This article was first published on the WeChat public account "Inter-Star Whisper", please pay attention to the public account for more content
"Joker" is a phenomenal masterpiece released in 2019 (it was not released in China due to its large scale). It is also the top 1 movie of 2019 between the stars. Next, I will briefly talk about this movie.
Joker has won many awards, including the Golden Lion, the Oscar for Best Actor, and more. It has also created many unprecedented achievements: surpassing "Deadpool 2" to become the highest-grossing R-rated film; the box office is 15 times the production cost, making it the most profitable comic book movie of all time. These achievements all show that "Joker" is a veritable masterpiece.
"Joker" is directed by Todd Phillips, best known for his "Hangover" series. "Joker" is the first serious film he directed to reflect on society. It now seems that Todd's first attempt can be said to be very high level.
The one who needs to be mentioned most is Joaquin Phoenix who plays the Joker. His superb acting is one of the key factors in the film's success. Some people even commented that he seemed "possessed by the devil" when he performed. In order to show the image of a thin clown, he went on a diet for several months and lost 64 pounds. During the performance, he vividly performed the uncontrollable pathological laughter of the clown, the strange and elegant dance of the clown, and the rich facial expressions. With his outstanding performance in the film, he won the Oscar for Best Actor.
In addition, Robert De Niro, who plays host Maury Franklin, is also worth mentioning. He is 77 years old this year. When he was young, he played a role similar to the clown in the movie "Taxi Driver", but in this film he became the villain who laughed at the clown. Such a coincidence is reminiscent of a famous saying: "You can die in the name of a hero and live forever; you can also live in the world and watch yourself fall into the ranks of the wicked".
The background music of the film is also commendable. Several American classic old songs are selected to create the atmosphere of the 1970s and 1980s in the United States, and the choice of songs is also thought-provoking (this author will mention it later). In addition, the soundtrack of this film is dominated by low violin sounds, which makes people feel very depressed, and makes people feel more sympathetic to the clown. In addition, the film won the Oscar for best soundtrack, which shows that its soundtrack is very good. The use of light in the film is also very sophisticated. Lots of blue-yellow contrasting colors. Blue embodies Arthur's depression and despair in the early stage, while yellow expresses Arthur's freedom and indulgence after turning into a clown.
Many movie fans are familiar with an ironic saying: "Gotham City has a simple folk style, and talents come out of Arkham." Gotham City, the fictional American city where the Joker is located, is full of criminals and old people; Arkham, the mental hospital in Gotham City, is full of lunatics and criminals.
The Joker is Gotham City's number one villain and Batman's nemesis. Many previous films have focused on Batman and portrayed the Joker as an evil and crazy villain, but this film takes a different approach, focusing on the origin of the Joker, allowing the audience to understand the deep-seated reasons for the Joker's appearance.
Also, mention various abridged versions of the following films. There is a 115-minute abridged version, which is as long as 6 minutes. The author recommends that you do not read it. There is also a version of 2:01:47, with a few sentences deleted, which makes you feel a little fragmented when you read it. The uncensored version is 2 hours and 2 minutes.
However, in order to compress the length of the film, even the uncensored version, about half an hour of the plot was cut, which makes some of the Joker's behavior seem a little unreasonable. The author will refer to the deleted scene below.
The following contains a lot of spoilers! ! ! The following contains a lot of spoilers! ! ! The following contains a lot of spoilers! ! !
Brief synopsis: What is tragedy? Tragedy is the destruction of what is valuable in life for others to see. This film is about how a poor ordinary man Arthur slowly lost his kindness in his heart under people's ridicule, attack and discrimination, and finally embarked on the path of the clown's crime. In the beginning, Arthur Fleck was a poor ordinary man. He suffers from a strange disease and often bursts out laughing that doesn't match his true emotions. As a professional clown, he tried his best to put on a smile. Although he was bullied by bad boys and hated by the citizens, he was still careful, carrying cards with him to explain his inappropriate laugh.
