"Joker" has been a huge controversy since its inception.
In the end, the movie must be the development of the villain. There is no conventional justice, and there is no traditional good person to defeat the bad guy. It didn't even have a heroic character, when Bruce Wayne hadn't grown up and Thomas Wayne hadn't died.
So, no matter how logically rationalized this character change is, The Joker tells the story of the triumph of villain villains (albeit temporarily).
Its theme was originally the Joker Growing Up, even though everyone knows that in the future Gotham City, Batman is the protagonist of the story. It shows Gotham City before Batman really came along, a time when there was no light, and the sons of violence and chaos ruled the city.
If you haven't read the comics, you can refer to FOX TV's five seasons of "Gotham" (with James Gordon as the protagonist, a large number of DC villains appeared, which has been completed), and you will have a more concrete understanding of this city based on the prototype of New York.
It's a villainous prequel to the DC Universe, and it has to be seen as a throwback to the dark days before the light, and the storyteller knows he has to leave even a tiny gleam of light on Gotham City. Bruce witnessing the death of his parents in a back alley is the beginning of this dark story.
It is important to keep in mind the premise that " the story is far from over ", otherwise the violence in the movie will be used as a template of behavior that can be executed in reality.
On this basis, we can rationally (or safely?) discuss whether the work is good or bad with respect to the film itself and the performance of the actors, otherwise, we can only fall into the endless (and unnecessary) in the real moral debate.
What director Todd Phillips strives to accomplish is to tell the history of the formation of a villain; what Joaquin Phoenix (should be called Joaquin Phoenix?) strives to accomplish is to enhance the transformation of the character who is not crazy or alive. reliability.
Both of them have done their jobs in Joker very well.
Thinking the movie is good doesn't mean he agrees with the actions of the protagonist and the clown, it just means agreeing with the rationalization of the role transformation in the story, and agreeing that it is very possible under the interaction of Arthur's sociopathic personality and a rotten city Violence that will occur.
Of course we have to admit that violence exists, but that doesn't mean we think it's right, and acknowledging it doesn't justify it.
Those individuals applauding in the violent scenes are very likely to confuse the difference between the two, which also adds a layer of fog to this unnecessary controversy.
The Sociopath's Journey in Search of Happiness
The success of "Joker" starts from its unexpected cutting angle.
The happiness of evildoers is something we do not want to know, because we tend to assume that they are unhappy, and tend to end up living in the humiliation of being defeated by justice.
But sometimes the dragon will triumph and the warrior will die.
Many of the murders cited in John Douglas's "Mindhunter: The FBI Series" Not everyone can bring the killer to justice.
But by exploring their criminal psychology and studying the reasons why these violent behaviors bring them pleasure/happiness, it is possible to stop losses in time and prevent new crimes from happening.
Therefore, in the direction of "pursuing happiness", Todd took the audience into the first half of his life of Arthur Fleck, an ordinary underclass resident in Gotham society, to see what made him happy , Where did this pursuit of happiness turn over the car and become a criminal development record .
Various elements related to happiness fill every corner of the film.
Nicknamed "Happy Boy" by his mother Penny Fleck, he earns a living by playing the funny-centric clown and hopes to make a career in stands-up comedy, his favorite The show is The Merry Late Show.
He takes medicine on time and receives psychological counseling regularly, all to be happy and to be able to match his clown smiley makeup 100%.
But the Fake It Until Make It rule doesn't work here. Arthur never seemed to be able to be happy, as he himself put it: all my thoughts and thoughts were negative.
He has never had a single minute of happiness in his life.
"A Brief History of Humanity" has a chapter dedicated to the theme of happiness. It explores whether we have been happier than before since the emergence of human civilization from four aspects: material level, meaning of life, biological level and new culture movement, and its influence What are the factors of individual happiness?
Each discussion angle has its own rationale and limitations. Among them, the New Century Movement encourages us to explore our inner world and know our true self, regardless of the meaning of life or the quality of external material conditions. This modern liberalism elevates the subjective experience of the individual to a historical height, to some extent, beyond the limits of morality.
The director's logic for the formation of this DC's biggest villain is consistent with the core of the New Century Cultural Movement: how to recognize and accept the true self .
Rousseau's statement can be summed up best: what I think is good is good, and what I think is bad is bad.
Arthur finally realizes that he is a villain (super villain), perhaps, he realizes that his negative energy is far stronger than positive energy.
He feels that these negative thoughts are good for him, and putting them into practice can make him happy and make him really laugh. At this point, the clown was officially born.
So, DC's most notorious villain development can be seen to some extent as a tortuous history of an individual with a sociopathic personality in pursuit of happiness.
But it must be noted that this is only a philosophical theory to speculate on the source of happiness, and it is not equal to the channels and practices of obtaining happiness.
If social welfare were better and the people around him treated him better, would the situation be completely different? Maybe maybe not. We don't know, nor is there such a choice given in the movie.
