Jokers (Todd Phillips, 2019-?)

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knives
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Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

#301 Post by knives » Sun Feb 23, 2020 1:53 pm

Yeah, I had to clear up that sentence because what I was saying was very muddled. In short, though I disagree with this point, one could reasonably argue the reason why Brian's point about the social movement in the film doesn't succeed is that these people never actually meet Fleck or see his deeds which is a different relationship than that of the woman of the 'friend'.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

#302 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Feb 23, 2020 2:32 pm

Yeah I don’t think it’s necessarily successful but the effort seems to be there, though I think I’ve been viewing the strengths or my own interest in this film through a different lens perhaps, less in a reciprocal relationship with actual reality of icon worship and more in how it mimics reality to propose a disconnect in the hypocrisy within the icon and of icon worship (but now I see it with more empathy not dismissal). For me it all works best if compared with the obsession with Ledger’s Joker who is an “it” - a validation of the ease of a nihilism that is confident and a psyche that is settled in the form of an alien not a human being (but a form of one that allows for false identification), which I’ve already written about a lot here. The scene on the talk show at the end where Phoenix takes on this attitude and then reveals it as a facade and himself as emotional doesn’t just discredit him and expose him as I initially declared but is empathetic and realistic to human psychology. So it is up for interpretation whether one now feels even closer to him for being human and a symbol of their own humanity catapulting therapy, or whether one still harnesses that humanity as further evidence fueling the fire. So they may not get the escapist facade of this confidence but that relationship can still be used for projective anger and icon worship. I just think the scene offers the opportunity for the therapeutic path that Ledger’s Joker didn’t. And of course the ideal reading, I think, is a combination where we can hold that sympathy and awareness of the hypocrisy and harm together at once, but of course this doesn’t exactly feel safe or comfortable for everyone to do.

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Ashley Pomeroy
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Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

#303 Post by Ashley Pomeroy » Wed Aug 12, 2020 7:14 pm

I saw this in Hong Kong. I was on holiday there. 12 October 2019 at the AMC Pacific Place, midday, $140. It was a Cat IIB film, essentially a 15 certificate, and it was a fascinating experience. The air conditioning was on full blast, so the theatre was chilly. It had subtitles but they were tastefully done. No-one cheered or clapped. $140 is £14.

Pacific Place is a shopping mall. Just downstairs from the cinema was a Le Pain Quotidien, where all the English people seemed to be hanging out with their kids. They were all smartly dressed with Fred Perry-style shirts with collars. Mong Kok MTR in Kowloon had been put out of action by protestors, and some of central Hong Kong had graffiti, but the Pacific Place was untouched. I remember gazing at Shake Shack and Desigual and Max & Co and Sandro and Jaeger and Plat De Jour and wondering if I was the bad guy.

I have to admit I went purely so I could say I went to see a film in Hong Kong. The other options were terrible (I can't remember off hand, but the MTR was full of adverts for Maleficient II and Gemini Man). There was a trailer for a recording of a live performance of A Streetcar Named Desire with Gillian Anderson, and a ballet, plus the new Terminator Film, nothing else. Joker itself was frustrating and disappointing. It was essentially a muddled mish-mash of Being There, Taxi Driver, and Network, but whereas those films relentlessly drilled into a central theme, Joker just referenced thing and dropped them again.

For example the central theme of Network is that the media is amoral and uncaring in its pursuit of spectacle, and the film hammers this home unsubtly, but it gets its point across. In contrast De Niro's television presenter in Joker is portrayed as a generally reasonable fellow who agrees to play along with a very mild "freak of the week" segment on his show. There's no substantive underlying criticism of the media, in fact the film continually pulled its punches. The hooray henries Fleck shoots are turds, but the film then goes out of its way to make us feel bad about their deaths - as if the deaths of three turds in a giant cesspool of turds was a tragedy. The Being There aspect didn't work because the protests that eventually lead to Fleck's apotheosis go on in the background, and never really burst into the foreground until the very end. It's as if the producers of the film asked the writer and director not to go too hard on "the rich" in case the studio's board of directors shut down the production.

