JOKER, EXPLAINED
Divisive movie became an Oscar darling. Michael Cavna reveals how.
Just four months ago, the comic-book movie Joker was mired in controversy, as critics questioned whether 2019 was the right time for a movie about an urban sociopath who goes on a killing spree. In 2020, though, Joker has become the billion-dollar film that cleans up well, receiving a field-leading 11 Oscar nominations, including for best picture.
So how did a movie that was once viewed as a curious, oddball one-off within the world of DC Comics become such a glitzy behemoth, topping prestige pictures such as 1917 and The Irishman? To answer that, here’s a look back at its rise to Oscars darling.
THE CHARACTER’S LOOK
The Joker, Batman’s greatest arch-enemy since his 1940 comic-book debut, has intrigued actors for more than a half-century, since Cesar Romero deliciously chewed the saturated-tint scenery in the campy ’60s TV series.
Jack Nicholson dialed up the cartoonish menace three decades ago in Tim Burton’s Batman, but it is Heath Ledger’s Clown Prince of Crime in 2008’s The Dark Knight — for which he won a posthumous Oscar — that is the closest precursor to Joaquin Phoenix’s Oscar-nominated turn in Joker (even if Phoenix says he was not directly influenced by Ledger). Ledger and Phoenix delved into the character’s maniacal sadism to deliver particularly unnerving performances.
The irony here is that Jared Leto’s role in 2016’s critically drubbed Suicide Squad was the Joker that Warner Bros. put so much franchise focus and money behind (that film had a $175-million production budget, compared to $55 million for Joker — all figures in U.S. dollars). Yet it is Phoenix’s Joker, who spent years beneath a scrim of mystery during production, that has become iconic.
If Phoenix wins his Oscar, in fact, Joker will become one of the few characters to receive two Oscar-winning performances. In the 1970s, the Godfather character Vito Corleone received Oscar-winning performances from Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro in the trilogy’s first two movies, respectively.
THE CONTROVERSIES
Joker looks to be set in an early ’80s version of Gotham City, and the title character begins this stand-alone story as Arthur Fleck, a bullied and beaten urban speck and failed standup comedian who, beneath his shifting clown makeup, transforms into a murderous vigilante.
Some critics viewed the film, directed by Todd Phillips — also Oscar-nominated — as too derivative of Martin Scorsese’s urban-alienation films of that era, particularly Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy.
But the potentially more damaging criticism centred on the film’s violent content and its supposed glorification of a serial killer.
Some reviewers assailed Joker’s glamorization of a terrorist, with Vanity Fair critic Richard Lawson writing out of the Venice première that Joker might be “irresponsible propaganda for the very men it pathologizes. Is Joker celebratory or horrified? Or is there simply no difference?”
That debate unfolded even as Joker stirred memories of the 2012 Aurora, Colo., mass shooting at a screening of the another Batman-universe movie, The Dark Knight Rises.
Joker was not screened at that theatre after Aurora victims’ relatives raised concerns about its gun violence.
After Joker screened at the New York Film Festival last fall, Phillips has said it was “very responsible” for his film to affix real-world implications to violence.
“Isn’t that a good thing to take away the cartoon element of violence that we’ve become so immune to?”
THE AUDIENCE EMBRACE
Joker finished in seventh at the box office, grossing $1.07 billion worldwide. Still, Joker was polarizing among reviewers, with a 69 per cent “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the audience approval score is 88 per cent. Most critics praised Phoenix’s performance, even when they saw Phillips’ direction as flawed.
THE AWARDS SEASON LOVE
By receiving 11 Oscar nominations, Joker moves into the pantheon of movies such as 2009’s Avatar: commercial smash hits that receive much academy attention. If Joker, which won two Golden Globes and got 11 BAFTA nominations, gathers more hardware next month, the criticisms will fade into history, outshone by the glint of trophy gold.
The Washington Post