More than that, though, the whole movie, in spirit, is a kind of origin-story riff on Heath Ledger’s performance in “The Dark Knight”: the comic-book villain as Method psycho, a troublemaker so intense in his cuckoo hostility that even as you’re gawking at his violence, you still feel his pain. As the story of a putz trying to succeed as a stand-up comedian, it evokes Scorsese and De Niro’s satirical riff on “Taxi Driver,” “The King of Comedy.” There are also elements lifted from “Death Wish,” “Network,” “V for Vendetta,” “The Empire Strikes Back,” “The Shining” and “The Purge.” He’s at the dark heart of every scene, the way Travis Bickle was in “Taxi Driver,” and “Joker,” set in 1981 in a Gotham City that looks, with uncanny exactitude, like the squalid, graffiti-strewn, trash-heaped New York City of the early ’80s (you can feel the rot), is a movie made in direct homage to “Taxi Driver,” though there are other films it will make you think of. He’s a bitter, mocking nowhere man on the edge of a nervous breakdown.įor all two hours of “Joker,” Arthur, a two-bit professional clown and aspiring stand-up comic who lives with his batty mother (Frances Conroy) in a peeling-paint apartment, is front and center - in the movie, and in our psychological viewfinder. What it expresses isn’t glee it expresses the fact that Arthur feels nothing, that he’s dead inside. In each case, the laughter is an act that parades itself as fakery. He’s too far out there, like Norman Bates he’s a self-conscious, postmodern head case - a person who spends every moment trying to twist himself into a normal shape, but he knows the effort is doomed, so he turns it all into a “joke” that only he gets.Īrthur’s response to almost everything is to laugh, and he’s got a collection of contrived guffaws - a high-pitched delirious giggle, a “hearty” yock, a stylized cackle that’s all but indistinguishable from a sob. He would like, on some level, to connect, but he can’t. “Joker” tells the story of Arthur’s descent (and, in a way, his rise), but it’s clear from the outset that he’s a basket case, a kind of maestro of his own misery. The beating fulfills a certain masochistic karma Arthur carries around, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that we feel sorry for him. A bunch of kids steal the sign and then kick the holy crap out of him. 'I pray that this country will speak up': Lady Gaga defends gay marriage, abortion rights at U.S.Early on, Arthur, in full clown regalia, is standing in front of a store on a jam-packed avenue, where he’s been hired to carry an “Everything Must Go” sign. 'Happy Valentine's Day': 'Joker' sequel first look revealed with Lady Gaga embracing Joaquin Phoenix The sequel title, "Folie à Deux," is a reference to a medical term for a mental illness shared by two people in close association. The critically acclaimed film earned 11 Oscar nominations, winning two awards – Phoenix won as best actor and Hildur Guðnadóttir took best original score. "Joker" grossed over $1 billion in worldwide box office, becoming the highest-grossing R-rated film in history. Phillips' original "Joker" followed Phoenix's troubled aspiring comic Arthur Fleck on his downward spiral, transforming to the iconic DC villain.
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