Last evening at the New York Film Festival screening of Joker, director Todd Phillips (of Old School and Hangover fame) remarked that he was surprised the film has courted controversy, particularly in accusations that its depiction of a mentally-ill lone wolf turning violently on society is “irresponsible.”
“Isn’t it a good thing to put real-world implications on violence?” he asked. “Isn’t that a good thing to take away the cartoon element of violence that we’ve become so immune to? So I was a little surprised when it turns into that direction, that it seems irresponsible because to me it seems actually very responsible to make it feel real and make it that weight.”
It was a clever answer – one that managed to sound thoughtful and understandable while also completely dancing away from the genesis of the controversy, which rests not with the depiction of violence, but its context.
There’s already been a lot of conversation around Joker, and there’s going to be a lot more. Some will claim it a masterpiece, a bold study of an unhinged mind; others will continue the “irresponsible” argument, that its glorification of violent deeds will inspire real world lone wolves to carry out their own versions of Joker-style “justice.” But the truth is that the film is mostly just an empty spectacle, a Frankenstein’s monster of 70’s movie plots re-purposed as an origin story for the “Clown Prince of Crime.” It’s the child dressing up in his father’s suit – so determined to be taken seriously that it steals the grit and grime of some of the greatest films of the 20th century, but leaves behind their humanity and their humor (the only joke in the whole movie is an ugly one coming at the expense of a little person), and their clear points of view.
Arthur Fleck, the man who will become the Joker this time around, is his own cocktail of references. Like Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, he’s lonely and depressed, looking out his window at a world getting dirtier and dirtier and wanting to clean it up himself; like Pierre Nicoli in The French Connection, he’s pursued by his own Detective Popeye through the carriages of a subway train; like Howard Beale in Network, he threatens to kill himself on live TV; like Rupert Pupkin in The King of Comedy (a film of which this is essentially a remake), he is so enamored with a late-night comedian-slash-talk show host that he fantasizes about gaining his approval.
As he does with the film, Phillips stuffs Fleck with so many allusions to past works that he forgets to give him the soul that would make him an engaging protagonist in this one. When first we see him, he’s an aspiring stand-up comedian, working a shit job as a dancing street clown in a grimy, garbage-laden Gotham when he’s jumped by a bunch of upstart kids. This turns out to be de rigueur for Fleck, another instance of societal bullying at the expense of his strangeness, a strangeness manifest most visibly in the high-pitched, air horn-style laugh that he emits at inopportune times – a kind of “funny bone Tourette’s.”
“I have a disorder,” says a card he hands to people to explain this. Okay, a laughing disorder – in addition to depression, loneliness, an inability to connect with women, a failure at comedy, and (in an eleventh hour addition) wounds from childhood abuse. That last one feels just as tacked on as the rest, a bunch of Really Bad Stuff to motivate our main man, when Just One would have been more effective.
“Sympathize with this man,” the film tells you, making only shallow attempts to get us there. Does the childhood abuse relate to the disorder? Is it a way to cope with his past trauma? We don’t know! What could have been a revealing psycho-physical gesture – a means to get inside this guy – is relegated to a Quirky Freaky Tic, one of many in actor Joaquin Phoenix’s arsenal.
I suspect Phoenix will be an awards season darling, maybe even finally bringing home the Oscar, and the performance is… well, it seems like a lot of work. The guy looks like he killed himself giving it, but it comes off just as hollow as the movie – postured, his ribs poking out, his back hunched, his arms every now and then gliding up from his sides to engage in some sensible Twyla Tharp choreography. Like the movie, it’s brutal and it’s upsetting, like being held at gunpoint for two hours, but it’s also unrelenting and tedious.
From moment one, Fleck is an unsettling creep. We never care about him; his pathos comes from the aforementioned bullying and from him taking care of his mother, itself a regurgitation from last year’s Phoenix-led You Were Never Really Here. And a last-minute thesis on why he’s doing what he’s doing comes off as a mishmash – he hates bullies, but also rich people, and also the father figures who failed him… ooh ooh and also that woman who won’t go out with him. For a character study, it’s remarkably surface.