The end result is, inevitably, a joy that builds on violence and chaos, and the film culminates in the riots in Gotham City.
This form of pleasure is certainly wrong, as it is based on harming the lives of others and the interests of society, but it is unquestionably successful at the level of fiction and character creation, at the level of storytelling.
The Final Form of the Four-Dimensional Clown
Arthur-Joker's transformation road, the director did not give a clear tendency and attitude, is a poor victim of (Gotham) corrupt and incompetent government and distorted social structure, or is there a strong but severely suppressed The final outburst of a sociopath?
Only in the 122 minutes covered by the film, the audience can't have a clear conclusion on this at all, which is why the film is so controversial.
In fact, an individual's life perception and attitude are inherently a complex and dynamic process. Growth experience, social environment and strong anti-social personality constantly intersect and influence Arthur, and finally form a unique set of clown behavior philosophy. .
In this blurring of boundaries, between the fictional plot of the film and the magical reality, this DC's most recognizable villain is constantly shaped and strengthened by the audience's discussion not only in the film, but also after its release.
Although the overall quality of the film has been touted, no one can deny that, whether Arthur Fleck or Joker, the characters themselves are undoubtedly successful.
This is not only due to Joaquin's wonderful performance, but also because director Todd Phillips, in the process of constructing Arthur The Joker, avoids advancing from a single level and takes the role as the main line of the plot of "pursuit of happiness". The center, extract the core elements from all the people and things connected with the character, and temper the fullness of the character from multiple dimensions.
Four Dimensions of Philosophy of Life
In "The Importance of Life" (also known as "The Art of Living") published in 1937 by Mr. Lin Yutang, based on the purpose of analyzing the unique Chinese philosophy of life, he proposed reality, dream (idealization), sense of humor and sensibility. It is the four major psychological factors that affect the individual.
When the director created the role of the clown, it also happened to have a subtle correspondence with the four dimensions mentioned by Mr. Lin.
Through the comparison of the strengths and weaknesses of the four factors between the different stages of Arthur-Joker's life, it vividly tells the story of how a weak person in society and life eventually evolves into a strong villain.
Different degrees of reality, dreams, humor and sensibility in a person determine to a large extent the person's attitude and perception towards society and life, which ultimately influences the individual's behavior pattern and forms a unique philosophy of life.
According to the combination of different factors, Mr. Lin Yutang has roughly summed up six different attitudes towards life.
1. Reality - Dreams = Animals
If a person is too realistic and has no particularly romantic pursuit of dreams, nor the ability to find fun in life, he is basically no different from animals, because such a person lives in this world only by survival instinct.
[Note] The romance here does not refer to the romance between men and women, but the poetic pursuit of life.
2. Reality + Dream = Tragedy A life with strong reality and lofty dreams is almost doomed to have a tragic end, because sooner or later reality will always collide with dreams into pieces.
3. Reality + sense of humor = Realists recognize reality and can entertain themselves and face it calmly. They are real pragmatists.
[Note] The sense of humor here is not funny, but as a buffer between reality and romantic dreams, or in other words, it can help social individuals see the world in a gentler way.
4. Dreams - sense of humor = fanatical fantasy. Without the humorous blessing based on reality, but immersed in the realm of dreams, you are destined to be lost in blind fanatical fantasies.
5. Dreams + sense of humor = daydreams Without realistic dreams, even if you can put a smile on life, you can only stay in the air and stop in daydreams.
6. Reality + dream + sense of humor = wise man in life. If you are serious about reality and still stick to your dream, you can still laugh at life. We call it a wise man in life.
It's easy to see that Arthur's entire life without a sense of humor is a tragedy, and the Joker is a realist.
You might ask, why can the same person have a sense of humor sometimes?
But it's important to know that Arthur and Joker are not "the same person."
The moment the fact of Penny's Hypothesis is discovered, two identities mysteriously change in the same person. The tragic Arthur has come to the end of his life, and the Joker has officially appeared : an individual who does not have any romantic dreams, a demon who sees reality clearly and has a strong sense of humor unique to him, and is very good at playing with human nature to entertain himself true realists.
Below we analyze in detail how these four factors change in Arthur Joker and how they play a role in shaping the film.
Humor sense of humor
The sense of humour not only plays a very important role in Arthur-Joker's character creation, but also is the dominant element in the plot of the entire "Joker" movie.
First of all, Arthur made a living by playing the clown and amusing the audience by making a fool of himself.
Secondly, Arthur chose comedy performance, an industry that emphasizes a sense of humor. As a personal career pursuit, he not only needs to know how to extract jokes from life materials, but also needs to understand the audience's laughter.
And these two points are seriously lacking in Arthur. He neither feels that life has any value to be laughed at, nor does he capture the audience's laughter at all. He and ordinary people live on two completely different channels from beginning to end. superior.
