Oh, What a Circus
Oh, What a Circus
All The World Loves a Clown
March 3, 2020
Die Laughing
Joker (2019)
The more cynical, or perhaps the more cinema-weary, among us might consider Joker to be a celebration of violence, or maybe an exercise in the grotesque. Or maybe just another comic book movie gone wrong.
But the view here is that Joker is the story of what can happen to those who get left behind. The poor, the mentally ill, the voiceless. And what happens when they get a voice. And a gun.
Joaquin Phoenix portrays Arthur Fleck, a bad, middle-aged comedian who is taking care of his sick mother in a merciless city and his already dirty, gasping little world begins falling apart even further as his rejections become relentless, the pressures mount, the helping hands pull away and the taunts turn up the volume.
Do you ever see those crazy looking guys on the subway? Stay away. You don't know where they've been and you don't want to learn what they're capable of. You really, really don't.
The plot of Joker mirrors the narrative of many true-life tragedies. We can remember a case in Chicago a few years ago in which a man killed some people and then when we heard what led him to that horrible act, when we learned of his years-long unchecked spiral into madness and aggression we almost felt sorry for him even though he had done something beyond despicable.
Joker follows this path, taking us deeper and deeper into a damaged mind but, because it's a movie, the protagonist's violence becomes celebrated, not condemned. But wait, that's wrong. In real life vigilantes are often made into heroes, aren't they? They just don't spark a revolution.
That can't ever really happen, can it?
Phoenix, as you know by now, won an Oscar for his performance and it's richly deserved. A lot of people hate this movie and we are not going to convince them otherwise. All we can say is that, mostly because of Phoenix's performance, but certainly abetted by a strong script, solid direction and a lugubrious setting, this comic book nightmare connected with us.
The Joker becomes a hero even though there is nothing heroic about hurting people. Let us be thankful to be reminded of that lesson on screen, not in reality. –TK
Wednesday, March 4, 2020