Furthermore the original elements (the ancestry subplot, Fleck's relationship with his mother) just bulked out the running time. On one level the film is a bit like Steptoe and Son, except that Harold Steptoe has a revolver and his dad is senile; if the film had simply been about an unremarkable everyman who has a really bad day it might have resonated, but instead it's about an empty shell who allows things to happen to him, who can't even be blamed for his actions because he's mentally ill. He would have been a poor criminal mastermind.

I realise I'm criticism a film for failing to be something I want it to be, but the Network-Being There-Taxi Driver parallels cannot have been accidental. In retrospect I think that the Taxi Driver aspect was a red herring; the internet hype concentrated on that, but it's a very different film. Am I the first person to compare Joker with Steptoe and Son? They're both about failures who have delusions of grandeur but are held back by their circumstances, but Steptoe is more tragic because Harold does at least appear marginally competent and might conceivably break free, but lacks moral courage. Fleck in contrast was doomed from the start.

Still, the music was good. I liked the music. I'm glad the composer won an award. The cinematography was lovely in the modern shallow-depth-of-field style that came about when they developed little miniature digital cameras with big 35mm film camera-sized sensors. As the film unspooled I remember wondering it it was shot digitally, and also whether I should have bought an ice cream, so that I could say I had seen a film in Hong Kong with an ice cream.

The one scene that I felt worked absolutely perfectly was (spoiler)
SpoilerShow
a sequence where a main character brutally murders one of his former workmates in the presence of another chap who he doesn't murder. The combination of shocking violence and disturbing black comedy (the witness is allowed to go free, but he can't operate the door latch, so he crumples into a defeated ball) is perfect, and I wish the film had more of that. The thesis that society's poor treatment of the mentally ill results in harm to society doesn't work because the circumstances of Fleck's descent are too particular to be universal. A more accurate film would have had Fleck end up in and out of prison after a violent outburst until he is beaten to death by a policeman and dumped in landfill, but that would have been a different film.
A day later I visited Window of the World, a theme park in Shenzhen, China, which has miniature recreations of world landmarks. I remember wandering through an extremely accurate recreation of St Mark's Square, Venice, thinking "can we survive global warming by genetically engineering ourselves into ducks" and "would it be quicker to genetically engineer ducks to be intelligent" and "could we imprison ducks in a media-rich environment and simply let evolution take its course". Joker is one of those films I saw once at the cinema and have no desire to see again.

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Toland's Mitchell
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Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

#304 Post by Toland's Mitchell » Thu Aug 13, 2020 1:38 am

Hi Ashley, when you're writing a post there's a way to hide spoilers. It's the button that looks like an eyeball with a line going through it. It will give readers the option of whether to read the spoiler or not. Like such:
Ashley Pomeroy wrote:
Wed Aug 12, 2020 7:14 pm
SpoilerShow
The one scene that I felt worked absolutely perfectly was (spoiler) a sequence where a main character brutally murders one of his former workmates in the presence of another chap who he doesn't murder. The combination of shocking violence and disturbing black comedy (the witness is allowed to go free, but he can't operate the door latch, so he crumples into a defeated ball) is perfect, and I wish the film had more of that. The thesis that society's poor treatment of the mentally ill results in harm to society doesn't work because the circumstances of Fleck's descent are too particular to be universal. A more accurate film would have had Fleck end up in and out of prison after a violent outburst until he is beaten to death by a policeman and dumped in landfill, but that would have been a different film.
I don't think spoilers matter that much for this thread. I think most people reading this thread have seen Joker by now. Anyway, good insightful write-up! I enjoyed reading it.

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domino harvey
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Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

#305 Post by domino harvey » Fri Oct 16, 2020 11:38 pm

ianthemovie wrote:
Mon Oct 21, 2019 12:31 am
I liked this more than I expected to, and actually found it to be more akin to such willfully nasty exploitation movies as Ms.45, Death Wish, and especially Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer than to Scorsese and Lumet. It borrows heavily from the Scorsese films right down to re-staging certain scenes almost verbatim but its blunt force and nihilistic tone reminded me more of those other titles.
It's funny you mention Ms 45, because I also thought of the film in relation to this, but more because the back to back kicking pile-on scenes in which Phoenix gets beaten up identically from two different groups reminded me of the equally contrived and unlikely back to back rapes in Ms 45. There is a real trying too hard-ness to this movie's ugliness that is about as phony, and I spent most of this film not liking it very much and finding Phoenix's perf weird in a boring way. But it somehow kind of won me over in the end run, in which Phoenix slips into this bizarre interpretation of what someone with no experience being suave thinks smoothness looks like and becomes legit unsettling in his talk show interview. I thought, unfortunately, that this is where the film should have started, not ended, though of course part of its power is in how long we had to sit through all the misery porn nonsense to get there. Alas, it can't last and the Psycho aping ending is pointless and neuters the anarchic power of the finale-- good lord, this film just couldn't resist its eightieth bite at the "See, Batman, get it" apple, could it?

