criterionforum.org

Posted: **Tue Sep 03, 2019 8:16 pm**

quim_font wrote: Tue Sep 03, 2019 8:11 pm Ehrlich’s review is exactly what I was afraid of

Me too!

Posted: **Tue Sep 03, 2019 9:52 pm**

They sound like standard liberal hysterics to be honest. The woke Tipper Gores of the 2010s. I’m not going to take any critic seriously who mentions “GamerGate” in their review. I mean this is just astonishing snobbery:

There’s a fundamental difference between telling a story like this in the form of a dingy, misanthropic art film like “Taxi Driver” and telling it in the universal language of a superhero movie that’s going to open in multiplexes the world over. In this context, that story can’t help but feel aspirational. And Phillips is the first person to be seduced by its pull — to be helplessly pulled along by an innate desire to see Joker at the height of his power.

Only upper middle class coastal types who go to art theaters can be trusted with such dark themes! But Phillips is making such a movie...for the unwashed masses! Oh no! Trump is sure to be re-elected now!

Posted: **Tue Sep 03, 2019 10:02 pm**

My biggest fear with this film continues to be that it just won't be very good - Phillips can't merely put a fresh coat of paint (literally) on Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy and trot it out as some masterwork. It actually has to work on its own merit, which no one seems to actually be discussing.

Posted: **Tue Sep 03, 2019 10:04 pm**

But yeah the alarmist nature of some of these reviews is oof.

Posted: **Tue Sep 03, 2019 10:27 pm**

ford wrote: Tue Sep 03, 2019 9:52 pm They sound like standard liberal hysterics to be honest. The woke Tipper Gores of the 2010s. I’m not going to take any critic seriously who mentions “GamerGate” in their review. I mean this is just astonishing snobbery:

There’s a fundamental difference between telling a story like this in the form of a dingy, misanthropic art film like “Taxi Driver” and telling it in the universal language of a superhero movie that’s going to open in multiplexes the world over. In this context, that story can’t help but feel aspirational. And Phillips is the first person to be seduced by its pull — to be helplessly pulled along by an innate desire to see Joker at the height of his power.
Only upper middle class coastal types who go to art theaters can be trusted with such dark themes! But Phillips is making such a movie...for the unwashed masses! Oh no! Trump is sure to be re-elected now!

I’m not sure how you inferred that from that quote, maybe I’m missing something. To me, it reads simply that a superhero movie that breaks from the content of its predecessors should also break from the formal attributes of the predecessors. By implying that a mass audience would be unreceptive to a formally daring, or different, work, you’re only belying your faux concern for “the masses.”

Posted: **Tue Sep 03, 2019 10:42 pm**

It's just a movie. There have been plenty of provocations to date. There have been plenty of irresponsible films to date. Films which through the charade of wanting to represent and condemn actually endorsed or celebrated something. This is not the first. This won't be the last.

There is bad faith art made all the time. Some of it is very good. Not to say that the Joker is art. Or that it will be any good.

Posted: **Tue Sep 03, 2019 10:56 pm**

I’m being 100% sincere when I say that I can’t decide whether I really want to see this movie or if I just want it to go the hell away already. It’s the damnedest feeling.

Posted: **Tue Sep 03, 2019 11:33 pm**

Nasir007 wrote: Tue Sep 03, 2019 10:42 pm It's just a movie. There have been plenty of provocations to date. There have been plenty of irresponsible films to date. Films which through the charade of wanting to represent and condemn actually endorsed or celebrated something. This is not the first. This won't be the last.

There is bad faith art made all the time. Some of it is very good. Not to say that the Joker is art. Or that it will be any good.

Singing a very different tune than you were with the Tarantino, I should point out

Posted: **Wed Sep 04, 2019 12:10 am**

I have responded to your pointless and unprovoked personal attack and hypocritical post in the other thread. You can find my response there. You show repeatedly how you single out users and attack them. And then wonder why more people don't post here. The reason is you.

