shared a 2019 movie " The Clown " today. Probably no audience knows nothing about the movie "The Clown" before entering the cinema.
Even the most unconcerned moviegoers, as long as they've been immersed in pop culture long enough, can't be unaware of Joker, the ace villain in the Batman universe, and his signature green-haired, red mouth and nerves of laughter. Before the release of "Joker", thanks to the popular science of "The Deadly Joke" and the Joker's origin story by enthusiastic DC fans, major websites planned the "Joker Ranking of Movie History" early (and another corpse of "Suicide Squad"), There is also the "Dark Knight" that ranked fourth on IMDB. The audience for "Joker" is a group of competent prospective fans. They already know the character of Joker well, and many people can easily quote "Why So Serious" and "bad day".
Audiences who care about the movie must know that "Joker" just won the Venice Golden Lion. As an independent work from the DC movie universe, this "Joker", which tells the origin story of the villain, is undoubtedly a milestone that cannot be surpassed in the short term. How "Joker" revives DC and how it will change the future Hollywood landscape is already an exciting conversation, and behind the scenes of this film, director Todd Phillips has achieved a The arc's excellent character story and the rich starring Joaquin Phoenix provide the media with enough manuscript material to write a week. His past with his brother Rui Fan, the process of his being marginalized by Hollywood and returning to the peak of his acting skills, and even his romantic relationship with Rooney Mara , have all been re-used as leftovers for the promotion of the "Joker" movie.
has built up an audience of anticipation, and will be stunned by posters and trailers. The poster of "Joker" is a very close observation of the characters, and the dramatic sense created by the precise color and light blows. The Joker in the comics is a symbol of pure evil that has been missing from history, but the protagonist in the stylized trailer for "Joker" is a poor ordinary man with flesh and blood. The whole movie looks like a story of returning to the characters, delicate, intimate, full of emotion, and at the same time serious social research, full of tragedy and ironic reality. "It is society that makes clowns clowns", this conclusion has been emphasized over and over again, becoming a tacit slogan.
also surrounds "Joker" with vigilance and controversy over its incitement to violence. The families of the victims of the shooting at the premiere of "The Dark Knight" in 2012 protested publicly. On the day of the premiere, there were many police patrols, but these did not reduce the enthusiasm of the audience, but increased the mystery and viewing of the "Joker" movie. Rebellious behavior. Layer after layer of elements and labels affixed to
, "Joker" has become a cultural phenomenon beyond the film itself. But when the audience actually walks into the cinema and sits down and enters the world of "Joker", they will find that apart from these advertised elements and the expected splendor, there is nothing.
"Joker" is like a joke that has too many stalks in advance, but it shows timidity when it is actually performed. It is like an empty skeleton, covered with organs borrowed from others, rich and full on the surface, but poor and empty in reality. The two biggest problems with
Joker are the simultaneous directness and confusion. Half of it is too simplified and superficial, with a kind of distrust that is afraid that the audience will not understand it; while the other half of the content seems to have something to say, but cannot or dare not expand it carefully.
Characters: One-sided Victim Imagery & Lack of Explanatory Motivation
"Joker" is a strictly closed-narrative character film, with all the lights on and off on Arthur Fleck, the lowly street clown, the failed comedian , a mental patient who can't control his laugh. He experienced being beaten by street gangsters and Wall Street elites, framed by his colleagues, ignored by the wealthy, abandoned by the government, ridiculed by his favorite comedy host Murray, and finally chose to fight back violently. Out of his sight, his unintentional crime inspired riots across the city against the wealthy and the government, and the image of the clown was elevated to a spiritual symbol of using violence to gain a sense of existence.
Arthur Fleck's character design draws on Martin Scorsese 's "Taxi Driver" and "King of Comedy", however, "Joker" is different in character creation.There is a gap between the two works. This disparity is reflected in the creator's attitude towards the characters, in other words, the way Martin sees the protagonists of the two works is completely different from how the two characters see themselves. Audiences can see Travis as a paranoid and crazy fringe, but Travis thinks he is the hero who saves women from filth; Rupert thinks he is a comedy genius who does everything right, and it is the off-screen audience that feels uneasy and embarrassed . It is this cognitive difference between the character and the audience that really inspires empathy and deeper thinking.
Yet Joker sees Arthur Fleck in exactly the same way he sees himself: the tragic victim. Arthur was not at fault, the world was at fault, and by simply putting society on the opposite side, all of Arthur's pain had a brutal outlet. This oversimplified self-pity is dangerous. Joker opens the door openly and invites the audience to come in. empathy , the audience who successfully empathizes can plunge into Arthur's worldview without any hesitation, but the rest are At a loss, he lost his proper foothold, like the audience who didn't understand the jokes under the comedy show. For a victim like
Arthur, everything he cares about in the first two thirds of the film is personal. Unlike the Joker in the comics who exists as a chaotic anarchist figure, Arthur's character is depoliticized and idealized. So when he sat on the talk show's guest couch and started speaking and blaming as a representative for the class he was in, it felt like an important link was missing. The fact that a clown shot and killed three wealthy young brothers sparked riots in the entire city. This incident itself was a violent incident that seemed to only happen in the context of comics, and Arthur's forced sublimation in front of the camera felt even more groundless. Between Arthur's murders and dances, the audience can fully feel the changes in his emotions, but cannot receive his thoughts.