I also want to remind everyone a year-plus later that the hand-wringing and pearl-clutching about how "dangerous" this film was going to be remain stupider than ever

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Mr Sausage
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Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

#306 Post by Mr Sausage » Sat Oct 17, 2020 6:36 am

What I liked was how, physical assaults aside, much of his torment stemmed from being misunderstood and especially unheard. And then when he gets on television, his big moment to tell the world who he is, he's inarticulate and remote and bungles his attempt to communicate. The only time his communication works is the one act of violence. And then when he sticks his face in the camera to make his grand final statement to the world on who he is and what he's just done, the camera cuts out. I was expecting the talk show scene to be a Great Dictator moment, but it ignored those conventions for something more interesting.

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Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

#307 Post by Mr Sausage » Sat Oct 17, 2020 9:59 am

Oh, forgot to add, I don't think that final scene is pointless. I think it's meant to show that Fleck is done trying to explain himself or forge any kind of understanding and connection through language. He's going to let violence alone do the talking for him. If there's one thing in the movie that has any power, it's that spiraling sense of violence alone having any real impact on the world, and that otherwise no one is listening. That Fleck finds a sense of value and togetherness through violence and debasement is a crushing irony on a couple levels.

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Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

#308 Post by Fandango » Thu Apr 29, 2021 1:16 pm

It appears that Joker is a polarizing film, with those disliking it stating it bears no resemblance to its source material, and those who welcome it viewing it as a commentary on society at large. I believe that Joker's widespread success may be a testament to the current widespread decay, which is becoming more and more evident.

The film portrays Arthur Fleck, beginning as he roams the squalid city in the midst of martial law, as those tasked with collecting garbage are on strike. The state of the city is symbolic of the state in our heads. We see that everyone in the film is solipsistic, working only to the degree that is commensurate with their salary, no more and no less. Instead of banding together as a society to clean the city, they continue to justify their narcissism and ask for others to clean the city (if others won't do their job, why should I?).

Arthur's job is to make people laugh and to entertain. This is symbolic of the clown world we live in, where attention is becoming a commodity. In order to achieve a certain threshold of success, you need to be able to entertain, thus being able to provide this commodity. At work, we entertain in order to get ahead; at home, we give ourselves an IV of narcissistic supply in the form of social media, where we receive the attention.

The sign that Arthur carries with him has a subtext, which implies that society, at large, must be eradicated. The squalid nature of the city, a function of the inhabitants within it, are the source of this darkness. Arthur's attempts at bringing attention to himself represents the pathological narcissism that permeates the world today. "I hope my death has more meaning than my life," implying that he is unable to get the attention he believes he desires while he's alive, so perhaps people will finally notice him when he dies. His fantasies about being applauded and welcomed further reinforce this idea. This narcissism breeds from a lack of attention in childhood, which is unsurprising given Arthur's dysfunctional upbringing. The reason Arthur said he felt more comfortable in a mental asylum is because the environment confers the maternal warmth that he lacks. There, he has no need to associate with anyone, compromise, or come to any agreements, he receives maternal warmth from the social workers, and is given sustenance in the form of medication and food.

The stairs throughout the film are symbolic of the difficulty to elevate one's social and spiritual status. It is always harder to climb up (strive towards virtue) than it is to come down (succumb to dissolution). Arthur is consistently shown as having a hard time climbing the stairs; yet when he becomes Joker, he climbs down effortlessly, symbolizing the ease of succumbing to temptation—the path of least resistance.

