As a branch of fantasy literature, "superhero" is often full of romanticism. The most basic thing that the creators of related works consider is how to implant different characteristics for different characters, and then examine what sparks can be generated by characters with different characteristics. The premise of "different from ordinary people" determines that the world created by superhero literary and artistic works is an obvious "fantasy world" - normal audiences will not imagine that such characters and such stories will happen in reality.
Attempts to add realism to the romantic fantasy world have resulted in a sublimation of superhero work. Alan Moore's comic "Watchmen" reflects the depression and horror of the Cold War in reality by composing a group of retired heroes. When Christopher Nolan created the Batman movie, he removed the elements that were too "fantasy" in Batman-related works, and concentrated on portraying the concept opposition between heroes and villains. The "Dark Knight" trilogy is also regarded as a superhero movie. benchmark.
The film "Joker", which has been highly praised by the industry before its release and continued to receive rave reviews after its release, has reinvented the creative concept of superhero works. The role of the clown comes from superhero literary works, but the "Joker" movie has almost no romantic elements, but a downright realistic work.
superhero movies without fantasy
A major characteristic of realist works is their fidelity to real life. "Joker" can also convince the audience that the characters and stories in the film have a chance to appear in the real world.
The Joker is a classic villain in Batman's works, known for his extreme sociopathic personality. He is often seen as two sides of the same coin together with Batman: both are "madmen", but Batman is insanely pursuing order, he is only responsible for preventing crime, but not replacing formal official institutions - such as the police, courts ——To punish crimes, so no matter how terrible the villain is, Batman will not "sentence" in private, even if the corrupt and incompetent officials in the story often put the villain back into society and cause new crimes; and the Joker's philosophy of life is chaos And madness, he enjoys all the subversion of normalcy and order, mocking everyone's efforts to "maintain the bottom line" with creepy laughter, and Batman, who is obsessed with order and does not really solve the problem of crime, is even more of a clown. the number one object of ridicule.
Joker tells the origin story of such a terrifying character. Middle-aged Arthur has always dreamed of becoming a good comedian, but his life has been poor for a long time. Under the pressure of family, work, and social interaction, Arthur chose to rebel against society and eventually became a clown.
The film is set in the 1980s. In reality, the United States was in the so-called "economic recession" in the 1980s. The rapid rise of emerging developed countries such as Japan and the uneasy atmosphere of the international community in the context of the Cold War made the Americans feel anxious at that time. The "Joker" movie also tries to restore this environment of collective anxiety, and blames the birth of the Joker on a deformed society. The restlessness of citizens and the creation of anti-social people in a deformed society in an anxious atmosphere are obviously not illusory imaginations, but rather reminiscent of grim reality.
The entire film has almost no surreal elements. Before the blackening, Arthur was a person from the bottom of society who had a rough experience; later he became a clown. The fuse was an occasional crime, and the real driving force was that the protagonist discovered the truth behind his tragic life. In reality, many criminals have a similar "mental journey."
Also, as a movie category, superhero movies often focus on visual spectacle. And "Joker" not only does not have the common flying and escaping scenes of this kind of works, but even the shooting scenes are few and far between. "Joker" is more focused on "real violence". Although there are not many violent scenes, every scene of punching, kicking, bullets passing through the head, and the destruction of rioters can be restored in real scenes.
Therefore, "Joker" can be said to be a realistic crime film. The Joker has no "superhuman character" elements such as superpowers, body mutations, high-tech equipment, and magical skills. With an ordinary body of flesh and blood, he picked up a pistol and embarked on the road of crime, and he has not yet shown the completely bottomless attitude of the comic version of the Joker. This clown is not fundamentally different from the wicked elements in reality - or, in other words, the real human society has created countless "clowns" for a long time.
Superhero romanticism was hard to get rid of
Judging from the superhero literary and artistic works, the realism of "Joker" is unique. In the past, some creators used superhero works to observe reality, but the romantic aesthetic features are difficult to be abandoned.
Take Nolan's "Dark Knight" series as an example. Nolan has made a lot of cuts to Batman's fantasy elements, but at most this just changes the story of Batman from "American mythology" to "American martial arts novel". In the comics, Batman often pilots a spaceship to fight cosmic bullies such as Darkseid and Brainiac with characters with "magical powers" such as Superman and Wonder Woman. Many villains faced by Batman himself, such as Poison Ivy, Frozen Man, Killer Crocodile, etc., also belong to mutant characters. Nolan can remove these elements, but he can't remove the universal belt, the Batmobile, the Batcave, the Batcomputer database, which make Batman's basic character traits.