Still, it’s a performance destined to be hailed as “gritty” and “real,” “brave” and “dark,” as if this is the be-all goal with superhero characters. How quickly we forget how Heath Ledger (and, before him, Jack Nicholson) created a Joker who was simultaneously unnerving and charm incarnate, an “I can’t take my eyes off him” sociopath. And as much as he ran off with the movie, director Christopher Nolan’s point of view was clear; this is what we face in a post-9/11 world – rampant hate… unbridled evil… anarchy… When the forces who oppose us seemingly have no humanity, how do we move forward?
Joker has no such thesis, and that is where its irresponsibility truly lies. By movie’s end, Joker has become a hero to the disenfranchised – his early-movie murder of three finance bros (one of whom is exceedingly well-versed in the musical theater songbook) becomes a rallying cry for common people who are fed up, tired of being pawns in the system. And so, they assemble as a mob, decked out in clown masks, and in the penultimate scene they hoist their new Messiah onto the top of a police car to bask in his anarchic wisdom. The music swells, the camera fawns, Joaquin smears a blood-red smile on his face, tears flowing. He’s finally found his people, the movie says.
But how does the movie feel about this? And listen, it’s not like you can’t end a film with the triumph of evil. This film’s spiritual godfather, Scorsese himself, has made countless films about horrible men, and while you may root for them and love them during the movie, by the end you’re always aware how the film feels morally.
Taking an even more commercial example, 2002’s Chicago ends with murderesses Roxie and Velma getting out of jail and starting their own act, to thunderous ovation. But even in something as light and crowd-pleasing as that film, there’s something being said at the same time – a juxtaposition of their success with the audience realization that our American fascination with murder turns criminals into celebrities alarmingly often. We made these monsters; we’re just as guilty as them.
If Chicago can do it, surely Joker can. But what is Phillips saying with this ending? With this entire movie? Is he saying that we should kill rich people? Is he saying that violence is the way to deal with people who misunderstand us? Is he saying something about mental illness? If so, what? How we should all just be nice to each other? So this shit doesn’t happen? I honestly have no fucking idea. And neither, it seems, does Phillips.
His New York Film Festival Q&A addressing of the controversy touched on the aforementioned treatment of violence as “realistic,” as well as a desire to bring realism and grit to a superhero character. He brought up Taxi Driver, The King of Comedy, Network, but he seems completely ignorant of the fact that people can see and admire those aspects and also want to know what the hell he thinks this brutal horror show of violence and ugliness is all about.
Joaquin said, “I don’t think about what will happen with movies after I’m done shooting.”
In a certain context, that’s fine. It’s not the responsibility of a movie to babysit its audience. Charles Manson thought the Beatles were telling him to commit mass murder when they were really just singing about a slide. However. It is the responsibility of a movie to know its audience.
Joker descends on the world tonight, and it’s positioned to be the biggest October release of all time. This is a movie that is going to affect the culture. What an awesome opportunity… and what a daunting responsibility. This is, after all, a culture rocked by issues of gun violence, a culture that seems to fall prey weekly to the violent and vengeful actions of lonely, isolated white men. People march through the streets chanting, “Jews will not replace us,” and police brutality against innocent black men has more exposure than ever. I mean, Jesus, our president needs to be pressured in order to denounce white supremacy!
And here are Phillips, Phoenix, and company, releasing a movie which sympathetically depicts one such lonely, isolated white man stalking women, murdering his bullies, and rewarded with the attention he always wanted, hailed as a voice for the outcasts. Under no circumstances am I about to leave this movie, put myself in clown drag, and murder a bunch of people. But for those with such inclinations, does the movie really make the case that it’s not a good idea?
Early in the film, Fleck is watching an old black-and-white performance of Gershwin’s “Slap That Bass” on his TV set. At the same time, he flippantly fiddles with a revolver, bopping along to the music as the camera cuts from piano player to singer. As it finally settles on a black band member, he aims the gun at the TV, his finger poised on the trigger.
A hell of a provocative image, and one that better be supported by a film with something substantial to say. Unfortunately, taking away its artifice, its references… its curlicue titles in a cutesy font and smartass old timey music cues… its illusion of style and its realistic depiction of violence, the killing joke is that Joker has nothing to say.
That’s worse than irresponsible. It’s bad film-making.
FLICKBAIT. a film blog by Kyle Wilson 