shocking words.

Duke had heard crew members mention it. After studying the character alone in his hotel, to achieve the effect outlined in the script, Heath Ledger had gone on to study ventriloquism. He had even undergone specialized training just to pull off the effect of his mouth moving while the sound didn't quite seem to come from it—creating a jarring disconnect between his lips and his voice.

"I don't want to kill you at all." Heath Ledger let out an eerie laugh. "What would I do without you? Go back to extorting the mobs? No way, I definitely don't want to do that."

"You..." He seemed to turn a bit more serious. "You complete me..."

The Joker was an incessant chatterbox. He had his own complete philosophy. The Joker wasn't removed from society; rather, he was right in the middle of it, engaging in face-to-face contests with people.

He also believed he had grasped a certain "truth" about human nature. This "truth" was that "in the final moments of life, people will reveal their true colors." He was referring to their cowardly and corrupt nature.

When faced with moments of life and death, not only would an individual's sense of justice and honor be smashed to the ground and crumble away, but the laws they lived by and the rules they originally followed would also vanish into thin air. When disaster had not yet struck, everyone wanted to believe they were just and decent. However, "with just a little disaster, they piss themselves in terror," and "the moment things go south, these civilized people will eat each other."

This was the Joker: a man who cared for no standards whatsoever, someone who wanted to break every rule there was.