Therefore, if the Joker's origin story is added to Batman, there is a high probability that romanticism will reappear. There have been many different versions of the Joker's origin story before, the most classic one is Moore's "The Deadly Joke". The Joker in this story is a down-and-out comedian himself. His wife is about to give birth, and in order to support the family, he decides to take a risk and do some dirty work for the gang. However, before "starting work", he received the bad news that his wife died in childbirth. The gang forces him to continue "working", only to be hunted by Batman. The down-and-out actor finally stumbled and fell into a bucket of chemical liquid, his hair and complexion changed color, and his mind was finally twisted, becoming a clown. In this story, Batman is still a super gear controller. Even if Moore used the subject line of "As long as a bad day is encountered, the most rational person will go crazy" to issue a realistic criticism of "social cannibalism", "The Deadly Joke" has never stripped away the basic fantasy elements of superhero literary works.
"Joker" obviously refers to "The Deadly Joke" in terms of the core of the story, emphasizing that the clown is the product of social evil. But since Batman doesn't need to be on the scene, director Todd Phillips can go a step further in "realistic" superhero movies. In addition, Phillips, like Nolan, has taken great pains to deal with the fantasy elements of superhero stories. What is unique is that Phillips does not directly discard the elements of fantasy, but reshapes them within the framework of realism.
The most typical example is Arthur's "laughing disease". He laughs uncontrollably, and is often seen as a "freak" by others. "Laughter Disease" is actually based on the classic weapon "Clown Gas" of comic clowns. The inhaler of the Joker's gas will also laugh until the poison eventually dies. This weapon is the key to shaping the clown's sociopathic personality. He not only enjoys making others die, but also treats "death" as a "joke", trying to convey a distorted view of life.
Arthur in "Joker" also "died" because of the "laughter disease". He was beaten during a bout of illness and eventually shot the attacker in self-defense. This becomes the key point of Arthur's degeneration into the clown, Arthur goes to "death" and the clown is born from the same body. Also used to portray a sociopath, "laughter" goes from a deadly weapon to a mental illness, with an undiminished indictment, but the latter is more likely to happen in the real world.
Past Victories of Realist Superheroes
Although there are a lot of fantasy elements in the stories of Batman and the Joker in the comics, "Joker" can be made into a realistic work that is closely related to the setting of the original story. The character of Batman first appeared in a comic magazine called "Detective Comics", which shows that Batman's own role is a detective disguised as a bat. The villains that Batman encountered in the early days were many types of real-life criminals such as gang bosses and robbers. Therefore, the Batman story is inherently full of realism.
After the Batman story system has gradually taken shape, the elements of realism still play an important part. Batman and his assistant Robin often have to fight all kinds of criminals. Among them, characters such as Penguin, Double Face, Riddler, Catwoman, Silence, Calendar Man, Professor Pig Face, and Zass have their image characteristics mainly from their modeling characteristics and criminal tactics. Even if the fantasy that comes with these characters is stripped away, they're still distinctive. Their stories can also be told along the path of realism.
In fact, the element of realism in Batman comics is an important factor in making readers identify with the character. A folk hero who is determined to fight criminals is far more likely to appear in the real world than an alien wearing a cape across the blue sky, or a mutant who emits spider silk and floats between buildings. This makes it easier for readers to resonate with reality more easily, and subsequently love the character more. It is recognized that the three most popular characters in American comics are Batman, Superman and Spiderman. It may be controversial who is more in front of Superman and Spiderman, but Batman is firmly in the "first brother" position.
When Nolan fans or "Dark Knight" movie fans shout "No Joker since Heath Ledger", they're actually convinced by the more realistic Joker. Ledger's version of the Joker is calm, savage, and scheming, playing with Batman, Harvey Dent, and the Gotham City Police Department for a round of applause. The ship bomb dilemma he created at the climax of the movie can be restored in reality. Thinking of the audience at this level, it is inevitable that a cold sweat will break out.
Ledger even tried not to perform the Joker's trademark laugh in order to portray the grimness of the crime master. It should be noted that there is another important reason why the image of the clown has become popular in the past, that is, in the 90s version of the "Batman" animation, the voice actor Mark Hamill played the clown with superb skills. The shrill voice and unbridled laughter once defined the clown's screen image. Ledger's version of the Joker, however, has a low voice and less dramatic laughter than Hamill's version. As a result, the Ledger version of the clown has also stripped away the cartoon-like absurdity, creating another kind of terrifying aura-the extreme anti-social performance of executing crimes with extreme calmness. Ledger had Jack Nicholson before and Jared Leto as the Joker in the movie. Although the two versions of Joker have their own characteristics, if it is "true horror", it must be the Ledger version that stands out the most.
