What is it with clowns this year? On the one hand we’ve got Joaquin Phoenix starring as the Clown Prince of Crime, but then we’ve also got Skarsgård leering at us from dark corners as Pennywise the Dancing Clown! 2019 is a bad year to have coulrophobia. In Joker, director Todd Phillips seeks to tackle the origin story of Batman’s infamous rogue and arch nemesis, but is it the ultimate Killing Joke, or does it belong in Arkham Asylum?
I used to think my life was a tragedy. But now I realise, it’s a comedy”
In Gotham City during the 1980s, the rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer. With garbage strikes, a plague of rats – including “super rats” (just one of many not-so subtle allusions) – and areas of the city reduced to slums, we are introduced to Arthur Fleck (get it? A. Fleck?): a professional clown who spins signs on the streets, with aspirations to become a stand-up comedian. But this version of the Joker isn’t a flamboyant Clown Prince of Crime, or a dapper purple gangster with bleached hair and skin courtesy of an Ace Chemicals acid bath: he’s a depressed clown with as much psychosis as a man in a bat costume, invisible to a society that regards him as a freak.
Arthur Fleck may be an aspiring comedian, but there is little to laugh at here, especially given his background, having been trampled and beaten by the Gotham elite, where his aspirations and dreams are a joke unto themselves. Even despite this, the Joker comes to embody his role as an agent of chaos, gradually learning to take pleasure in the violence and chaos he inspires in others. Many voiced concern that we would be made to empathise with the character remembered for paralysing and torturing Barbara Gordon, shooting a woman and leaving her body in a room full of toddlers, and famously butchering Jason Todd – the second Robin. Not to mention the countless other brutal murders and tortures he’s inflicted upon the denizens of Gotham over the years.
It’s a slow burn story that leans towards avant-garde psychological thriller, borrowing elements from The Killing Joke, with a Heath Ledger edge that contrasts with the bright pulpy Jack Nicholson or Caesar Romero renditions of the character. Todd Phillips presents the story of an average guy succumbing to the unfair, harsh reality of life in Gotham, making The Joker less a supervillain movie, and more an in-depth analysis of the psyche of a character who happens to bear similarities to our favourite antagonistic clown. By the time the film closes, however, Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker will start to emerge as the more familiar character we remember, embracing and perpetuating the controversies that go with it.
Arthur Fleck: Everybody’s telling me that my standup’s ready for the big clubs
Penny Fleck: But what makes you think you could do that?
Arthur Fleck: What do you mean?
Penny Fleck: I mean, don’t you have to be funny to be a comedian?
Much like Moore’s Killing Joke, where we are told how one bad day is enough to turn the sanest man alive insane, Joaquin Phoenix shows how desperation, psychosis, neglect, and a series of unfortunate events can, naturally, spawn murderous clowns. And this is from the mind of a director whose filmography largely consists of comedies, from The Hangover trilogy to Road Trip and War Dogs! Interesting that a clown becomes the main protagonist when he moves away from comedy and into psychological thriller…
The combination of Joaquin Phoenix’s kooky mannerisms, the shaky camera work and Kubrick-esque framing sequences, including long corridor shots and music cues, convince us of his descent into madness. And the setting itself certainly helps, too (unless you’re Arthur Fleck), where the run down streets of a New York suburb, overflowing with trash, rats, loons, and spandex-clad goth knights become the scuzzy streets of Gotham – a place where any sane man can become a homicidal clown, a trickster Riddler, or a Two-Faced law man. In this sense the backdrop of the city reflects the characteristic importance Gotham has always held in the Batman mythos, while Joker’s signature purple suit and green hair contrast against the bleak colours of the streets.
The use of practical effects, real world locations and costume design over a reliance on CG typically seen in cinema by the likes of Avengers: End Game separate Joker from the superhero genre the character was born out of. There is, however, a nagging thought that begs to question whether Arthur Fleck really needed to be called “The Joker” outright and whether references, Easter eggs, allusions and name drops to Batman peripherals were needed. While they do interact with the story well enough, there is still an impression that this movie could hold up on its own without tie-ins to DC’s rich comic book history.
You don’t listen, do you? I don’t think you ever really listened to me. You just ask the same questions every week. “How’s your job? Are you having any negative thoughts?” All I have are negative thoughts
Ever since Caesar Romero, a multitude of actors have taken up the purple suit and red grin in live-action settings, animation, and video games. What’s more, each version of the Joker brought something different: Caesar Romero embodied the bright and pulpy prankish ‘60s; Jack Nicholson was a perfect mix of comedic and psychotic; Heath Ledger cemented the character as an agent of chaos, while Mark Hamill effectively become his definitive voice in Paul Dini’s animated series.