Living with his mother provides Arthur with comfort and safety. The mother figure represents the individual. The need to leave one's mother represents the need to elevate ones biological and emotional needs in favor of the self. In other words, leaving the comforts of home forces one to grow, something that Arthur does not wish to do. With that, the audience sees that taking care of his mother symbolizes the importance that society places on the material, disregarding spiritual growth (moving out). The need to take care of his mother is symbolic of that need to nurture consumerism. When his mother tells Arthur that he should smile more, this reinforces this idea, because those who are able to entertain are able to achieve success, and therefore obtain material prosperity.

Murray Franklin is Arthur's father-figure. Arthur's fantasies have him receiving attention from the audience, and warmth and acceptance from Franklin. This represents the non-existent father presence that many children experience today, as they are products of divorced or dysfunctional families. When Randal gives Arthur a gun so he can defend himself, he calls him "my little boy." This accentuates Arthur's infantile nature, and represents manhood. It's noticeable how Arthur does not go out and purchase a gun (dormant or non-existent masculinity), but receives it from someone else. This represents how men in society are lacking the father role in their lives, instead receiving it from morally questionable outside influence (media). As Arthur receives the gun, a symbol of masculinity, from someone who wasn't his father (didn't teach Arthur how to be a man), he is unable to harness his masculinity for good, and instead uses it for destruction.
Once again, the audience sees Arthur laboriously climb up the stairs. At home, Arthur begins playing with his gun, and suddenly feels an awakened sense of strength in the form of the warrior and lover. He is confident he can strike a conversation with his neighbor, and even seduce her so that she will love him. It is noticeable how Sophia is single. Arthur feels he will be able to relate to her because he has been caring for his mother, who is also single. After Arthur is fired, he is seen on a train. The train is symbolic of a lack of agency, as it has a predetermined path. This tells us that Arthur's transformation into Joker is not his fault, occurring without his influence. He has not chosen the path of Joker, it has been decided for him. Furthermore, the train is shown underground, symbolizing the dark pit of his soul. This is reinforced by killing the men who taunted him on the train. As Arthur dances in front of the mirror, we see he is no longer Arthur, but is now Joker. Each time Arthur contorts his body is also the transitional point from Arthur to Joker. He feels an awakened masculinity, fantasizing about having sex with his neighbor. After he retrieves his things from work, we see the ease in which he descends down the stairs, symbolizing his chosen path towards moral depravity.

As Arthur finds out about Wayne, he goes to visit him. As he tells him how he really feels, what the audience is seeing is the confession of a soul, the product of contemporary civilization. Wayne represents this society, and instead of comforting Arthur, punches him in the face. This symbolizes society's disregard for those like Arthur, believing that it is their weakness and ineptitude that made them who they are. They extol the virtues of agency and dismiss the element of luck that is highly correlated with their success. The audience then sees that Wayne, the symbol of capitalism, and Penny, the symbol of consumerism, are the two forces that breed those like Joker, who exist without an identity and purpose. When Arthur returns home, he goes inside his refrigerator. This symbolizes that Arthur is now dead, and in his wake, is Joker.

Joker takes on his newfound identity of moral corruption, and chaos ensues outside, indicating that a world without a virtuous codex of beliefs, is a world destined to disarray. He is the post non-classical hero, who exists for his subjective self-expression, disregarding rules and fostering entropy.

The large acclaim the film received is a testament to the fact that many in society see themselves as Joker, disenfranchised and without a purpose. Joker, then, appears to be a symptom of the disease. To paraphrase Schopenhauer: "culture breeds civilization and civilization extirpates culture."

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Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

#309 Post by therewillbeblus » Mon Sep 06, 2021 12:41 pm

Some media outlets ‘round the ‘net are now reporting the plan is to produce a Joker trilogy

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Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

#310 Post by Never Cursed » Tue Jun 07, 2022 9:33 pm

Script for sequel, called Joker: Folie a Deux, completed

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Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

#311 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Jun 07, 2022 10:11 pm

That’s admittedly a very creative title, but surely too esoteric to be finalized.. I’d love to see that spelled out on the marquee though!

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Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

#312 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Jun 14, 2022 8:17 pm

The sequel is also being reported as a musical(!) with Lady Gaga rumored to co-star as Harley Quinn

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Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

#313 Post by domino harvey » Tue Jun 14, 2022 8:20 pm

Allegedly Phoenix wanted his wife to play Harley Quinn, just to give some perspective on how much worse the reality is here

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Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

#314 Post by The Narrator Returns » Tue Jun 14, 2022 8:28 pm

This, Vox Lux, and Annette, it seems you can't make a modern movie musical without Rooney Mara almost but not quite starring in it.

