Joker

Directed by Todd Phillips

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Zazie Beetz, Robert De Niro, Frances Conroy, Brett Cullen, Douglas Hodge, Shea Whigham, Bill Camp

Year: 2019

Country: USA, Canada

Review Author: Roberto Matteucci

Click Here for Italian Version

"These are hard times."

The fantasy of the DC Comics authors generated an imaginary megalopolis for the adventures of Batman: Gotham City. It is a metropolis with a vast and articulated complexity, with a myriad of problems. Gotham City is the copy of New York, the same humanity, the same difficulties. Yet for the site, www.numbeo.com New York does not have a high crime rate: levels are valued as low or moderate in all segments. There are dozens of large cities more dangerous.

New York is central, it represents the peak of life, both in good and in evil, and in cinema history there is confirmation.

Especially it is the centre of political supremacy, of the stock exchange, of the multinationals, always described without a soul and cynical. Therefore, a struggle against power can only come about there.

In this epicentre was born one of the cruellest characters of comics world: Joker.

His criminal background is narrated in a spin-off, in the movie Joker  by director Todd Phillips, presented at 76th Venice International Film Festival, winning the Golden Lion.

It is on October 15th in Gotham City. A dustman's long strike has been filling the city with rubbish. The filthy is not only physical but also full of absurd immorality.

The camera goes forward to frame a man. He is putting on his makeup. A close-up shows his tears in detail. They are black for the colour of the makeup; they are dirtying his face. The man is Arthur Fleck, he wants to be a clown, he wants to make people laugh. He dreams of being a comedian. In the meantime, he is doing some small insignificant jobs for a temporary agency. He lives with a sick mother, who persuades him to follow a huge lie.

Establishing shot on the city. Arthur/Joker is skipping on a crowded sidewalk with a signboard. Human waste understands weakness, so, some bad kids take his sign and flee. Arthur chases them. They beat him in an ambush, leaving him wounded and dying in an alley. Arthur fells even more in disgrace.

In the nasty narrow lane, there is the root, the birth of the diabolical, misanthropic and cruel Joker.

Todd Phillips's Joker is a mix of a sociological and psychological bogus theory. The consequence is a defensible, excusable personality: future cruelty is not his fault but his childhood problem.

However, there is more. Todd Phillips is smart. His priority has not dwelt on the growth of an evil personality. The film tells us the motivation of the genesis of a sarcastic grin: the reasons of his exhibiting an uninterruptedly sour smile, during his exaggerated ferocity.

Joker is superb, vain, haughty; he wants to be a comedian at all costs. Above all, he is angry; during his nerves snapped even distort his bodily appearance. It is extravagant but equally elegant with his yellow-red clothes and the intense colours of the mask.

The disease causes him insane, senseless laugh. He always has a note to deliver when people are surprised by his crazy laughter: there is the reason for his behaviour.

His laughter has a noble father, an inspiration: Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times, quoted in the film. The hilarity is both joyful for the funny misadventures and sad for the alienation of contemporary human being. It is the identical dichotomy of Joker.

No one laughs when performing in a club. The result is more melancholy than exhilarating: "When I was a little boy and told people I was going to be comedian, everyone laughed at me. Well no one's laughing now."

The meaning of the story is in the initial close-up. In Arthur, the two mouths have a dissimilar direction. The painted one has the ends upwards, but the real mouth tends to the opposite, to the bottom. He must help it. With his hands, push the corners of his lips up. Now both have the same line. He must encourage also his alleged half-brother. He is an unhappy kid but Arthur's hands make him cheerful.

Arthur lives in profound solitude: He solely takes care of his mother: he opens the post box, there is nothing, and he bangs it, he has no contact with the outside world.

How can Arthur save himself from the wickedness and deceiving of his mother?

Arthur is at the end of a long external staircase, the author films him with aerial shot. He is in the deepest depth, in utter discomfort for having known, the secret of the mother.

Arthur finds two ways to free of pain.

The first one is love for a woman; he is happy and normal with her.

The second one is more material and definitive. A beautiful scene narrates it. Arthur is inside a subway, wearing his usual costume and clown mask. The station is squalid, full of rubbish, overflowing everywhere. He enters into a battered carriage. The light is alternated because the source is obstructed. There are arrogant financial managers in the coach. They harass a girl. Arthur's rage vents in his endless laughter. Now the attention of the young executives is on him. Arthur's reaction is cathartic and resolute. This action will elect Joker as leader of the violent rebellion that is shaking the city. His disguise will be the symbol of urban guerrilla: the mask is thrown on a bin in the street full of litter. It is in evidence, in focus, while the background is out of focus: Joker will be the hope of rebels.

The director needs Joaquin Phoenix to achieve a popular effect. Therefore, he exalts him with many close-ups, zooms on his face, aerials shooting for his grimaces and his clumsy dancer movements. The primary colours yellow and red emphasize the dark tones; they are the same shades as a comic strip. Then there are the Phoenix physical sequences, in excessive thinness and the marks on the skin.

"We are all clowns." We can be clowns even in confront of madness.

In one of the most successful scenes, Arthur receives a visit from two colleagues. One is servile and slimy, capable of terrible jokes on the other dwarf fellow: "you call it mini-golf or simply golf?". Joker's anger vents against the bully. However, the dwarf is scared and tries to escape. He cannot reach the chain that blocks the door. First Joker terrifies him for fun, then opens it and lets him out.

The technique is not revolutionary, but the creation of characters, the elegance of the scenes, the perfect position of the camera, the ironic zooms, and the lucid madness are great. The social difference as in the match between the very expensive sink of the building and the disgusting one, very dirty of Arthur's flat after having received a punch.

In the end, the masked black blocs take control, the police are defeated. All are hidden behind a mask as in James Ensor’s paintings. If all are disguised, all are unrecognisable.

Nevertheless, someone is missing from Joker. Someone fundamental, able to restore order and justice: Batman.

He too was the victim of an atrocious crime, a thief killed his parents, but unlike Joker, he chooses the right side.