Joaquin Phoenix and Todd Phillips meanwhile dive into a part of the character writers, more often than not, shy away from. Taking influences from Taxi Driver, Killing Joke, and perhaps You Were Never Really Here – which also happens to star Phoenix – the psychological thriller tone and avant-garde filmographic style and themes lead Joker away from superhero territory to fit more comfortably into Phoenix’s filmography. He’s intense, unpredictable, and his decent into madness is thwart with tension and suspense, changing from a down-on-his-luck man with a confused past of neglect and obscurity, to a clown who embodies a clear and abrasive form of anarchy – slow-dancing and laughing his way to a climax that sees him emerge as a successor to Heath Ledger’s own anarchic force, sometimes reminiscent of Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns Joker. Move over, Jared Leto.
Despite how sympathetic his situation may be from the beginning, we should still be encouraged to see the villainy behind the character and not just see Joker as an attempt to humanise a through-and-through villain – even if he is fundamentally broken. There seems to be a stigma about irredeemable villains on-screen, where writers and critics attempt to humanise villains through their psychoses. This is an aspect of the film that has drawn criticism, seen as dangerous and controversial for the way it uses his psychological issues as a means to evoke sympathy for a murderous psychopath. Any sympathetic thoughts felt towards Arthur however, are challenged by moments that show flashes of his amusement and thrill at the spillage of blood and torment of his victims. The stand-alone nature of the film, not being directly tied to a Batman franchise, gives Phoenix and Phillips greater creative freedom to explore facets of the character often overshadowed by convenient plot devises and the bias nature of “good vs. evil” story telling seen in superhero comic books.
Is it me, or is it getting crazier out there?
Joining Joaquin Phoenix, Zazie Beetz stars as fellow tenant Sophie Dumond, whose role helps to create a greater impression of Arthur’s obscured perspective of sanity and reality. American Horror Story’s Frances Conroy, who has a history of playing somewhat unhinged roles – the clairvoyant Nathalie Raven in The Mist for instance – plays a vital part in Arthur’s troubled home life as his sick mother, a twist on Moore’s story in which the Joker lived in a similarly dingy apartment with his pregnant wife. Her performance captures the difficult nature of their circumstances, which sees Arthur struggle to maintain his house on a low paid and uncertain job while looking after his mother.
In comparison, Robert De Niro, star of Taxi Driver – one of the influences Phillips cited for the film – appears as flamboyant TV host, and Arthur’s hero, Murray Franklin, recalling ‘60s big time chat show hosts and De Niro’s role in Scorsese’s The King of Comedy. Todd Phillips takes opportunities to pay tribute to his key influences in The Joker, and De Niro plays a pivotal role in this.
Hildur Guònadóttir’s original soundtrack predominantly features strings that rarely exceed the choice song picks, with Frank Sinatra and Fred Astaire. Though tracks like “Following Sophie,” “Arthur Comes to Sophie” and “Escape From the Train” add a suspenseful thriller tonality to the soundscape, utilising heavy rhythmic drums to intense string arrangements, accompanying Arthur as he looses grip on what sense of sanity he may have had left. The highlight of Joker’s music comes from the illustratively chosen Jimmy Durante’s “Smile,” Sinatra’s “That’s Life,” and, of course, “Send in the Clowns.” Almost as though the playlist were chosen to tell us something about Fleck’s character…
It’s funny, when I was a little boy, and told people I was going to be a comedian, everyone laughed at me. Well, no one’s laughing now
So far Joker has found well deserved box-office success, becoming one of the highest grossing films of 2019 and the highest grossing R-Rated movie of all time, despite having received a polarising reception, particularly from apprehensive comic book fans, even before it’s release. The very idea of a Joker film sounded ludicrous: he’s a villain! How could the Joker stand on his own as a protagonist without Batman? However, much to our surprise Todd Phillips has managed to create a story that allows him to exist in a world disconnected from the usual Batman mythos we’re used to. While characters and references firmly place Joker in Gotham city – the Wayne’s and Arkham for instance – this feels more inline with what you might expect from an Elseworld story.
Todd Phillips’ Joker offers a fresh take on a classic villain, approaching his 80th anniversary, recognising the controversy of the character and transforming him from a miserable Gothamite, to a cutthroat clown intent on burning the establishment and relishing in the ensuing chaos. Besides being a must see for any cinema goer or comic book fan, Joker offers a change of pace from the MCU, introducing a little anarchy to upset the established superhero movie formula. And I thought my jokes were bad…
