The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

"Joker" premiere in Venice: Not funny, this clown

2019-08-31T20:04:28.191Z


Sociocritical "Taxi Driver" homage with a sensational Joaquin Phoenix in the lead role: At the Venice Film Festival "Joker" premiered, the grim Origin story of the Batman opponent.



A superhero movie competing in a big film festival? Laughing, right? Or not. The premiere of Todd Phillips' comic adaptation "Joker" was eagerly awaited at the Venice Cinema Biennale. The film tells the so-called Origin story of the notorious antagonist of super-detective Batman, a crazy, white-painted horror clown who giggles and creates anarchy wherever he appears: how did this guy turn into a grotesque comic cartoon? And what society allowed it to come so far with him?

These questions are negotiated by "Joker" in a spectacular way. But not spectacular in the sense of CGI scores and fast-paced material battles, as they prevail mostly in the blockbuster cinema of the superhero genre. Early on, Warner Bros. and DC Comics announced that "Joker" would exist apart from the cinema universe of Batman and the Justice League, a stand-alone film that does not fit into existing storylines. This allowed the director Todd Phillips, who became known through the "Hangover" trilogy, who co-wrote the script with Scott Silver ("The Fighter"), to stage a masterful, very dark and socially critical character study.

A true joker came along with lead actor Joaquin Phoenix, who had long played with the idea of ​​embodying a comic character, but did not want to tie up for several films. As a "Joker" actor, the character actor and method actor (u, a, "The Master," "You Were Never Really Here") is a sensation: he makes it, even the iconic image of the Batman villain by Heath Ledger in Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" fade.

Warner Bros.

"Joker" main actor Phoenix: In the footsteps of "Taxi Driver" Travis Bickle

Anyway, you forget until very close to the end, that you are watching a comic movie. The script is supposedly loosely based on Alan Moore's Batman classic "The Killing Joke," but the real DNA of this "joker" is Martin Scorsese's cinema of the 1970s and early 1980s. "The King of Comedy" and especially "Taxi Driver" serve as a blueprint for a homage that never cites its role models intrusively, but celebrates in a quiet flow of concentrated scenes and images lovingly.

"Joker" takes place in 1981, a political marquee "Blow Out" and the comedy-farce "Zorro: The Gay Blade" are advertised at a cinema-Marquee. So it is the beginning of the Reagan years, with their capitalist hardships and welfare cuts, symbolized by the Mayor candidate Thomas Wayne. Kenner know: This is Batman's father, but he is not transfigured here as a benefactor and patron as often in the comics, but as an unscrupulous and empathieloser tycoon, in which Trump is reflected. While the stock market is booming, the fictional Gotham City, which of course is New York, is as bad as ever: the garbage is on the streets, the news reports a plague of "super rats", ruthlessness and violence reign on the streets.

No money for psychotherapy

"Do you also feel that it is getting crazier out there," asks Arthur Fleck his disinterested social worker, in which he completed a kind of psychotherapy - until her public funds are canceled and thus even Fleck's drugs are not refilled. The sensitive outsider lives with his mother in a shabby apartment and works as a party clown. In the first scene he is beaten up by street kids, later again by over-assault yuppie bankers. It is the point where he revolts by force.

Fleck actually dreams of a career as a stand-up comedian, his big role model is the TV talk show host Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro), in which he sees a kind of father figure. Since childhood, Fleck suffers from laughing loudly even in the most inappropriate situations, even when it's all just howling. His choking attempts to stifle the uncontrollable laughter in his own throat are heartbreaking.

Joaquin Phoenix manages to condense all the misery of the human condition in this agonizing grimace: Hysterical laughter and baseless sobs about the madness of the world lie on his face like the theatrical masks Tragedy and Comedy. In some scenes, this "Joker" dances as gracefully and gracefully as in a macabre murderous ballet, in others he shrivels up to a loser grief-stricken with loneliness and fate with an extinguished look. It's brilliant and worrisome at the same time.

Niko Tavernise / Warner Bros. Pictures / AP

"More and more crazy out there": Phoenix as Joker

Too much of the plot of the film is not betrayed here, just so much: In the end, Fleck has on Murray's talk show his grand entrance in full Joker regalia with blood-red grin mouth, while outside an angry mob with clown masks begins to plunder and light the city - in protest of the mockery and marginalization of the poor by politician magnates like Wayne. In one shot, the white plastic mask looks almost like the Guy Fawkes disguise of the Anonymous protesters. A fool who does not draw the parallels to the economic and social division of our present.

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2019-08-31

You may like

News/Politics 2024-01-29T11:12:27.765Z
News/Politics 2024-01-29T17:18:34.939Z

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.