Posted: **Wed Sep 04, 2019 12:59 am**

I love Hoobastank

Posted: **Wed Sep 04, 2019 3:11 am**

quim_font wrote: Tue Sep 03, 2019 8:11 pmThis is the same affliction that Fight Club, American Psycho, or even Mad Men suffers from: the form belies the content, the “message.” People love to say that those who venerate Durden, or Bateman, are misreading the film, but they’re not. The form and the content of those films are at odds with each other, leading to an incoherentness that allows for those readings to occur.

Not to stray too far off-topic here, but I don't recall many people admiring those characters. On the surface level, Durden is charismatic and Bateman successful, though the films/books make it clear there are issues with their personas. Same with Don Draper -- he has a desirable exterior and a damaged core. If audience members seem to like them, I think they're only taking those outer layers into account.

Posted: **Wed Sep 04, 2019 4:05 am**

Boosmahn wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 3:11 am
Not to stray too far off-topic here, but I don't recall many people admiring those characters. On the surface level, Durden is charismatic and Bateman successful, though the films/books make it clear there are issues with their personas. Same with Don Draper -- he has a desirable exterior and a damaged core. If audience members seem to like them, I think they're only taking those outer layers into account.

Unfortunately, Tyler Durden and his “philosophy” (Bateman to a lesser extent) have become figureheads for things like the “Men’s rights movement,” among other reactionary groups. I won’t link that dreck here, but there are many long-winded posts on those forums regarding Fight Club. I agree these are misreadings, but still, they are held by many.

Whether we like it or not, this same conversation will appear around The Joker. None of us have seen the film, so that’s a conversation for a later time, but there will be a temptation on many to say, “who cares what those groups think, it’s not important.”

But if we are to take film seriously, regard it as an art form, we have to be critical and ask why a film failed in delivering its “message.” Hell, there’s almost an entire wing of criticism dedicated to “why people dangerously misread nietzsche.” The same questions should be asked even of Hollywood films.

Posted: **Wed Sep 04, 2019 5:41 am**

Boosmahn wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 3:11 am
quim_font wrote: Tue Sep 03, 2019 8:11 pmThis is the same affliction that Fight Club, American Psycho, or even Mad Men suffers from: the form belies the content, the “message.” People love to say that those who venerate Durden, or Bateman, are misreading the film, but they’re not. The form and the content of those films are at odds with each other, leading to an incoherentness that allows for those readings to occur.
Not to stray too far off-topic here, but I don't recall many people admiring those characters. On the surface level, Durden is charismatic and Bateman successful, though the films/books make it clear there are issues with their personas. Same with Don Draper -- he has a desirable exterior and a damaged core. If audience members seem to like them, I think they're only taking those outer layers into account.

I think the quoted post makes total sense, actually – the films are ostensibly condemning the characters, but in every other aspect venerating them by making them seem cool or aspirational. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing – it's as old as the concept of the antihero – and I'm sceptical about media-effects narratives of negative impact on society, but I think it's absolutely true that there are films out there that are wanting to have their cake and eat it too.

Posted: **Wed Sep 04, 2019 12:44 pm**

Excellent points, quim and furbicide. It's definitely possible for films/etc. to ineffectively convey their messages, and it is important to find out why, but I still believe that those specific examples largely succeeded in their goals.

Posted: **Wed Sep 04, 2019 1:35 pm**

Worrying about whether society will take the right messages from films is worrying about whether films are adequate social control, in which case you’re really talking about propaganda.

Propaganda is ideally simplified and stereotyped to reduce misunderstandings. This is why propaganda is mostly turgid and unbearable, having little to do with our lived reality. It doesn’t admit the complexities of art or life. It exists to be nothing more than pure control of message and, it is hoped, viewer.

People don’t like complexity. People find clear, easy answers more comfortable and reassuring than complicated and difficult ones. Not just dumb people, either, but smart people too. It’s not surprising that people prefer simple good/bad interpretations of complicated or divided characters.

Just keep in mind that celebrated historical joke: Swift’s Modest Proposal was taken seriously by a lot of people. A good satirical performance will always risk being taken at face value only.