Joaquin Phoenix plays the new Joker in Joker. If the Ledger version of the Joker made reality through cruelty, the Phoenix version of the Joker created reality through pain. The latter is closer to the classic image of the clown in comics and animation, including the logo laugh, but also the dance scene that reflects the clown's narcissism and infatuation with crime. However, although this version of the Joker is more like "walking out of the comics", the setting of the brain disease makes his behavior exaggerated but still believable. In particular, Phoenix portrays Arthur's struggle to control his laughter but fails, fully showing the character's desperate mood of "never happy for a second" (the Joker's confession line in the film).
Subvert the assembly line of super British works
A more realistic clown brings more talk to movie fans and comic fans. But that's not to say that the more fantasy-heavy clowns are inferior. In fact, "Joker" completely follows the line of realism. For superhero literary works - especially superhero movies - the greatest value lies in opening up a new creative dimension.
Now is the "golden age" of superhero movies, but there are only a handful of successful gold diggers. 2012 was a turning point in the development of the film business for the two major American comic book giants, DC and Marvel. In May, Marvel's "Avengers" was a big hit, and the hero assembly model was successfully verified; in August, DC's "The Dark Knight Rises" ended the "Dark Knight" series, leaving "DC has more depth" 's reputation. However, since then, the two super-British movie works have been in diametrically opposite directions. Marvel's "Marvel Cinematic Universe" (MCU) has released 23 films so far, making it the most profitable franchise in film history. DC has encountered frequent setbacks when imitating the MCU to create the "DC Derivative Universe" (DCEU). The highlight of the gathering of heroes, "Justice League", has become a double poison at the box office and word of mouth. Looking back at "The Dark Knight Rises", it turned out to be a DC movie. Final glory.
The "Avengers 4: Endgame" released this year has topped the global historical box office championship with a devastating trend. It can be seen that the MCU is the unshakable superhero movie king at the moment. However, MCU works have been repeatedly criticized for assembly line and lack of nutrition, but they are packaged by elements such as handsome men and beautiful women, marketing, and visual effects. Instead, the big sales of their works are regarded as a sign of the declining creativity of Hollywood fantasy movies. At present, Marvel Studios, whose wallets are bulging, does not seem to have any signs of drastic reforms, which has made many fans and fans who are tired of the too homogenization of current superhero movies angry.
More and more heroes have been added to the MCU, but the pattern has become more and more constrained, but its dominance will not change in a short period of time. The DCEU, which was once regarded as a powerful challenger to the MCU, has basically disintegrated and has no name. The follow-up movies are likely to ignore the stories and settings of the existing movies. And Fox, the publisher of the "X-Men" and "Fantastic Four" series, has been acquired by Marvel's parent company Disney, and the "X-Men" series has come to an end, and the future "X-Men" characters are likely to join MCU. Lionsgate tried to restart the "Hellboy" series, but unfortunately "Hellboy: Rise of the Blood Queen" released this year also exploded. Only Sony, which owns the rights to the "Spider-Man" movie, has won a slice of the MCU's big sales by partnering with Marvel Studios, becoming one of the few other successful investors after Marvel dominated the superhero movie market.
At this moment, the rise of "Joker" has injected new waves into the rewrite of the super-English film market. "Joker" is a work by DC to "set things right", it does not belong to the DCEU series, and the investment cost is only tens of millions. However, just winning the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival has once again made the "DC Depth" brand shine again. More importantly, the success of "Joker" may inspire a more active exploration mentality among superhero movie creators after reflecting the complacent MCU pipeline works.
Although the MCU has also boasted of exploring serious topics in recent years, such as the issue of racial fate in "Black Panther" and the feminism in "Captain Marvel", in fact, the theme of the film is first and the content is mediocre. The so-called serious topics are discussed. Thunder, little rain. Before "Joker", there were already a number of superhero film creators trying to break through the MCU model, such as "Wolverine 3" telling the story of the hero's twilight, such as "Sea King" creating a visual spectacle of large-scale underwater battles, such as "Spider-Man: Parallel" "Universe" moved the parallel universe setting in the comics to the big screen... and "Joker" became the sharpest shot in the action against pipeline creation.
Just as The Joker is the villain who opposes the hero Batman, "Joker" also seems to be an "anti-superhero" work, whose creative purpose is different from the traditional superhero creation mode. But it is this kind of breakthrough that can bring new vitality to the super movie market, which is already showing signs of aesthetic fatigue.
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