GETTING THE LAST LAUGH
Phoenix transforms into Joker
His long career has been marked by much weight lost and gained in the service of his craft, while working with some of the great directors and crafting memorable bad guys. I’m speaking of course of Robert De Niro, for it is his cinematic soul that brings Joker to life.
De Niro and director Martin Scorsese surely had no idea they were laying this film’s foundations, 43 years ago, when the actor played a mentally unstable, gun-obsessed loner in Taxi Driver. Nor did they likely give it much thought when they reteamed six years later for The King of Comedy, with De Niro as an unsuccessful standup who fixates on a talk-show host played by Jerry Lewis.
And yet here is De Niro, a spry 76-year-old, as a brusque late-night figure named Murray Franklin, who books Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck after seeing a video someone shot of him flailing and failing ignominiously at a Gotham comedy club. (“Check out this joker,” he says by way of introduction. Arthur asks him to uppercase the J.) Arthur has long dreamt of being on Murray’s show — literally so in one scene that finds him half-asleep in front of the TV and hallucinating his way inside.
OK, I’ll grant that Phoenix’s performance is also strong. Arthur is a socially awkward citizen, living with his mother (Frances Conroy), crushing on his single-mom neighbour (Zazie Beetz) but unsure what to do about it, and working as a rent-a-clown, which involves everything from hospital appearances to holding up going-out-of-business signs.
Going out of business looks to be a growth industry in Gotham, which combines the worst bits of mid-century New York, including subway graffiti, rampant muggings, failing social services and a garbage strike to rival the one in ’68. Production designer Mark Friedberg has worked on Autumn in New York; Synecdoche, New York; and The Amazing Spider-man 2, so his N.Y. cred is solid. And there’s a great, cello-heavy score by Icelandic cellist Hildur Gudnadóttir, who has worked with Denis Villeneuve on Arrival, Prisoners and Sicario, and probably wishes she were old enough to have been part of the Jaws theme.
But the real behind-the-camera surprise is the director,
Todd Phillips, who for the past 10 years stopped making Hangover movies only long enough to make the road-trip comedy Due Date with most of the same cast. He also made 2000’s Road Trip. And, OK, 2016’s dark comedy War Dogs.
But that darkness has nothing on Joker, which is R-rated — like Deadpool, but not for the same silly/naughty reasons. It heaps derision, scorn and misfortune on Arthur until you wonder how he can handle any more.
Of course, he soon can’t. We know where Arthur’s going to end up, even if we don’t know the precise route. And what a film Joker would be if it were sprung on audiences unawares, without a half-century of clownish baggage courtesy of everyone from Cesar Romero to Jared Leto.
But every generation gets its own Joker. Jack Nicholson’s was acid-dipped into his perpetually grinning mug. Phoenix’s wears simple face paint, but carries his own psychic scars in the form of a Tourette’s-like condition that causes him to vomit out laughter at inopportune times. He even carries a little card to alert people, although (A) it shouldn’t require a “MORE ON BACK” flip-over and (B) he really should produce it at the first sign of trouble, not the third or fourth.
I don’t mean this to sound like victim blaming, though that is what happens to Arthur through most of the movie. Gotham’s a rough town, the thinking seems to go, and people should tough it out or get out. Trouble is, Arthur has nowhere to go but down, especially after coming to a troubling conclusion about billionaire mayoral candidate Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen), who had briefly employed his mom. Wayne violently rejects this accusation. (He also has a legitimate son, Bruce, with whom you may be familiar.)
Like riders on a nihilistic seesaw, as Arthur goes down, Joker ascends. Nowhere is this more apparent than in a scene set to Gary Glitter’s 1972 hit Rock and Roll, in which Joker dances on a long set of stairs on which Arthur has previously trudged every day.
The scene in question follows one the film’s sudden explosion of graphic violence. Soft-shoeing on the stairs, Phoenix looks almost skeletal, so much weight did he lose for the role. But he’s added something intangible for the scene, something that completes the transformation of his character. It’s disturbing, but you can’t take your eyes off him.
5 Cesar Romero, Batman TV series (1966-1968)
The first live-action Joker arrived in this campy Adam West series. He could escape a prison baseball match with an exploding baseball or challenge Batman to a surfing contest. But nothing is funnier than Romero’s refusal to shave off his moustache under his Joker makeup. All the powder in the world can’t make his lip look hairless.
4 Jack Nicholson, Batman (1989)
Typically, so much of a Joker performance is the actor’s transformation, but what makes Nicholson’s turn so iconic is that it appears he’s just being himself. You almost get the feeling his Joker is still celebrating the Los Angeles Lakers back-to-back championships of the late ’80s (his jacket is purple, after all).
3 Joaquin Phoenix, Joker (2019)
No movie featuring the Joker has ever given such an in-depth look at the man before he becomes a monster. We’ve seen the Joker be lethal before, but never so gruesomely. Phoenix’s version is both hero and villain, in a battle with himself. His face always seems to be carrying the burden of mental and physical pain, even when forcing a smile.
2 Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight (2008)
Never had the Joker been more horrifying on screen. Gone is the chemically whitened face from the comics, replaced with raccoon black eyes and melting war paint. The big smile? Signified by the long, self-inflicted scars on his cheeks. Director Christopher Nolan keeps his Joker alive at the end. But Ledger’s untimely death shortly before the film’s release means we’ll never get the rematch with Batman everyone wanted.
1 Mark Hamill, Batman: The Animated Series (1992-1995)
For all of the Batman live-action achievements, there is no greater love letter to his comic book mythos than this ’90s TV show. Most on-screen Jokers are set on one emotion. Hamill’s Joker has them all: angry, sad, scary and funny.