Some Assorted Thoughts On Joker
Does This Really Look Like A Guy WIth A Plan?
SPOILERS ABOUND TURN BACK IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN JOKER
Tristan Young @talltristan
The reviews are in and they are mixed. Best film of the year, or pompous grandstanding? To say that Joker, by Todd Phillips and staring Joaquin Phoenix, falls somewhere in between gets us no where as the spectrum of opinion on it is already so broad. What began as ‘do we really need to this again’ has spawned into questioning if even Phoenix’s astounding performance is enough to justify the film’s existence in light of the concerningly salient fears of real world consequences of its release. There is no avoiding Joker, nor our opinions on it, so lets dig in. Rather than any kind of review or statement on if I liked it or not (I liked it a lot), I’d like to address what I thought are some noteworthy points of discussion. Lets do this.
A little more than 10 years past since Heath Ledger’s seminal interpretation, audiences were right to wonder if we need another version of the Joker, especially in light of the mishandling and tonally inconsistent offerings of the DCEU. The last attempt by Jared Leto after all was something akin to a Forever 21 store and a My Chemical Romance song distilled into congealed goo, and somehow more obnoxious. Phillips, however recognized an opportunity and capitalized on it. If The Dark Knight offered a near perfect render of a man with literally no back-story, no history (even the explanations Ledger’s Joker does offer for his disfiguration become fascinating miss directions), Joker attempts to chart a very detailed path from troubled man to monstrous sociopath.
That path is complex, winding, and, importantly, non linear. The film is better for it, as a more direct route comprised of nothing but personal trauma would have been comparatively routine. Instead Joker shows the life of Arthur Fleck ricochet between devastating set backs and hopeful opportunity. A humiliating assault and a chance encounter with an intriguing neighbour. A traumatizing personal revelation and a surprise career opportunity. This whiplash back and forth can apply far more tension and stress to a person’s psyche than a more predictable pattern of despair, and it makes the contortions and clashes of Arthur’s personality more approachable and believable.
Much has been made of the film’s potential glorification of the Joker’s horrific actions. A veritable mass murderer by the end of the film, one of the final scenes show’s Arthur adorned with praise from the masses of the disaffected and destitute lower class of Gotham. His actions have galvanized the down trodden and reinterpreted Joker as a modern anti capitalist folk hero. The concern is this will encourage actual people facing a litany of issues and grievances, real or imagined to similarly take up arms. While one sympathises considering just how easy it is for a would be mass shooter to find an excuse, and a weapon, to commit such atrocities, this is a shallow misreading of the film. The actions Arthur takes, increasingly abhorrent, also become the focus of increasing spectacle. His actions spark protests, then riots, then warzones and at each impasse more and more people are there to cheer him on. The film however is not making a point that his actions, in such a corrupt world, could be construed as heroic. Instead it argues that only a truly malignant set of institutions and systemic oppression could produce an entire class of people that would respond positively to this. Joker is a monster, but it’s really not him that has been pushed over the edge, but everyone else. The impoverished majority of Gotham has been given so little for so long that they’ll latch onto anything that isn’t the status quo. They are the ones who have snapped, and they deserve our pity and empathy- and more importantly our help. Joker however, is at least in part an opportunist, well aware of the upsides of his actions.
It’s in this regard that construction of Joker’s character is so successful. It is not merely the chaotic result of a predatory system pushing a fragile man too far. It also depicts his evolution as a result of a calculated actor. Several of the film’s incidents, the subway shootout, the police chase-turned riot are events that escalates beyond Arthur’s control into chaos, only for him to discover he absolutely thrives in chaos. He stumbles into violent encounters only to experience the antithetical sense of control it imbues him with. From there, he seeks out murder, be it of his mother, his neighbour turned not quite lover, or several other characters unfortunate enough to catch Arthur on a good day. This torrent of chaos and control becomes a burgeoning hurricane, with only Joker existing comfortably in the eye of the storm; everyone else is caught in its currents. As Arthur leans further into his new persona, the allure of calculated planning begins to subsume the freedom of giving oneself to chaos. The serendipitous glee of accidently kick starting a riot that lands two cops in the hospital soon gives way to Joker planning an assault on live TV rather than simply ending his life in front of the world to see. After all, Arthur is finally discovering that he does in fact exist, after a lifetime of wondering. People are starting to notice. Why let that feeling go? It’s that subtly implanted sense of Joker’s internal logic that ensures we eventually stop seeing Arthur as a mere victim of institutional neglect and oppression but a criminal mastermind, and thus absolutely not someone to sympathize with or glorify. As the Joker stands there waiting to take the stage, calmly smoking a cigarette, well aware of the horror he is about to subject the world to, we can see this is clearly a man with a plan. It’s also the best shot of the film.