People are demanding a clarity of message that’s not only the proper domain of propaganda, but also one we don’t expect from the greatest works of narrative art. We are to this day still arguing over Spenser’s allegorical obscurities in The Faerie Queen, Dante’s religious obscurities in The Divine Comedy, and Joyce’s everything in his two big novels. One thing studying literature has taught me: works of art are often most interesting where they’re not clear, where things are thorny, difficult, and raise issues and problems.

Wondering about sociological issues is fine, but in the end, what society thinks is ancillary to film and should have no place in actually sitting down to understand or appreciate a film.

Posted: **Wed Sep 04, 2019 2:45 pm**

Mr Sausage wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 1:35 pm Worrying about whether society will take the right messages from films is worrying about whether films are adequate social control, in which case you’re really talking about propaganda.

Propaganda is ideally simplified and stereotyped to reduce misunderstandings. This is why propaganda is mostly turgid and unbearable, having little to do with our lived reality. It doesn’t admit the complexities of art or life. It exists to be nothing more than pure control of message and, it is hoped, viewer.

People don’t like complexity. People find clear, easy answers more comfortable and reassuring than complicated and difficult ones. Not just dumb people, either, but smart people too. It’s not surprising that people prefer simple good/bad interpretations of complicated or divided characters.

Just keep in mind that celebrated historical joke: Swift’s Modest Proposal was taken seriously by a lot of people. A good satirical performance will always risk being taken at face value only.

People are demanding a clarity of message that’s not only the proper domain of propaganda, but also one we don’t expect from the greatest works of narrative art. We are to this day still arguing over Spenser’s allegorical obscurities in The Faerie Queen, Dante’s religious obscurities in The Divine Comedy, and Joyce’s everything in his two big novels. One thing studying literature has taught me: works of art are often most interesting where they’re not clear, where things are thorny, difficult, and raise issues and problems.

Wondering about sociological issues is fine, but in the end, what society thinks is ancillary to film and should have no place in actually sitting down to understand or appreciate a film.

I suppose I should clarify: I'm not worried about whether people take the "right" message from a film, but simply interested in the way the image functions. My point is, on paper, films like Fight Club, and from the script, Joker, have "messages" so heavy-handed they beat you over the head with them to the point they could be called "propaganda," to use your term. In fact, that is what they desired to be; these are not a "cinema of questions" as Kiarostami would say, but one of answers. But all that changes when the images come onto the screen, why?

I agree works of art are often most interesting where they’re not clear, but that was not the attempt of these works. They wanted to be "propaganda," but failed. The answer to why lies in the essential question of cinema: "how and why to begin and end an image?"

Posted: **Wed Sep 04, 2019 3:07 pm**

quim_font wrote: Tue Sep 03, 2019 8:11 pm This section from Ehrlich’s review is exactly what I was afraid of: “There’s a fundamental difference between telling a story like this in the form of a dingy, misanthropic art film like “Taxi Driver” and telling it in the universal language of a superhero movie that’s going to open in multiplexes the world over. In this context, that story can’t help but feel aspirational. And Phillips is the first person to be seduced by its pull — to be helplessly pulled along by an innate desire to see Joker at the height of his power.”

This is the same affliction that Fight Club, American Psycho, or even Mad Men suffers from: the form belies the content, the “message.” People love to say that those who venerate Durden, or Bateman, are misreading the film, but they’re not. The form and the content of those films are at odds with each other, leading to an incoherentness that allows for those readings to occur.

I get what you're saying in theory -- I've honestly never been comfortable with even Taxi Driver personally, not because I think it's Bad for Society or something but because I'm way too squeamish about spending that much time wallowing around with someone that unseemly -- but the last time I watched Fight Club (which was a while ago, I admit) it was quite plain to me that anyone who misread Tyler Durden as aspirational was quite a fool. The comic tone of that particular film, and the way its story wraps up, all but seemed to be openly mocking Tyler's wilder ideas. But I remember a lot of moral panic over that film when it was released and after it became super-popular on DVD, so maybe I'm off base.

As for Joker, to me the whole thing and the way it's completely overtaken Film #Discourse for several weeks now just seems so depressing for reasons I don't seem capable of properly articulating.

