Posted on 10/03/2019 12:14:40 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Where does evil come from? Joker offers the most banal answer imaginable — budget cuts for social workers — but it’s a devastatingly effective portrait of a serial killer in formation, bringing to mind a long, sickening line of American psychos.
More than any comic-book movie to date, Joker, directed with a fierce commitment by Todd Phillips, eschews entertainment and dares to repel a sizable proportion of the potential audience. With an awful foreboding, it drills into the psychic pain of Arthur Fleck — failed clown, failed standup comic, failed human. Joaquin Phoenix gives one of the creepiest performances ever put on film as Arthur, a product of the manifold breakdowns of 1970s New York City, here barely disguised as Gotham City. Phoenix’s rancid torment jangles the nerves and turns the stomach.
Set in a 1981 urban hell piled with garbage and overrun by rats, Joker channels the notorious misfits of the era, including fictional ones: Mark David Chapman, John Hinckley, Bernhard Goetz, Travis Bickle (whose actions inspired Hinckley, the failed assassin of President Reagan), and Rupert Pupkin (an entertainment-industry isotope of Bickle). The presence in Joker of Robert De Niro, as a talk-show host much like the one who obsessed Pupkin in The King of Comedy, signals that Phillips wishes to re-create a bleary vision of urban squalor that inspired a singular period of cinema, perhaps the bleakest and most potent one ever.
Though Phillips has previously specialized in comedies such as The Hangover, he has made the least funny of the DC or Marvel movies. Joker is brilliantly done, searingly filmed, and so drenched in its seamy milieu that you can practically feel the roaches skittering under your feet. The score by Iceland’s Hildur Guonadottir and production design by Mark Friedberg are spectacular. But a word of caution: Many viewers will find it more nauseating than enthralling. Women in particular are likely to find Phoenix and Phillips’s relentless nastiness too much to take. Although the Bruce Wayne family makes several appearances, there is none of the usual comic-book movie catharsis, none of the leavening jokiness of a Marvel movie, no roguish charm, no Joker delightedly sticking his head out the window of a truck like a golden retriever. Phoenix’s Joker is merely a greasy, mentally unbalanced loser of the kind best avoided on trains or a dark urban block, the kind that women in particular want nothing to do with, maybe not even in a movie.
As is most often the case, Arthur’s problems are traceable to an inability to connect with women; he is alienated from the mom he still lives with (Frances Conroy), who once worked for the business leader Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen). He yearns for a kind word from a cute single mom (Zazie Beetz) who lives down the hall in his squalid apartment building. He also has a bizarre tic: He bursts into laughter for no reason, completely out of context. Phoenix’s utterly mirthless laugh is one of the most chilling details of this amazingly detailed film.
Arthur scratches out a living in clown attire, doing odd jobs such as trying to attract customers outside of stores or doing sad gigs at children’s hospitals. When he comes to suspect that Thomas Wayne is his father, he begins to plot revenge, but meanwhile a Johnny Carson–like TV comic (De Niro) mocks a tape of his standup act, and he has an encounter with three Wall Street guys on one of those eerily desolate, graffiti-covered subway cars of the era. Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck couldn’t possibly be a worthy challenger to someone like Batman (who hasn’t been created yet), but what he has is something more chilling than cartoon super-villainy: an army of fellow incels, all of them dressed as clowns and ready to make the world burn. Arthur embodies the question of what happens when the folk-hero status of Bernhard Goetz and other vigilantes gets taken to an extreme. A Batman series set in such a morally and literally filthy city, a Sodom of diseased souls that can’t be fixed by cleaning up a few criminals, seems to beckon. What if Batman had a city full of Travis Bickle–Bernhard Goetz loners to deal with?
That factor has brought up a lot of discussion among the first audiences to see the film: By filtering the world through a Joker lens, is the film sympathetic to him? Does it tell diseased weirdos that there is an army of fellow angry losers out there who are waiting to mobilize and riot if only someone would fire the starting gun? Some critics are all but predicting that real-world violence will result from this movie. I’d say those who harbor the potential to be mass murderers have such nonlinear minds that it’s pointless to try to anticipate their reasoning, much less intentionally dilute one’s art to make it less disturbing. Joker does explore a real problem that is much on all of our minds, the problem of violent psychosis, and some will recoil from it. As a cinematic portrait of one shattered American, though, it is spellbinding.
Joker is a sadistic rapist killer if you read the comics and watch the modern cartoons.
Dirty Harry is an “antihero” who operates outside the law. For that matter the vigilante justice of Batman nudges him into antihero status.
Eraserhead was a romantic comedy, at least according to this trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk8Pb8p4qNM
American Psycho is a bigger piece of anti-human crap than the mockumentary that is Man Bites Dog.
Why on earth would ANYONE want to see this movie?
Sounds like a light-hearted comedy to me.
/sarc
Since when is Bernie Goetz a loser?
As I recall, wasn’t he just a crime victim who mistakenly exercised his second amendment right to defend himself in a city which frowned on it?