Much like giving Joker such a robust back-story to contrast the brilliant vagaries of The Dark Knight, this film wanted to give Arthur a vested interest in things going a certain way. Heath Ledger’s concept of the character was one that he really did not care if he lived or died at any point in the film. Those conceptual disparities aside, there are multiple loving homages in this film to Nolan’s masterpiece. A slowing moving tracking shot of a Gotham Ghetto is framed and progresses in that exact same way as the opening shot of The Dark Knight. As Arthur imagines himself in an padded cell with his schizophrenic mother decades earlier, he stares at her- an arched brow and malevolent smirk of disdain, his head lurched downward so an over head angle comes straight on- in the exact same way Ledger stared down the Batman a decade earlier. This is the difference between a film that knows how to be subtly referential and a film, like Jurassic World, that uses its predecessors as nostalgic crutches.
It goes deeper than that. In Batman Begins, Commissioner Gordon warned the Batman of escalation. Cops wear riot gear, so criminal get armour piercing bullets. The Untouchables argument, as it were. Batman doesn’t fully grasp his point, so Gordon elaborates. When a man dressed as a bat starts beating the living hell out the criminal underworld, someone is going to take those theatrics a step further. Thus, like in nearly all tellings of the story, the Joker is created. In Joker, we see the full breadth of how this concept of escalation can play out. How a horrific chance encounter can ignite a movement. How one misplaced push can start a riot. Joker often is not the perpetrator, but he is always the cause- the genesis. The Dark Knight ruminated beautifully on the idea of the consequences of Batman. In a world without him, this film is free to observe the consequences of Joker, and they are rather frightening.
That resultant dread from the audience does not translate into the community that Joker occupies. Instead they cheer him on. As stated earlier this says less about the Joker and more about the system he rebels against. No longer is he natural outcropping of a world that tolerates a masked and morally draconian vigilante, but he is the result of pretty much exactly the world we occupy, garbage strikes and all. In 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises, Nolan targets the sycophantic bourgeoisie upper class, but he did so through the actions of traditional comic book style villain. Rather than a tirade against the 1% it was more of a soft suggestion to clean up your act or this could be in your future one day. Well they didn’t, things are worse than ever, and it’s their fault. So here we are. Joker says that a monster like this is not the proverbial ying to a righteous hero’s yang, but merely a response to a system that is not built to accommodate us, but subjugate us. There’s no organized crime mentioned in this Gotham to fight against. All of the moral outrages are against something so mundane and institutional. Batman isn’t going to punch the mayor.
The film articulates such conditions to give the cult of Joker room to grow. For the first time it is not The Batman who is a symbol, but The Joker. He is a twisted and abhorrent symbol, but a galvanizing one. If the film makes people uncomfortable its because it’s so easy to make our institutional norms seem as pernicious as a cackling madman. For this first time it’s the system, not organized crime being rallied against. Much of this depiction of the Joker is happening for the first time, and it’s really refreshing.
On a somewhat more technical level, the harmonious synchronization of score and cinematography is a triumph. Sombre and muted instrumentals pair with slightly overexposed and bleak wide shots of a city rotting away from all sides. More impressive is the coordination in how Arthur is represented at key points of the film. Critically important moments tend to happen in the forms of outbursts, yet it’s the aftermath the film always choose to linger upon. In those moments of eerie calm and respite, the string sections swell with corroded tension and mangled continuity. Horns bottom out to create a cavernous vacuum for the base to plummet into creating a sense of vertigo and claustrophobia. Both of these sensations translate perfectly into the framing; uncomfortably close shots of Arthur’s face, or more often than not the back of his head, while the angle descends below or rises above his sight line. We are in awe of him or scornfully look down upon him, but we are never on his level, because of course we are not.
Enough has been said about Joaquin Phoenix’s performances, that there isn’t much else to add here, although I will attest to the high points being “all I have are negative thoughts” and, “all my life I wondered if I really existed. But I do, and people are starting to notice”. Still not enough has been said yet about the brilliant score, or the third act Shyamalan style shocker straight out of a horror film. But it’s early days for the film. Its cultural resonances remains to be seen or interpreted. Where you will land on the question of Joker being an anti-hero or terrorist will depend on much more than just your views on mental health and systemic corruption. Those myriad complexities ensure we will debate the value or lack thereof of Joker for years. I can’t think of anything else I’d want more from a film.