, perhaps, a sense of presence is what motivates Arthur to associate his actions with society. Existence is a theme that seems to exist in "Joker". What Arthur yearns for is to be heard and seen, so Arthur will accuse the social worker of not listening carefully, so he will look forward to the stage and imagine himself in the spotlight Being called by Murray, he was excited for the media coverage, and finally stood on the police car and danced. But this theme is not very clear, the director seems to use more brush and ink in the most obvious and eye-catching paragraphs, and pay more attention to emotion than rationality. Of course, he could also say that the madman's behavior doesn't need much explanation. Society's faults are a panacea, as are mental problems.
Society: Facebooks 's class antagonism & ambiguous stance
Gotham City in Joker is a chaotic version of 1981 New York, full of garbage and giant rats, unemployment and the growing gap between the rich and the poor. Although the visual design of the city in Joker is very detailed and stylized, its depiction of this society is extremely rudimentary, devoid of any political and economic details. All the rich are designed to be hypocritical bastards who don't care about the life and death of the bottom people, and deserve what they deserve. Could there be a more blunt and unsophisticated way of expressing it than arranging a bunch of rich bastards in gowns to watch Modern Times?
The simple and crude class discussion of "Joker" makes people want to go back and give "Parasite" half a star. What makes "Parasite" more brilliant than "Joker" is that the rich class has never done any obvious evil, but is still punished violently. The question of "President Park's family clearly did nothing wrong" is to stimulate the audience to think about the real original sin behind class confrontation.
But "Joker" has made the upper class a real target very easily. In the logic of "Joker", the host Murray is portrayed as a complete bastard, not a pity to die, and invited Arthur to the show just to mock him, but don't forget the "King of Comedy" host with a similar character There is an unknown mental pressure behind people's indifference. Thomas Wayne, aside from the fact that he is the father of our beloved Batman, is a politician in "Joker" who is ignorant of the afflictions of the people, and will be very inept and say "In the eyes of those of us, you There's nothing but a bunch of clowns.""Joker" justifies all the gore, but ignores the so-called elite Wall Street kids who were shot and killed on the same dirty subway as the Jokers.
Don't say that "Joker" is a superhero comic blockbuster that cannot be compared with the works of the author and director. These two works are both winners of the three major film festivals, . The point of
's "Joker" twist is not only the object of this riot, but also the participants in this riot. Wearing clown masks, their faces were blurred, and they didn't know whether behind the masks were the truly desperate people at the bottom, or the thugs who had beaten Arthur in the streets. In the whole film, Arthur was bullied by people from all walks of life, all social groups, and even people of all skin colors. He should not stand for anyone, but in the end, he was simply praised as a spokesperson for hating the rich. If the image of the Joker was forcibly borrowed by the thugs as a spiritual leader without his knowledge or reluctance, and he himself is an individual who only commits crimes for his own benefit and does not represent any group, the plot may be more ironic and interesting. Another vague treatment of
is also reflected in the attitude towards people of color . The audience cannot fail to notice the black female characters in this film, the black mother who is hostile to Arthur on the bus, the gentle female neighbor who ignores him in the apartment, the social worker who never listens carefully, and may even end up being admitted to Arthur. Cam's Joker killed the crew, these black women all came up with a negative image that wasn't good enough for Arthur. Behind such deliberate design, the message the character wants to convey is ambiguous. "Taxi Driver" dared to show the protagonist's racism, but "Joker" only gave a weak signal, turning his head to laugh at the dwarf.
Apart from the above, "Joker" is still a film with too much sense of sight. The visual sense of "Taxi Driver" and "King of Comedy" mentioned above is already covered with image style and story line, and the starring must have another De Niro who has acted in these two films, plus Some iconic scenes where the gun is made of fingers. In the process of watching The Joker, " you've never been here " starring Joaquin Phoenix also jumped out and interfered frequently. There are fragments of Joaquin and his elderly mother's life in both films, and even a subway with a very similar composition. A scene whizzing past. These visual senses, on the one hand, weaken the independence and originality of "Joker", and on the other hand, constantly remind the audience how "Joker" is inferior to these works.
Of course, these negative comments expressed above are actually just from disappointment under high expectations, and they are regarded as irrational fans who are fanatical fans. The high rating of "Joker" is not without reason. Joaquin Phoenix's acting skills can be said to be impeccable, and every protruding bone in his body will act. Under his rendition, Joker's laughter turns into a choked hiss, and every wriggling, every dance move he makes on the steps becomes part of the mood and the narrative. The cello sound in the background, with a deep coolness that can diffuse into the skull, the photography and the setting present a fantastic color experience at a high level.
I admit that the production level of "Joker" is excellent, I recognize that Joaquin deserves the performance of a statuette, and I also agree with the groundbreaking significance of "Joker" as a comic book movie. I can't even imagine how much effort the creators of Joker went to convince Warner to agree to invest in such a disturbing film in today's conservative Hollywood of remakes and series.
In addition to this film, "Joker" is leading the box office with a smile all the way, heading for awards season. Director Todd Phillips tells the story of how he couldn't make a comedy in a big environment, bringing the film's self-pity to the sidelines, and social networks will continue to discuss the film and everything behind it.
but I still couldn't enjoy Joker as much as I expected. Just like the famous line, "I thought my life was a tragedy, but it was actually a comedy." In the eyes of the main creator, "Joker" is a social issue movie that can inspire real crimes like "Taxi Driver", but the final product is not. It's an old, boring story.
being the minority audience that wasn't amused by the joke, I'd be more than happy to hear more explanations. Just don't say to me like a clown, "you can't get it".
