Joker
A Deep Dive into the Ham of Gotham
“Something like that — a guy getting hit on the head with a rock or something — tickled the pants off Ackley.”
- Holden Caulfield, The Catcher in the Rye
Rating: 95%.
Contains no spoilers.
We as a civilization decided to dichotomize time on Earth into BCE and CE by the birth of Jesus. I as a person may have to dichotomize my time on Earth by my viewing of Joker.
OK, maybe I wouldn’t go that far, but I cannot recall a mood shift as great as the one from the beginning of that film to the end. I am very late to the (card) table on this flick: by the time I wandered into the AMC 16 in Burbank (one of three AMCs within a mile of each other… hey, this is a movie town), Joker had already become the top-grossing R-rated movie of all time. I figured the 11 AM showing was gonna be a solitary experience. It was, but for a different reason: I’ve never seen an audience so solemn. Nobody so much as moved. At the end, we all stumbled out, stunned.
That sensation has not happened for me since The Blair Witch Project. (I saw Se7en by myself in the middle of the night but I hear the feeling was similar in movie houses across the world.) Indeed, ten of us went to go see Blair Witch, and as I was coming out of the bathroom, the door suddenly opened and I leapt backwards. The door opener and I looked at each other and laughed nervously. He went, “Blair Witch?” I quickly nodded and walked out. Blair Witch was one for the ages. Not to be confused with the casting call for the blonde in The Facts of Life. That was called The Which Blair Project. Who’s with me?!
The irony of Joker is that Todd Phillips, who directed some of the biggest comedies of the millennium (The Hangover Trilogy, Old School, Starsky & Hutch), managed to make a movie about a joker that was not funny. It’s almost like taking out only the 7 and 10 pins in bowling. It’s not worth as many points as a strike is, but it is hard to do.
I think I was the only person who laughed at all; everyone else was stone cold silent. I suppose it’s because I have a pretty dark sense of humor. (The dividing line for me is between Dark and Sick. I’m repelled by sick; I’m attracted to dark. And whereas I found the premiere episode of Black Mirror (“The National Anthem”) sick, I found Joker to be dark.)
It’s not that it was scary. I wouldn’t describe Joker that way.
- Was it eerie? Yeah…
- Spooky? Not really.
- Unsettling? Sure.
- Disturbing? Yes, but “The National Anthem” was far more so… it kept me awake that night.
- I’d say Joker was HAUNTING. It was atmospheric… something that STAYS WITH YOU. And it was reinforced by the cello-dominated score and the alternating-jazz-standard-and-acid-rock-driven soundtrack.
WHY SO SERIOUS?
What about all the controversy around whether Joker should be released? The backlash in the reviews mostly revolves around the fact that white men may see it and shoot up a theater (because that’s not happening with any regularity anyway). A few years ago, HBO aired a one-hour session, Talking Funny, in which Ricky Gervais sat down with fellow comedians Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, and Louis C.K. (Rest in Peace). In it, Seinfeld admits that comedy isn’t when your conscience takes the day off. He said the be-all, end-all of comedy is comedy… that comedy has no responsibility beyond that.
At first glance, it’s surprising to hear such a clean comic espouse that point-of-view, but upon further review, this helps explain why Seinfeld is so successful. As long as a joke is funnier than it is offensive, it’ll land. So, I’ll evaluate Joker on its own merits, with no regard as to if it should be made. As Cher said in Clueless, “So, until mankind is peaceful enough not to have violence on the news, there’s no point in taking it out of shows that need it for entertainment value.”
The only thing I’ll say around context is that it’s all the more impressive that the movie is this successful when it’s set in 1981, a time of deep despair. The economy is booming right now, so it shouldn’t resonate as deeply as it has. But it has. And that tells us something.
A few years ago, I auditioned for a role, and we were encouraged to bring in an established monologue, something the casting folks would know from TV or film or stage. When I announced I was about to perform Woody Allen’s opening to Annie Hall, one of them said, “Wow, you’re really going for it, huh?”
I didn’t get the part.
But that’s clearly what Phillips was doing — the Hildur Guðnadóttir score (anyone with two accent marks has gotta be good), the stylized font, the abundant use of Frank Sinatra standards, the closeup camerawork, the omission of a hero, and the employ of one character to carry the entire narrative… he really went for it. (Recently, I asked on Facebook to name which flicks have scenes in which one actor appears in every one. I believe Joaquin Phoenix is yet another addition.) I recall being shocked when David Letterman said to Phoenix, “There’s nobody any better,” but this film proved that — and isn’t it a nice touch that he’s a talk show guest in this clip, too?
It was a nice touch to bring in Robert De Niro, who’s appeared as a standup comic thrice: The King of Comedy, Raging Bull, and The Comedian. It probably was not lost on comedy fans that instead of reprising the role of Rupert Pupkin (Vince’s pseudonym in Entourage), he plays Jerry Lewis’s role in The King of Comedy. The cherry on top was peppering the landscape with current comedians Greer Barnes, Bryan Callen, Gary Gulman, Marc Maron, Sam Morril, and Chris Redd.
