Oh, you fools! Open your eyes!
I am a symbol of your humanity!
As many fans of Batman will know, the appearance of the Joker owes a good deal to Conrad Veidt's astonishing portrayal of the facially mutilated figure of Gwynplaine in The Man Who Laughs (1928); a silent romantic drama-cum-horror movie directed by the German Expressionist filmmaker Paul Leni (and an adaptation of Victor Hugo's 1869 novel L'Homme qui rit).
But what many readers of Daphne du Maurier don't realise is that her description of Julio - a creepy sex doll in one of her earliest short stories - also appears to be modelled on the above* and anticipates Gotham's most notorious supervillain, right down to the cocked eyebrow:
"His face was the most evil thing I have ever seen. It was ashen pale in colour, and the mouth was a crimson gash, sensual and depraved. The nose was thin, with curved nostrils, and the eyes were cruel, gleaming and narrow, and curiously still. They seemed to stare right through one - the eyes of a hawk. The hair was sleek and dark, brushed right back from the white forehead."
Heath Ledger as the Joker in
The Dark Knight (2008)**
Notes:
* Unfortunately, this cannot be the case; the film was released a year after du Maurier wrote 'The Doll' (aged twenty, in 1927).
** Heath Ledger's Joker - unlike Joaquin Phoenix's more recent (equally brilliant) portrayal - makes the relationship to Veidt's Gwynplaine clear by suggesting that the crimson-mouthed smile is the result of disfigurement rather than merely an expression of underlying madness.
* Unfortunately, this cannot be the case; the film was released a year after du Maurier wrote 'The Doll' (aged twenty, in 1927).
** Heath Ledger's Joker - unlike Joaquin Phoenix's more recent (equally brilliant) portrayal - makes the relationship to Veidt's Gwynplaine clear by suggesting that the crimson-mouthed smile is the result of disfigurement rather than merely an expression of underlying madness.
See: Daphne du Maurier, 'The Doll', in The Doll: Short Stories, (Virago, 2011), p. 23.