He lives with his mother, sees a TV presenter: Maury Franklin as his idol, and longs for his approval. He also has his own dream: to become a stand-up comedian. He even had a crush on a neighbor—a young single mother. He's not a villain, he's just very down-to-earth.
But the hostility of society tormented him. A colleague gave him a gun in the name of protecting him. He was framed by his colleagues and lost his job; he was kicked and beaten by the "social elite", so he shot himself, and he was out of control from then on; The illegitimate son of wealthy businessman Wayne, he tried to recognize his father but was beaten again; he fell in love with his neighbor, only to find out that the relationship was his imagination; he discovered that it was his mother's indirect abuse of him that caused him to laugh...
As a result, Arthur gradually lost his motivation and desire to be kind to others. He gradually abandoned his cautious and tolerant way of doing things, and began to let go of himself and be unscrupulous. He killed his bullies: the social elite who beat him, his mother who had abused him, his colleagues who framed him. In the end, he publicly killed the host who mocked him while recording a TV show and became the face of chaos among the rioting populace.
Due to the limitation of the length of the film, many plots were not cut into the film, which led to the sometimes puzzling behavior of the clown. After the clown lost his job, he once again encountered a colleague who framed him and quarreled, which made him want to kill; the clown did not kill the female neighbor, but gave her a bouquet of flowers and his own savings when he went out.
The most ironic point of the film is that Arthur's mother Penny has always called the clown "happy" (happy). As everyone knows, this is Arthur's pathological laughter caused by the head trauma left by his childhood abuse. And Arthur's mother had been indirectly involved in the abuse of Arthur. In the mental hospital, Arthur's mother once said: "I never heard him cry, he has always been a happy little boy."
Arthur himself has been very distressed about this nickname, but has not expressed it. In the deleted plot, Arthur was mocked by his classmates with this nickname because of his uncontrollable laughter when he was a child. In the end, he cut a smile on his face with glass and said to the classmates who laughed at him: " Now you are happy."
When Arthur grew up, he was often looked down upon for his laughter. In the movie, after Arthur burst into an apparently abnormal laugh, many people just asked: "What's so funny?" (What's so funny appeared 3 times in the movie). Nobody really cares about the Joker, they just think of him as a freak. It was not until Arthur killed his mother that he finally said, "I have never been happy in my life."
In fact, Arthur's own dream is a joke. He has always wanted to be a stand-up comedian, but when he listens to other people's jokes, he can't find the point of laughter at all, instead, he bursts into morbid laughter when he shouldn't. His own performance was also horrified by morbid laughs. As you can see, Arthur has no comedic talent at all. And his dream only came from a sentence from his mother: "put a smile on your face". Arthur's mother often told Arthur that she thought Arthur was there to bring laughter to the world, and she wanted Arthur to keep smiling and put on a smile. But did she really think Arthur was happy? In my opinion, this is not the case. In her letter to Thomas, we can see that she thought the Joker was "somewhat pessimistic". She has always been aware of Arthur's mental state, but keeps feeding Arthur with false dreams.
Chances are, she's just trying to cover up Joker's own mistakes as a child. She didn't want Arthur to know that it was her previous indirect abuse of the Joker that caused Arthur's mental illness. However, it was her constant indoctrination that made Arthur have unrealistic dreams, and in the end, knowing all this, Arthur chose to kill his mother.
Next up is Thomas Wayne. I personally believe that Thomas Wayne is Arthur's biological father. There is an obvious detail in the movie, a photo of the Joker when she was wearing makeup when she saw her mother when she was young.
But as the Joker said in the studio, Thomas Wayne is a hypocritically rich man who only thinks about himself. So he deliberately forged the Joker's adoption certificate, and at the same time sent Joker's mother to the Arkham Asylum by some means.