His sense of humour was so lacking that he screwed up his comedy show and was constantly replayed by TV to amuse viewers, which is the real joke.
A person who can't tell a joke insists on performing comedy itself, which is a joke.
Third, "uncontrollable" laughing is a physical condition of Arthur, and in fact, he does not have any "physical illness", but his laughing point is completely different from ordinary people: looking at others Suffering makes him happy.
Fourth, regarding the psychology of Arthur/Joker in the movie, loneliness is not the point, he repeatedly mentioned the issue of happiness or not.
Unlike the gloomy Arthur, the Joker has a great sense of humor, but his joy triggers are negative and based on hurting others. The director has already laid out quite a lot of details in Arthur's time, such as when the dwarf was teased and the subway woman was harassed by three men.
Reality
DC Gotham City is a hell with incompetent police, rampant crime, business monopoly, corrupt government, stark gap between rich and poor, indifference and violence. This is the society Arthur grew up and lived in.
But even if every day is spent in the crit of life, to a certain extent, he is able to float outside of real life.
This bizarre socially disconnected state of life is largely the result of his mother, Penny Fleck, who calls her son "Happy Boy" and who convinces him that no matter how bad the outside world is, as long as he If you want, you can be happy.
Escape from reality has always been an important theme in Todd Phillips' past work, especially the hugely successful "Hangover" trilogy, in which a group of grown men use all kinds of silly ways to escape being a grown man. Responsibility, in order to resist the mid-life crisis, made all kinds of unthinkable decisions.
But this estrangement between Arthur and reality is not just an artificial detachment from his actual social relationships, but more importantly, he is escaping the fact that he is not happy, which in turn is related to the "sense of humor" Dimensions are matched.
Arthur's pain is that he sees it clearly from the bottom of his heart but at the same time is denying this reality , just like he is constantly denying his anti-social personality, the whole film is basically in his real feelings and self-deception pull.
Dreams Idealization/Dream
Arthur's greatest ideal is to become a comedy master. He plays the clown, watches stand-up comedy, takes notes, and studies the laughs. In a large audience, he did not find that the punch line he recorded was completely inconsistent with the audience's laughter. .
Shockingly, both of Arthur's ideals were only in his own mind and never happened.
The ideal is of course different from the reality, and sometimes there is a big difference.
But ideal is not a lie. It has a very important guiding role in the happiness of life, and it also has its own authenticity.
But Arthur's ideals are not even a bit real.
The "happiness" he insists on was instilled in him by his adoptive mother who suffers from delusional disorder, which greatly challenges the foundation on which his belief rests. His understanding of comedy is completely based on the opposite of the audience. The pursuit of it is also completely suspended in the imagined kingdom.
Family, dreams, love, all proved in the end that they never existed.
Sensibility
Intense reality oppression and the shattering of dreams led to the complete shattering of Arthur Fleck's personality, and his super-emotional mind made the reality hit and affect him more strongly than ordinary people, interspersed with the awakening of the clown's personality and the shattering of Arthur's ideals. double echo.
Careful thinking in the director's play VS "accidental" controversy outside the play
Director Todd Phillips not only perfectly explained the growth story of a villain, but also cleverly used the conflict between fictional stories and reality to create one after another gimmicks. Since its release, it has tightly occupied the media headlines, and the popularity has never subsided. .
Even the unknown New York stone staircase where the clown danced has become a holy place for movie fans to worship and a place for tourists to take pictures and punch cards. A flight of stairs that was originally unremarkable and unusual, now the world knows its specific address: 1165 Shakespeare Avenue in the Bronx, New York.
The cheering incident mentioned at the beginning of the article has not subsided, and it has been revealed that the film is in this classic and iconic stone ladder dance sequence, and the soundtrack uses the convicted pedophile Gary Gleet's 1972 Rock and Roll Part 2. This means that Gretel, who was jailed in 2015, can still continue to collect royalties for "Joker".
Many people think that there are serious moral problems in the behavior of the filmmakers and directors.
Would the director not know whose song he used? impossible. Even if he didn't know, the legal department would be the first to warn him.
The only explanation is that he did it knowingly.
The veiled expression of what led to the Joker's eventual formation also serves the same purpose, as can be seen in Batman's (Bruce Wayne) veiled handling. What makes Bruce Batman so important cannot be overemphasized in the movie, which would seriously reduce the controversy of the dark story developed by the villain of "Joker" .
Controversy is too important for films, especially commercial films.
A large number of free UGC (user voluntarily generated content) determines the exposure intensity and length, and the exposure intensity and length are directly reflected in the box office. The industry predicts that the final box office profit will be as high as 4.64 US dollars, setting a new record for DC comics.
This score is quite competitive even in the history of superhero movies, close to the 476.8 million of "Black Panther" and the 500 million of "Avengers: Infinity War".
There is no topicality. Can a single Venice Golden Lion Award achieve such a box office?
impossible.
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