Guest:
Jaylan Salah Salman
Film Critic for In Session Film, Geek Vibes Nation, and Keith Loves Movies
Author on Amazon
@jaylansalman on IG, Letterboxd, @jaylan_salah on Twitter
Cast:
Todd Phillips, Writer/Director
Scott Silver, Writer
Hildur Guðnadóttir, Music
Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck / The Joker
Robert De Niro as Murray Franklin
Zazie Beetz as Sophie Dumond
Frances Conroy as Penny Fleck
Brett Cullen as Thomas Wayne
Bill Camp as Detective Garrity
Shea Whigham as Detective Burke
Marc Maron as Gene Ufland
Sharon Washington as Arthur's social worker
Josh Pais as Hoyt Vaughn
Brian Tyree Henry as Clark
*Recognition:
Joker was wide released on October 4, 2019.
While many critics were mixed in reaction to the film, Joker would go on to set several records for the box office during its run including highest grossing R-rated film (since surpassed recently by Deadpool and Wolverine), highest grossing October release, and the first R-rated film to gross over $1 billion.
Joker would also garner 11 Oscar nominations (the most for a comic book based film) including Best Picture, Director (Phillips), Adapted Screenplay (Phillips and Silver), Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Cinematography, Makeup and Hairstyling, Costume Design, and Film Editing; winning for Best Actor (Phoenix) and Original Score (Guðnadóttir).
There are many cultural references throughout the world from the film including several instances by rebellious political groups in Russia, Chile, Lebanon, France, and Hong Kong.
One of the locations seen in the film, a set of stairs in the Bronx, New York City, has been dubbed the Joker Stairs. The stairs have become a tourist destination and the subject of Internet memes, with visitors often reenacting the scene from the film in which Fleck dances down the stairs in his Joker attire.
In 2020, Deadline listed it as one of the "21 Most Influential Films Of The 21st Century, So Far." It also ranked 39 on Empire's list of the "100 Greatest Movies of the 21st Century."
Joker was intended to be a standalone film with no sequels, but Warner Bros. greenlit a follow-up project: Joker: Folie à Deux, with Phoenix and Beetz reprising their roles and Lady Gaga joining as Harley Quinn. This is set to be released in a few days on October 4, 2024.
Joker currently holds a 69% rating among critics on RT, a 59 score on Metacritic, and a 3.9/5 on Letterboxd.
Plot Summary: Gotham a city drenched in neon lights and shadows, where the line between reality and delusion blurs. Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), a failed comedian and part-time clown, navigates this urban labyrinth as his mind unravels further each day. His existence is a series of humiliations and rejections, a slow burn of despair that ignites into a violent, chaotic inferno.
In this dreary setting, the narrative delves deep into Arthur’s psyche, exploring his transformation from a marginalized outcast into the infamous Joker. The film is a character study of a man pushed to the brink with a meditation on isolation, mental illness, and the corrosive effects of a society that abandons its most vulnerable. Arthur’s journey is not just a descent into madness, but a twisted quest for identity and purpose in a world that has stripped him of both. This is a tale of existential dread and the search for meaning in a world that offers none, a dark and haunting reflection of the human condition.
Did You Know:
Todd Phillips described Joaquin Phoenix's take on Arthur as, "a guy who is searching for identity who mistakenly becomes a symbol. His goal genuinely is to make people laugh and bring joy to the world."
The filmmakers cite Alan Moore's comic "The Killing Joke", which tells the Joker's origin and descent into insanity, and the Martin Scorsese films Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), and The King of Comedy (1982) as an influence on the film.
Joaquin Phoenix based his laugh on "videos of people suffering from pathological laughter." He also sought to portray a character with which audiences could not identify. Pathological laughter is a real-life disorder which causes the patient to suffer from uncontrollable laughter attacks in response to tense or stressful situations. Although the disorder isn't usual, these attacks can stop the normal flux of oxygen to the brain or lungs, causing hypoxia or even asphyxia in the patient. Joaquin Phoenix called perfecting the Joker's laugh the toughest part of playing the character.
In a recent interview with SFX magazine, Joaquin Phoenix acknowledged that while the violence in "Joker" is "a little more visceral and raw" than films such as the Avengers series, he "didn't have any hesitation about it." "You always want it to feel real, and you want the little violence that we have to have an impact," he said. "What happens in a lot of movies is that you get numb to it, you're killing 40,000 people, you don't feel it. While being a fictional story in a fictional world, you always want it to feel real. Everything that happens in this movie as far as violence goes, you feel it."
The joke "When I was a little boy and told people I was going to be comedian, everyone laughed at me. Well no one's laughing now" is a paraphrase of the joke written by much loved late British comedian, actor and music hall (vaudeville) performer Bob Monkhouse's "People used to laugh at me when I said I wanted to be a comedian. Well they're not laughing now." Interestingly, Bob Monkhouse famously had hundreds of handwritten books of jokes that he had written over his long career in much the same vein as Arthur's joke book.
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Jaylan Salah Salman - Film Critic for In Session Film, Geek Vibes Nation, and Keith Loves Movies
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Best Performance: Joaquin Phoenix (Arthur)
Best Secondary Performance: Lawrence Sher (cinematographer)/Frances Conroy (Penny)
Most Charismatic Award: Joaquin Phoenix (Arthur)/Brian Tyree Henry (Clark)
Best Scene:
Cold Open
Stand Up
Bathroom Dance
Confronting Thomas Wayne
Arkham Asylum
Goodbye Penny
Late Night Premiere
Out on the Streets
Favorite Scene: Subway Shootout/Killing Randall/Stand Up
Most Indelible Moment: Stairway Dance/Gary/Late Night Premiere
In Memorium:
JD Souther, 78, American singer/songwriter ('New Kid in Town', 'James Dean', 'Best of My Love', 'Heartache Tonight')
Best Lines/Funniest Lines:
Arthur Fleck: [written in notebook] The worst part of having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you don't.
Arthur Fleck: You don't listen, do you? I don't think you ever really hear me. You just ask the same questions every week. "How's your job?" "Are you having any negative thoughts?" All I have are negative thoughts.
Arthur Fleck: I haven't been happy one minute of my entire fucking life.
Arthur Fleck: For my whole life, I didn't know if I even really existed. But I do, and people are starting to notice.
Arthur Fleck: Is it just me, or is it getting crazier out there?
Arthur Fleck: You were the only one who was ever nice to me, Gary.
Cop: The whole city's on fire 'cause of what you did.
Arthur Fleck: I know. Isn't it beautiful?
Arthur Fleck: [in Arthur's notebook] I just hope my death makes more cents than my life.
Murray Franklin: I'm waiting for the punchline.
Arthur Fleck: ...you decide what's right or wrong the same way you decide what's funny or not.
The Stanley Rubric:
Legacy: 7.17
Impact/Significance: 8.33
Novelty: 4.5
Classic-ness: 5
Rewatchability: 1.33
Audience Score: 8.85 (88% Google, 89% RT)
Total: 35.18
Remaining Questions:
Did we need the Thomas Wayne subplot?
Why would people see Arthur as a hero?
Why did Arthur pursue a career in stand up comedy? He was never funny to begin with.
Is the mother the real villain of the story?
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