Thomas Wayne wears a philanthropist mask. He acts as if he cares about others, but in reality he only cares about his own future. He thinks he is superior and sees the people at the bottom like a clown jumping off a beam. He has not experienced or experienced the life of the people at the bottom, but just self-righteously called them murderers and cowards. He doesn't understand what "The Great Gatsby" says: "Whenever you feel like criticizing someone, remember that not everyone in the world has the advantages you have."
Many people noticed the difference between Arthur's left and right hands. When Arthur is normal, he often uses his right hand, and when he makes crazy moves, he uses his left hand. For example, Arthur used his left hand to draw a smiling face twice, Arthur used his left hand more when shooting, and often danced with his left hand first. The left hand symbolizes Arthur's inner repressed clown character. Whenever Arthur encounters setbacks or is released, his inner clown side will show through his left hand.
Equally striking is the dance of the clown. Except for the two dances that the clown is forced to dance for a living, the rest of the dances are all weird and elegant. These dances can be regarded as the externalization of the Joker's psychological activities, and also mark the process of Arthur's transformation into the Joker. The first dance of the clown represents the first awakening of the clown. After the first murder and escaping from the scene, the clown just calmed down and danced slowly in the dimly lit confined space. At this point, we can't tell who is Arthur and who is the clown.
The most impressive thing is the dance of the clown on the steps. In this dance, the clown expressed his complete transformation with extremely unrestrained and bold movements. On such a high and steep step, dancing such an exaggerated dance shows the recklessness of the clown after abandoning everything. With bright yellow light and cheerful music, it shows the excitement and sense of freedom inside the clown.
The Joker's last dance was performed while standing on a police car after being injured. The dance, danced in the frenzy of the crowd, won the attention and applause of the protesters. The Joker smeared a mouth full of blood on his face and truly became the king of chaos in Gotham City. From then on, the Arthur in the clown's heart disappeared completely, and a new villain was born. Arthur's heart desires, in fact, is the same as most of us, he wants attention, he wants to be heard. When the psychiatrist in the community opened Arthur's notebook, we could see that Arthur wrote in detail how a man who fell to the ground drunk and died was trampled on by passers-by. He wrote: "I don't want to die and be trampled on, I want to be seen. Then came the phrase "I hope my death is worth more than my life".
That's why the Joker decided to kill himself on the Maury Franklin show. He hopes his public suicide will get more attention than his insignificant existence. If Morrie's mockery hadn't changed his mind, he might have actually committed suicide.
But his more basic need, to be heard, was not met. As he told the psychiatrist: "You never really listened to me. You were just asking the same questions... I was full of negative thoughts, but you wouldn't listen anyway." The loneliness of being heard, he had tried to be gregarious. For example, when getting along with colleagues, he deliberately laughs with them when they all laugh.
Even, he fantasized about his love affair with his neighbor because no one confided. In his fantasies, the neighbors have always supported him and accompanied him. She would support Arthur during his performances, and accompany Arthur's mother to bed with him when he was sick. But it all falls apart when Arthur actually breaks into the neighbor's house. He said to the neighbor: "I have a bad day today." The neighbor chose to be indifferent and protect himself.
Watching "Joker" carefully, it is not difficult to find that many of the jokes are malicious mockery and satire. In fact, many laughable art forms contain more or less ridicule and derogation. The resulting laughter is a ubiquitous phenomenon in human beings. When we see other people make a fool of themselves, we naturally develop an inner sense of superiority, and therefore feel amused. This is the embodiment of selfishness. However, as the film master Chaplin said, life is a comedy from a distance, and a tragedy when seen close up. There is not only selfishness, but also empathy in human nature. When we are emotionally close enough to others, instead of laughing at the tragic experience of others, empathy and empathy emerge instead. If we can reduce the alienation and indifference between people, maybe we won't make malicious ridicules when we see others making a fool of themselves. There is one detail in the film worth pondering. When Arthur enters the theater, he finds that the rich people in the theater are watching "Modern Times" starring Chaplin. Although "Modern Times" looks like a comedy on the surface, it actually reflects the tragic experience of the bottom people during the Great Depression. However, such a film that is an indictment of the times is appreciated by the rich as a simple comedy, and bursts of laughter erupt from time to time in the theater.