Oh, and it didn’t hurt that Zazie Beetz played the love interest. Damn, she’s fly.
YOU MAY BE A LOVER BUT YOU AIN’T NO DANCER
If I am a comedy nerd, one thing I am decidedly not is a comic book nerd. (I’ve only read about 50 issues of The Transformers, and that’s because I was such a hard-core fan of the cartoon; I own 90 of the toys.) Yet I have always been fascinated by the Joker, long before I myself tried standup. In my limited knowledge, the Batman-Joker relationship is by far the most compelling in either the DCU or the MCU. (Sorry, Jerry, but Superman’s kinda lame.) And that there’s an entire film dedicated to the Joker only serves to underscore that he’s the greatest comic book villain ever. Right? Who’s the counterargument? I mean, the Penguin gets its own continent but not its own content.
It’s probably because, back in high school, my friend, Mark Wedder, gifted to me The Further Adventures of the Joker. It didn’t occur to me until years later that the title implies there must be a prequel, but one thing you learn is that the Joker doesn’t have just one origin story. In the book, a collection of short stories, many authors offer their take on from whence the Joker came. I’d rank Arthur Fleck up there with one of the best I’ve experienced. You feel you get to know him intimately… vulnerable, shirt off, doing those things we do when we’re home alone (dancing, more dancing, even more dancing, sitting idly, talking to ourselves, stuffing ourselves into our own refrigerators).
This particular narrative may be the single greatest descent into evil in film history, exceeding even Anakin Skywalker’s in Star Wars. (The greatest in any medium would have to be Walter White in Breaking Bad. Or maybe Lucifer, but I didn’t read that book.)
My only critique would be that parts of the film were derivative: Phoenix is practically the spitting image of Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs, right down to the gyrating. He’s also a bit like Travis Bickel in Taxi Driver (another De Niro part). One of the plot twists felt like something out of The Sixth Sense or Fight Club or The Usual Suspects. Or IRL, Bernie Goetz. Still, the film’s social commentary is on-point.
BY THE TIME I GET TO PHOENIX…
Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t compare Phoenix to his onscreen predecessors. Somebody half-jokingly said that the Joker is America’s Hamlet, a role every great actor wants to play.
1. Joaquin Phoenix — I may catch hell for this, and granted I’m biased since this version features Joker as an aspiring standup comic, but all things being equal, Phoenix’s Joker may take the top slot as he was charged with throwing the entire thing on his back. In acting, you learn that if your face doesn’t contain the best reaction, then the editor will cut to somebody else’s in the scene. Well, with Phoenix, there was nowhere else to go. The screen time and the proximity of shots ensured we got to know this Joker on a much deeper level than the others, who seemed to skate in and out of the scenes either at will or by chance. 100%. (Joker: 95%.)
2. Heath Ledger — His Joker ranks up there with all-time movie villains and rightfully earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Plus, his quotes were legendary and he made us laugh really hard several times. There may be nobody any better than Phoenix, but Ledger is certainly no worse. 100%. (The Dark Knight: 95%.)
3. Jack Nicholson — I’m biased because Jack’s my all-time favorite actor, but I reluctantly have to rank him third. With any piece of art, I like to take a step back and ask, “Is this just wholly terrible?” And there’s an angle to look at Batman (1989) and see a lot of camp. This isn’t Nicholson’s fault; in retrospect, his portrayal is the bridge between Romero’s and Ledger’s. I’d submit that the leap he made in darkening the character is more impressive than what Ledger had to do to go from Nicholson’s to his own, and much more so than the same gap that Phoenix had to leap. Finally, Nicholson’s is by far the funniest. I saw this one thrice in the theater and he had the place rollin’ in the aisles. 95%. (Batman (1989): 85%.)
4. Cesar Romero — It’s so tough to rank him because it’s so long ago. Per the title of one of the short stories in Further Adventures… “The Joker Is Mild.” He focused more on the Clown in the Clown Prince of Crime than the Crime. 60%. (Batman (1966): 60%.)
5. Jared Leto — Check out Worst Joker Ever? Dude makes the point that Leto wasn’t necessarily abhorrent. The studio ended up cutting so many of his scenes that he felt disconnected from the entire film. Indeed, Suicide Squad could just as easily have removed the Joker from the movie and it would’ve had very little effect. That said, in the final analysis, between the cuts and the fact that the usually incredible Leto overacts his face off, it is easily the worst Joker ever. 30%. (Suicide Squad: 40%.) And most of that 40% is Harley Quinn.
Mmm… Margot Robbie.
Guess all that’s left is for me to dive into Mark Hamill’s voiced version.
But for now, I’m sure I’ll return to the theater at least once to take in this masterpiece… even if I’m the only one laughing.
Rajiv Satyal is a comedian. But he doesn’t play one on TV.
