by Kenneth Andrews

Created on: August 23, 2008

Dark Knight (2008) and Batman (1989) both feature unforgettable performances from great actors in the same role - the psychotic Joker, a gangster with a penchant for deadly comedy and anarchic chaos.

Heath Ledger and Jack Nicholson's performances are both iconic, there are no question. But which is better? At this point, TV's Harry Hill would say: 'There's only one way to find out - FIGHT!' But perhaps we don't have to be quite so crude.

Jack Nicholson plays the Joker as a flamboyant comic book villain, shot through with his own unique star persona. He might be playing the Joker, but he's very much Jack. The snarling delivery, the slightly sleazy charm, it's all there.

Heath Ledger on the other hand, is in a film that seeks to challenge and react against what we expect from superhero movies. His Joker is a scarred, grungy, messed-up sociopath, clown make-up smeared clumsily across his face. Aside from his incredibly cool suit, there is no flamboyance about him, he croaks, he shambles around, he sniggers rather than laughs. This Joker is a much more human villain, and he's all the more real and terrifying for it.

Which is fine. But you know what? You can make the lighting as dark as you want, and the script as sombre and dark as you want, but these will still be films based on a 1940s comic strip about a man who dresses up as a damn BAT to fight crime. There is a hard core of camp and silliness that - while Batman & Robin proved it shouldn't be embraced - can't be wholly ignored.

Jack Nicholson and the Tim Burton / Michael Keaton Batman films as a whole will, I'm confident, stand the test of the time to become the definitive screen rendition of Batman. Jack Nicholson's Joker fills the twin requirements of being an effective screen villain while acknowledging the comic strip roots with deadly electric buzzers and sulphuric acid spraying buttonholes. There's also the facial performance, the scenes where despite still grinning broadly, Jack's eyes convey rage, anger, bloodlust and, well, lust. Ledger has gone for a blank-eyed psychopath's approach, relying a great deal on the stunning make-up to convey the character.

And, let's face it, the main reason Heath Ledger's performance is so extraordinary and has generated such attention isn't the actor's untimely death. It's the fact that the production team clearly spent MONTHS trying to think of a way of portraying the Joker which would escape Jack Nicholson's incredibly big shadow. While Ledger's Joker is an effective villain in his own right, Nicholson will always remain the definitive article, juxtaposing naive poetry and anarchic fun with viciously sadistic violence.

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