Obviously, these elites only look at the people at the bottom from a distance, and have not really experienced and experienced the life of the people at the bottom. They were overjoyed to see Chaplin ice skating on the edge of the platform in the movie. But they don't know that their own lives are at stake just like Chaplin skating. The people at the bottom who have been ignored by them are about to erupt in silence. Outside the theater, protesters confronted the police.
Mayoral candidate Thomas Wayne and host Murray Franklin are representatives of the elite. They laugh at others with a schadenfreude attitude and never think of others. They think they are superior, and they see the people at the bottom as clowns. When the people at the bottom broke out in silence, they would only stand on the moral high ground to criticize. They're talking utterly correct but utterly empty nonsense, never really thinking about anyone but them.
The real living environment of the people at the bottom is gloomy, dark, chaotic and dilapidated. Under the gloomy sky, the towering gray buildings give people an extreme sense of depression. Messy graffiti littered the walls and the subway. Super rats run amok in the piles of garbage everywhere. And people's hostility, like rubbish, can be seen everywhere. The number of unemployed people is huge, and the hatred of the rich is constantly rising. Between people, there is no warmth and care, only indifference, caution and plotting between each other are left. Tension hangs over Gotham.
Deep in people's hearts, there is always more or less the desire to destroy and destroy. And the citizens of Gotham live in an extremely depressing environment, and their inner anger and hostility will naturally accumulate. In the end, when they ditched everything they had carefully guarded, put on clown masks and painted faces, they became unstoppable, even evil.
When the Joker slowly rose from the police car and began his final dance, we had reason to believe that he was happy. He received recognition and attention from others, cheers and applause. As everyone knows, this joy is false. The demonstrators who cheered and cheered for the clown were actually the same type of people as the bad boy who teased and beat the clown at the beginning of the film. They don't care who is standing on the police car, or what kind of setbacks and blows this "clown" has experienced. They just want to vent their anger that has nowhere to go. Cruel joy will end in brutality. When the carnival was over and the crowd dispersed, all that was left were the fallen victims and helpless children.
The birth of the clown is closely related to a specific era background. Based on the movies "Fighting Line" (1981/7/24) and "Pink Zorro" (1981/7/17), which were released in theaters, it can be inferred that "Joker" is set in July or August 1981. At that time, it was the time when the United States began to adopt a series of economic reform measures.
Movie in theaters hints at 'Joker' era
The main measures at the time were to cut social benefits, while reducing personal and corporate taxes on high-income earners. Although this series of measures ended the depression of the US economy and contributed to the end of the Cold War, it also caused the gap between the rich and the poor in society to widen, and some people's hatred of the rich began to rise. In the film, Arthur's social welfare agency is also forced to close because of funding cuts. What caused Arthur to become the Joker? A pistol given by a colleague, a mockery from an idol, or a beating by others? These are not essential reasons. What really shapes the clown is actually "The system that knows so much" in the clown's mouth. It is the system that has led to the polarization between the rich and the poor, social instability, and the lack of basic care between people. This may be closer to the original intention of director Todd Phillips for "Joker". "Joker" takes the imaginary Gotham City as the background and uses the Joker as the protagonist to warn us that in an extremely unfair system and a cold and ruthless society, even an ordinary person Arthur who is willing to be kind to others can also be hostile to the system and society. Transformed into a crazy and killable clown. This is the true universal value and humanistic concern of The Clown.
Some people say that the difference between an ordinary person and a clown may be just one bad day. The author does not fully agree with this statement. We do not live in a society of extreme injustice, where there are no sacks of rubbish and dead bodies left to be trampled on the streets, mass unemployment and elites who sit idly by. When we fall, there is always someone to help us. This person may be a relative, a friend or a stranger, or it may be the unwilling self.
View more about Joker reviews