Edit: I initially posted this thinking page 4 was the last page and I'm really sorry!

Posted: **Wed Sep 04, 2019 3:16 pm**

Ideas are like technology, they can be used by idiots and brilliant minds alike. I tend to agree with Sausage that this discussion raises eyebrows; it's starting to sound like parents discussing whether something is safe for the kids to watch.

I believe artists absolutely have a responsibility, and if you treat your subject too carelessly and not with intelligence and sensitivity it will backfire. This is why I find satire needs to walk a fine line, because reality imitates satire far too often. But artists have no control over the interpretation of their work. Would we be better off if films like Fight Club and American Psycho never came out? I don't think so, they probably inspired many unseen people in positive ways. To just focus on idiot culture is unfair, especially when they would probably find some other mode to hang their sentiment on. The point is culture suffers if creators are inhibited, and popular work being co-opted is as old as anything. Should Nietzsche have not written any books because of the Third Reich? We would probably end up the same, but duller and with a more lacking vocabulary.

But this discussion is probably way more than the film deserves. I think the qualifier here is that said 'works' need to have substance and not just be a bunch images designed to provoke an audience already feeling those things. But I'm not yet of the opinion that the film is guilty, having not seen it, at least not anymore guilty than the meme culture that sprang up around Nolan's joker.

Posted: **Wed Sep 04, 2019 3:31 pm**

quim_font wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 2:45 pm
Mr Sausage wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 1:35 pm Worrying about whether society will take the right messages from films is worrying about whether films are adequate social control, in which case you’re really talking about propaganda.

Propaganda is ideally simplified and stereotyped to reduce misunderstandings. This is why propaganda is mostly turgid and unbearable, having little to do with our lived reality. It doesn’t admit the complexities of art or life. It exists to be nothing more than pure control of message and, it is hoped, viewer.

People don’t like complexity. People find clear, easy answers more comfortable and reassuring than complicated and difficult ones. Not just dumb people, either, but smart people too. It’s not surprising that people prefer simple good/bad interpretations of complicated or divided characters.

Just keep in mind that celebrated historical joke: Swift’s Modest Proposal was taken seriously by a lot of people. A good satirical performance will always risk being taken at face value only.

People are demanding a clarity of message that’s not only the proper domain of propaganda, but also one we don’t expect from the greatest works of narrative art. We are to this day still arguing over Spenser’s allegorical obscurities in The Faerie Queen, Dante’s religious obscurities in The Divine Comedy, and Joyce’s everything in his two big novels. One thing studying literature has taught me: works of art are often most interesting where they’re not clear, where things are thorny, difficult, and raise issues and problems.

Wondering about sociological issues is fine, but in the end, what society thinks is ancillary to film and should have no place in actually sitting down to understand or appreciate a film.
I suppose I should clarify: I'm not worried about whether people take the "right" message from a film, but simply interested in the way the image functions. My point is, on paper, films like Fight Club, and from the script, Joker, have "messages" so heavy-handed they beat you over the head with them to the point they could be called "propaganda," to use your term. In fact, that is what they desired to be; these are not a "cinema of questions" as Kiarostami would say, but one of answers. But all that changes when the images come onto the screen, why?

I agree works of art are often most interesting where they’re not clear, but that was not the attempt of these works. They wanted to be "propaganda," but failed. The answer to why lies in the essential question of cinema: "how and why to begin and end an image?"

Fight Club bears little relation to propaganda, and mere bluntness in theme does not make anything propaganda.

Fight Club actually offers few answers beyond maybe that cultivating healthy relationships and taking personal responsibility for one's life can solve a lot of one's problems. One of the reasons Tyler Durden is venerated in some circles (aside from the fact that rebels are just attractive) is because his mannerisms and message is attractive. He is meant to be seductive, on some level, up until the point when you realize the conclusions he's reached are horrifying and awful. This is the narrator's journey, certainly. One can realize it sooner--like, by the time he start organizing underground fights; but if you're giving yourself up to the fantasy, that one can wash. It's the Goodfellas technique.

