LOS ANGELES??You?re going to have to just see it in the film,? answered Chris Nolan, director of ?The Dark Knight,? when we asked him about Heath Ledger?s take on The Joker when we visited the movie?s Chicago set in August last year.

We finally saw the film last Wednesday. It was heartbreaking to see that indeed, Heath gave one of his best performances in his last film. The actor, who accidentally overdosed on medications last January, is frightening as the grotesque, paint-smeared Joker. It?s as if the macabre clown paint on his face freed him as an actor to come up with a completely different, unexpected version of this cinematic villain.

Slightly hunched, and using a voice that swings from high to low (he reportedly came up with the idea based on a ventriloquist dummy), Heath is unforgettable as Batman?s arch nemesis. Only 28 when he died, Heath is a haunting presence in the film. This early, there?s talk of posthumous best actor nominations.

Now we understand why Chris had a hard time putting into words what the actor was going for. ?What Heath brings to The Joker is really very difficult to describe,? Chris said when he sat down for an interview with visiting journalists in between takes at the old IBM building in the Windy City?s downtown. ?What Heath is doing is nothing like the performance of Jack Nicholson, Cesar Romero or any of the other people who have played The Joker over the years. It?s very specific to this story. Heath has been guided by the script that Jonah, David Goyer and myself have put together. He?s bringing this extraordinary intensity to the character. I think he?s going to be absolutely terrifying.?

Larger than life

Chris added, ?What we tried to do in ?Batman Begins? is make the most realistic version of the characters. We want to push that further with this film. Obviously, some of the characters are very much larger than life such as The Joker but he?s still a grounded character. He?s still somebody who can exist in the world we?ve created.?

Aaron Eckhart, cast as District Attorney (DA) Harvey Dent who becomes Two Face, was so taken with Heath?s portrayal that he brought it up himself during our on-set talk with him: ?It?s interesting to watch Heath. He is going to be unbelievable in this movie. I don?t think he is taking his cues off any other actors.?

Emma Thomas, who produced the movie with her director-husband, Chris, and Charles Roven, chimed in: ?The main difference between what Heath is doing and what Jack Nicholson did is that Heath?s Joker very much fits into our world of Batman. He?s the sort of villain that you would expect in the Chris Nolan Batman universe, which is a bit more of a realistic but a heightened reality type of place. It?s very real. What Heath is doing is really incredible. Once people see the movie, they?re just going to be blown away and they will no longer consider Jack Nicholson?s version as the definitive Joker.?

?Heath?s Joker is very much based on the comic books,? Emma continued. ?When we made ?Batman Begins,? we never even looked at those last ?Batman? movies because we just looked at the original source material. That?s what we?ve done again with The Joker.?

Character progression

Heath was not scheduled to shoot any scenes that day. Instead, we saw Aaron?s DA preside over a press conference with Christian Bale in the crowd as Bruce Wayne. After numerous takes, Christian also sat down for a chat. He said that ?The Dark Knight,? even with its heightened reality and brooding villains in Aaron and Heath, isn?t any darker than ?Batman Begins.?

?I don?t feel that the film is darker per se,? Christian stated. He cited his character?s progression: ?Batman starts from a very dark place with what drives him to become the character in the first place. It (?The Dark Knight?) is just broadening the horizons of Gotham and the questions he must ask himself. In the first movie, that was a very introspective thing. Batman is very much a loner, into his own thoughts. In this one, he opens up more in his thoughts of looking at the bigger picture. He realizes that he has actually taken on much more than he had ever imagined.?

Indeed, Batman has his hands full dealing with frightening villains in Chris and Christian?s follow-up to their commercially and critically successful ?Batman Begins.? The director said, ?To me, one of the things that these films explore is the concept of an outlaw society?the different types of outlaw behavior and vigilantes?which is a perennial issue with urban behavior and blight. So where Batman fits into that is very controversial and difficult. But what makes him an interesting super hero is that Batman is not a god. He?s not like Superman, who is obviously a good guy from outer space and a god-like figure.

Dangerous, heroic figure

?Batman is not a god. He?s one of us so we can all judge him in terms of what?s doing. He?s a very dangerous yet heroic figure and that?s what I think makes him vulnerable. He?s vulnerable to a psychopath like The Joker, to somebody who has figured his weak spots. Those spots are interesting because they all relate to lines he won?t cross. He won?t kill people, won?t carry a gun.?

During a lull in the shooting and interviews, we ran our fingers on Batman?s newest toy, a gray and silver motorcycle equipped with cannons, machine guns and hooks known as the Batpod.

After the interviews, we moved to a corner space in the building with huge windows so we could watch Chris direct a spectacular scene: Two National Guard helicopters carrying troops flying so low and close together over the Chicago River. Extras dressed as rifle-carrying National Guard troops were down on the streets.

E-mail the columnist at rvnepales_5585@yahoo.com and read his blog, ?The Nepales Report,? on http://blogs.inquirer.net/nepalesreport.