Thoughts on "Joker" (2019)

One week out from the opening of Joker, the Todd Philips-directed film depicting the origin of the infamous comic book villain, the United States army was put on high alert over concerns that the film’s opening could prompt violence.

It was the culmination of several months of controversies that surrounded the film, and it was the deciding factor that prompted me to wait nearly three weeks before finally seeing the film.

But what guarantee was this of my safety? Even as I watched the movie, was I not also watching my audience?

Joker obviously pushed buttons for critics and audiences alike. Some viewers lauded the film’s boundary-pushing narrative and conventions, and rightfully praised Joaquin Phoenix’s central performance as the troubled Arthur Fleck who becomes the titular Clown Prince of Crime.

Other viewers were quick to label the movie nothing short of a public menace; a movie which justified the mindset of countless loners who saw in the Joker a kindred spirit and whose own warped actions could led to copycat crimes.

And, for a lot of Joker I was willing to give the movie the benefit of doubt.

The acting was phenomenal and Phoenix is, understandably, an Oscar front-running for his evocative and nuanced performance.

The cinematography was breathtaking, rendering the film’s version of Gotham City more modern hellscape than bustling metropolis.

The score was riveting; each chord of Hildur Guðnadóttir’s haunting string score felt as if it were born from the same pit of despair out of which Phoenix’s Joker crawled, and it was complimented by some truly stunning needle drops that ran the gambit from Frank Sinatra to Garry Glitter.

On a visual and aural level, Joker succeeded brilliantly, but its script – penned by Philips and Scott Silver – was shallow and unfocused, practically copying and pasting some of its most visceral moments and images from the films that Philips insisted Joker was paying homage to.

It is clear that Joker owes much to the early works of Martin Scorsese; this supervillain epic feeling like the outrageous result of combining Taxi Driver (1976) with The King of Comedy (1983), both of which starred Robert De Niro who, in Joker, plays the late-night comedian with whom Fleck is obsessed.

In doing so, Joker tries to lift the mirror to the audience watching it and show us the murderous clown reflected in it, but did nothing to comment upon that image.

Joker does nothing to invalidate the Joker’s reign of terror – if anything it justifies the warped worldview perpetuated by lone wolf terrorists who insist that they were somehow hurt by society at large.

Joker wants to be a tale of moral ambiguity like its gritty predecessors, but Philips cannot handle the volatile material that he has crafted with the same skill and steady hand that Scorsese displayed over 40 years ago, and the film is painted in stark blacks and white with not a single shade of grey in sight.

On a narrative level too, the film is not sure what it wants to be; its moments of cold-blooded drama vying for attention with plot threads which attempt to attach the movie to the larger, extended universe of the Batman comics and though the Caped Crusader is nowhere to be seen in this particular origin story, anyone with a passing familiarity with the Batman mythos is liable to feel just as pulled out of the film as I was.

Joker does not fail entirely, but its merits are overshadowed by its obvious drawbacks. Joaquin Phoenix’s excellent performance is unfortunately lost amidst the film’s patently dangerous rhetoric and any film that does not take care to explore controversies like these with careful baby steps, but instead elects to dance down the whole staircase is highly suspect.

Cynicism and Film

For consumers of media, it is undeniable that we stand in the threshold of great change. The way in which we view media has fundamentally changed in the past few years; the world of even just 10 years again feels distant and antiquated.

Never before have there been so many streaming platforms catering up movies and TV to viewers than there are today.

Never before has technology allowed us to watch a blockbuster film from the comfort of our own homes and on the screens of our smartphone.

Never before has the amount of content been so diverse and so individually catered. The major motion picture is now the realm of action blockbusters and our favorite franchises; our need for character development, original storylines, and original storytelling now accessible at the press of a button on the smallest of screens.

All of these factors have changed the landscape of media consumption in the twenty-first century and their contributions to those changes cannot be underestimated. There is, however, another factor that has changed our view of media drastically and yet imperceptibly:

Cynicism.

To illustrate: early this week I opened Twitter and saw a tweet promoting the cast of the upcoming mystery thriller, Death on the Nile. The film, an adaptation of Agatha Christie’s 1937 novel, is the follow-up to Murder on the Orient Express (2017), another Christie adaptation, starring Kenneth Branagh as Christie’s celebrated sleuth, Hercule Poirot. Branagh was in the director’s chair for Orient Express and he returns to both rules for Poirot’s sojourn down the River Nile.

The accomplished cast includes Gal Gadot, Letitia Wright, Armie Hammer, and Annette Benning to name but a few of the film’s stars.

Needless to say, I was excited with the news and hit that Retweet button to both spread the word and flummox my followers.

But then I scrolled down and began to read the replies. Amidst the spattering of fellow fans excited to see the Queen of Crime’s novel adapted to the big screen, there were numerous others that were already putting the film down, mocking the film’s cast, and letting it be known that they would be skipping the film’s release.

I was shocked by the near-vitriolic level of criticism that the film already received when it should be noted that not one frame of film has been shot yet and the movie is not slated for release until October of 2020.

A whole year from now.

Some might say that there is no such thing as bad publicity and by actively tweeting their reservations, a host of twitter users are in their own way promoting the film; inciting at least one fan to use the upcoming release as evidence in his article for a college newspaper.

And it is certainly short-sighted to suggest that pre-production word-of-mouth does not touch most major film releases today. Did we not do the same thing when Marvel released the titles for their upcoming Phase Four releases? Were we not taking to the Twitterverse and posting our thoughts, feelings, and opinions on a series of movies that none of us have seen yet?

Pre-release discussion can be good. Todd Phillips’ Joker (released October 4, 2019) has generated much buzz ahead of its wide release, many commentators fearful of the film’s potentially harmful underlying message and presentation in today’s society. These informed discussions can be beneficial to not only devoted filmgoers but the public en masse.

Yet, we cannot forget that these discussions are occurring before most people have even been able to rule on the subject with evidence to support them.

In the case of Death on the Nile filmgoers dissatisfied by the Murder on the Orient Express film are already writing off this forthcoming effort.

Are we really so hesitant to stray from what we know as media consumers nowadays?

Unless something has been recommended to us on our favorite streaming service, are we unwilling to give a movie or television show the benefit of the doubt?

Do we lean so heavily on the accessibility of our favorite media that it is an arduous task to go out and experience something new?

These are all questions which buzz through my head as I contemplate the media landscape in which we live and I cannot help but feel like the answer to all of the questions posed above is yes.

That answers why films have morphed into literal events – three-hour epics depicting our favorite franchise characters and built upon cast lists that are a mile long – moving away from the kind of totally original storytelling that is now consigned to the realms of Netflix Originals and HBO series.

The cynicism is all too rampant, the justification all too familiar:

Why go through the trouble of getting out of bed and putting on pants and driving all the way to the movie theater and paying for popcorn and soda?

The movie will probably be disappointing anyway.