But if you want to know why Fight Club is misinterpreted, well, consider that it's misinterpreted on both sides. It's openly an anti-fascist film, and yet its opponents, and even solid critics like Roger Ebert, deem the movie itself fascist. More recently, Jordan Peterson's new book calls it fascist. The Tyler Durden venerators and the Tyler Durden haters make equivalent mistakes.

So it's misinterpreted on both sides, despite the fact that it's a pretty blunt movie. Why? Dunno. I assume part of it is that, despite the bluntness, Fight Club is not an uncomplicated movie. It needs some active reading, and most people are content to take at face value whatever in the movie struck them most powerfully.

Posted: **Wed Sep 04, 2019 3:39 pm**

Mr Sausage wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 1:35 pmWorrying about whether society will take the right messages from films is worrying about whether films are adequate social control, in which case you’re really talking about propaganda.

I can't speak for other members, but I was moreso talking about the artist's intent being misconstrued. Unorthodox takes on a film are appreciated; someone aspiring to be like Bateman (murders and all), however, is a different story.

Posted: **Wed Sep 04, 2019 3:41 pm**

Mr Sausage wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 3:31 pm So it's misinterpreted on both sides, despite the fact that it's a pretty blunt movie. Why? Dunno.

We're talking past each other a bit (my fault im sure), and in addition I feel like I'm cluttering up this thread with unrelated discussion, so I just leave it at that I suppose instead of "dunno" I believe the answer lies in the formal qualities of the film, in the images. Serge Daney has talked about this at length (visuals vs. images) etc, etc.

I'm not trying to be a paternalistic scold, I swear! The morality of images has just always interested me since reading Rivette's "The Tracking Shot in Kapo," that's all.

Posted: **Wed Sep 04, 2019 3:52 pm**

quim_font wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 3:41 pm
Mr Sausage wrote: Wed Sep 04, 2019 3:31 pm So it's misinterpreted on both sides, despite the fact that it's a pretty blunt movie. Why? Dunno.
We're talking past each other a bit (my fault im sure), and in addition I feel like I'm cluttering up this thread with unrelated discussion, so I just leave it at that I suppose instead of "dunno" I believe the answer lies in the formal qualities of the film, in the images. Serge Daney has talked about this at length (visuals vs. images) etc, etc.

I'm not trying to be a paternalistic scold, I swear! The morality of images has just always interested me since reading Rivette's "The Tracking Shot in Kapo," that's all.

I get you. But I think it's as I said: people tend to take at face value the aspects of the movie that struck them most powerfully.

A lot of the formal elements that make the early parts of Fight Club exciting or thrilling also make the latter parts a crazed, paranoid nightmare as everything spirals out of control and all systems designed to protect against this become compromised and untrustworthy. Movies in which things appear both good and bad, say, at different times in the narrative are always open to misinterpretation because you need to hold two different ideas in mind at once, which is difficult and requires time and mental energy. It's easier to settle for one side or the other.

It's a valid reaction to the movie to find Tyler's Durden's kind of freedom exhilarating and also realize the horrifying costs of such freedom. Many critics mistakenly assume the movie is only aware of one of those things.

Posted: **Sat Sep 07, 2019 6:27 pm**

Godalmighty. Joker has won the Golden Lion!

Posted: **Sat Sep 07, 2019 6:37 pm**

Look, just see this and Polanski winning as a gift aimed squarely against the obnoxious reign of Film Twitter. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of folks

Posted: **Sat Sep 07, 2019 6:42 pm**

domino harvey wrote: Sat Sep 07, 2019 6:37 pm Look, just see this and Polanski winning as a gift aimed squarely against the obnoxious reign of Film Twitter. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of folks

The irony of them being insufferably mean spirited and toxic while complaining about those things in the film community is certainly palpable. Couldn't agree with you more here. I hope the notion that their opinions exist within just that ecosystem brings them down a notch or two.

criterionforum.org

Jokers (Todd Phillips, 2019-2024)

Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)

Re: Joker (Todd Phillips, 2019)