“ After Ledger’s death in January, his penultimate performance (with Terry Gilliam’s “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” still to come) will be viewed with both tremendous excitement and unavoidable sadness. It’s a tribute to Ledger’s indelible work that he makes the viewer entirely forget the actor behind the cracked white makeup and blood-red rictus grin, so complete and frightening is his immersion in the role. With all due respect to the enjoyable camp buffoonery of past Jokers like Cesar Romero and Jack Nicholson, Ledger makes them look like — well, clowns.