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Never Cursed
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Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

#315 Post by Never Cursed » Tue Jun 14, 2022 8:41 pm

You know what? I'm all for this - there's no reason for this sequel to exist, so if an inevitably terrible film is going to be dragged kicking and screaming into the world, why not have it be as ridiculous as possible? (With the added pleasing side effect of curtailing the reach of DC's comic book movies too - maybe this can be the genre's One From The Heart and afterwards this movement of popular film can just go away for a while). I'm officially an accelerationist on this issue

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Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

#316 Post by The Narrator Returns » Tue Jun 14, 2022 8:52 pm

I wish I had your optimism in this being able to end the superhero-movie chokehold on culture (or your optimism that it would be as good as the excellent One From the Heart!), but otherwise I agree. I found most of Joker to be an unenlightening slog so this leaning into ridiculousness can only be an improvement even if it's the bad kind of ridiculous. Certainly I had rock-bottom interest in seeing a sequel until this news.

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Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

#317 Post by swo17 » Tue Jun 14, 2022 8:57 pm

How is the incel community taking this news?

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Never Cursed
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Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

#318 Post by Never Cursed » Tue Jun 14, 2022 9:28 pm

The Narrator Returns wrote:
Tue Jun 14, 2022 8:52 pm
I wish I had your optimism in this being able to end the superhero-movie chokehold on culture (or your optimism that it would be as good as the excellent One From the Heart!), but otherwise I agree. I found most of Joker to be an unenlightening slog so this leaning into ridiculousness can only be an improvement even if it's the bad kind of ridiculous. Certainly I had rock-bottom interest in seeing a sequel until this news.
I think it's a fad like all big business fads - all-encompassing until the conditions creating it change, causing the fad to disappear. Sure the biggest media company on earth has sunk incalculable resources into making it a remarkably hegemonic fad, but even they are feeling the pinch of diminishing streaming/theatrical returns and a more general lack of unconquered market share; where else can they go but down? (On a more macro level, I think we will soon see a similar thing happen to the popular but wildly unprofitable trend of phone-enabled food delivery apps and services). I share your hope for a mostly cape-free popular cinema (which is more than I can say for your opinions on One From The Heart or Sam Levinson!).

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Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

#319 Post by RIP Film » Tue Jun 14, 2022 9:45 pm

I imagine the genre shift would take it in a much more meta direction and lift it out of the narrative doldrums that the first fell into. It seems like they recognize what made the first resonate, dancing on that thin line between reality and entertainment. I’m not big on musicals but it could have great potential for the absurd.

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Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

#320 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Jun 14, 2022 9:55 pm

Never Cursed wrote:
Tue Jun 14, 2022 8:41 pm
You know what? I'm all for this - there's no reason for this sequel to exist, so if an inevitably terrible film is going to be dragged kicking and screaming into the world, why not have it be as ridiculous as possible?
I had the same reaction and when I posted I honestly thought the entire forum would join me. I guess I’m as out of touch as an incel

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Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

#321 Post by Never Cursed » Tue Jun 14, 2022 10:02 pm

Sorry, you're cancelled, I can't read your posts

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Re: Jokers (Todd Phillips, 2019-?)

#322 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Jun 16, 2022 2:36 pm

I'm seeing a few articles (not jokingly) predicting that Phillips will be deliberately aping Scorsese's New York, New York for the sequel, since the first was so indebted to Taxi Driver and King of Comedy

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Re: Jokers (Todd Phillips, 2019-?)

#323 Post by DarkImbecile » Thu Jun 16, 2022 2:55 pm

Hopefully we get senior citizen Joker for the Irishman-inspired conclusion of the trilogy

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Re: Jokers (Todd Phillips, 2019-?)

#324 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Jun 16, 2022 3:10 pm

If Phoenix doesn't retire again... though maybe then we'll get drugged-up rapper Joker for the Wolf of Wall Street entry

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Re: Jokers (Todd Phillips, 2019-?)

#325 Post by domino harvey » Thu Jun 16, 2022 3:29 pm

So, Spring Breakers?

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