I don’t understand, do not people carry with the objective to defend oneself against assault?
I went to see it last night. Totally over-hyped. It was lame.
Joaquin did a great job but it’s not enough to drag the boring story across the line. It’s been hyped as gritty, disturbing, and violent. It is not as gritty, disturbing, or violent as your basic Walking Dead episode. Unfortunate let down with a great performance from the main actor.
Some choose to carry with peace & clarity of mind.
Some choose to carry with angst, fear, & malice.
Didn’t know that. Thanks.
I couldn’t finish American Psycho. I hear the ending is cute: did he really kill those people or did he just imagine it???
My brother is one of the fanboys who bought all the hype for Ledger's "Joker" (who I think was Joker-In-Name-Only, he didn't have green hair or an evil toothy grin, and I don't recall the character even laughing much or making silly macabre puns while committing horrible crimes).
Like all the buzz on the internet, he immediately declared Ledger was the greatest Joker of all time, it was an Oscar worthy performance, and nobody will ever top it, and that Ledger's Joker is the definitive version because The Dark Knight was soooo much more "darker" and "serious" and "grounded in reality" than the "cartoonish" Jack Nicholson version.
Now, a decade later, he saw Joaquin Phoenix's "Joker" opening night. I talked to him the other day and his reaction was... Phoenix is now the greatest Joker of all time, it was an Oscar worthy performance, and nobody will ever top it, and that Phoenix Joker is the definitive version because THIS Joker movie was soooo much more "darker" and "scary" and "dealt with real world issues about mental illness" than the "summer action movie" Heath Ledger version.
Fickle bunch, aren't they?
Give the fan boys another decade, they will find a new favorite when a shiny new flashy movie with the Joker character is released.
As for me, I like my comic book movies being, well, like a comic book. The character IS supposed to be "silly", he's not Hannibal Lecter, he's a COMIC BOOK VILLAIN named THE JOKER. Besides, I'm all Jokered out, have little interest after seeing a dozen Jokers-on-screen in recent decades. DC Comics can call me when they decide to do a Batman villain we HAVEN'T seen on the big screen before, like Clayface. And yes, Nichalson remains my favorite live action Joker and its unlikely my opinion will change. Have you ever danced with the devil by the pale moonlight?
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Maybe they can have a woman play Joker next time. Cameron Diaz wouldn’t even need special makeup.
Hmmm. Never considered that, but now that you mentioned it, that will probably actually be their next step.
Rather than try something risky by having to tell an original comic book story on the big screen, or be bold and adapt one of the dozens of other Batman villains we HAVEN'T seen in a live action movie (Clayface, Firefly, Hush, Hugo Strange, Mad Hatter, Man-Bat, Ventriloquist, Solomon Grundy, Calendar Man, etc.), I can see some Hollywood studio execs trying to mine the whole "Joker" character again in a decade because he has "name ID" with audiences, but casting a woman to play the role so they claim they're doing some "new and different" and being edgy, then calling everyone sexist if we have zero interest in seeing it. Plus, any film critic who dislikes the actresses' portrayal can also be accused of being a misogynist pig who just dislikes seeing woman in leading roles.
And whoever they cast, some kooky FReepers will applaud it and claim that having a woman as the Joker is somehow "closer to the comics" and fits with Bob Kane's original vision for the character. Better than Joaquin Phoenix's iconic 2019 version? YUP! You heard it here first.
I think Liberace would have been a better Joker than Cesar Romero.
Mark Hamil was the best Joker, period.
I saw “Joker” over the weekend. I liked it, good performance, my favorite “Bruce Wayne’s parents get shot” scene (obligitoray in ALL Batman works) easily. I was freaked out by Phoenix’s bony chest, method acting.
I thought Ledger was good, but not “oh my god I’m creaming my pants he’s so great”. It’s cause he died, it’s like with frigging JFK.
Never saw Leto’s version.
As far as the movie versions go, acting performances aside, Nicholson is easily the one that came closest to what I think the character should be. Ledger and Phoenix were both compelling but deviated from the traditional joker considerably. It’s hard for me to imagine Phoenix’s Joker going to toe with Batman.
Blaming movies (or video games) for real violence is just as silly as blaming gun owners.
The vast majority of people who watch a violent movie or tv show don’t go out and hurt people. The rest of us shouldn’t have to watch nothing but “Leave it to Beaver” or give up our firearms because of a few psychotics.
“I thought Ledger was good, but not “oh my god I’m creaming my pants he’s so great”. It’s cause he died, it’s like with frigging JFK.”
B I N G O ! ! ! ! ! !
“As far as the movie versions go, acting performances aside, Nicholson is easily the one that came closest to what I think the character should be.”
Amen...
Lee had to butch it up when he played one of the Batman villains.
Someone needs to give NRA-Vice-President-For-Life Wayne LaPierre the memo on that. "Violent video games caused it" has become his go to scapegoat whenever he has to discuss a school shooting with the press. He "makes a living" doing that far more than Neil Degrasse Tyson does offering his opinion about global warming when asked.
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