FILM

WHAT A CHARACTER

the Joker is becoming the man

By Jason Chou

It's lonely being the one

The Joker, Batman's iconic nemesis, has transcended the realms of cheap 1940s comic books to become a magnetic figure in contemporary pop culture. He appeared in the first Batman comic book (1946) and was immediately popular, the perfect foil to the strait-laced and bat-tortured hero. Throughout the long history of comic books, it is always the Joker issues that sell the most and command the most money on the collectibles market. Still, that’s just a small corner of the culture industry and, for many years, one that no one took seriously.

In recent years, though, the Joker has gone mainstream and big, headlining a number of blockbuster movies. Portrayed by three Academy Award-winning actors—Jack Nicholson in Tim Burton's Batman (1989), Heath Ledger in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight (2008), and Joaquin Phoenix in Todd Phillips's Joker (2019) —this enigmatic character carries a prestige that somehow taps into all the chaos, anarchy, unpredictability, and fearlessness around us. Each of these actors was irresistibly drawn to the character's mystique, and all of them contribute to our understanding of him, further solidifying the Joker's legacy as an enduring and iconic figure in the realm of pop culture anti-heroes.

He was big from the beginning

The Joker's attraction lies in a complex fusion of wildness and elegance, expressed through unconventional appearances, flamboyant attire, and a form of living that approaches art. For Burton, Nolan, and Phillips, it’s evident that the Joker is not just a villain but a captivating blend of the mad and the refined.

What sets the Joker films directed by Nolan and Burton, and Phillips’ Joker apart from other Batman films is not just their critical and box office success but their unique narrative focus. The Batman/Joker films don’t revolve around Batman, but the Joker. This twists and perverts our sense of the normal superhero/villain dynamic. Or, to put it bluntly, and somewhat rudely (sorry, Batman), you only remember the Joker, and certainly the box office success of Joker-centered films supports that reading: Burton’s Batman featuring the Joker was way more successful than his arguably better Batman Returns (1992). The Dark Knight and Joker were huge box-office successes, both grossing over $1 billion globally, and The Dark Knight outperformed Nolan’s other two Batman films. Even though Joker was a lower-budget endeavor, emphasizing storytelling and character, and, well, the Joker, it still was a huge hit.

In some ways, the Batman films are just the prelude to Joker scenes. The real fun is thinking of the Joker free from Batman. In Burton’s 1989 film, the ending really sets the stage for all other Joker scenes and films to follow.

The Birth of the Inappropriate

The final dance scene in the 1989 Batman movie is truly captivating due to its stark inappropriateness, and when it comes to the Joker, inappropriate is what we want. The contrast between the Joker's manic personality and the elegance of classical ballroom dancing creates a mesmerizing juxtaposition. It's a surreal soup of chaos that perfectly reflects the Joker's unique character. Some may stand with Batman, ready to fight for justice, while others stand with the Joker, fueled by curiosity to explore the depths of the joys of anarchy. What’s clear by the end of Burton’s film is where he stands and, for that matter, the audience.

Jack Nicholson couldn't resist

If we somehow missed that we’re supposed to be making comparisons, the dance scene unfolds in parallel to Batman's relentless dismantling of a group of criminals. This dual narrative prompts the question: who is having more fun in this chaotic, darkly comic tableau of events? The unequivocal answer is the Joker. While Batman methodically takes down his adversaries, the Joker revels in the sheer absurdity of the situation, displaying a sense of delight at the break down in sense around him. Of course, his delight becomes our delight, which is a testament to Burton’s ability to keep these competing states in balance. While many may side with Batman's quest for justice, the Joker's audacious behavior is the draw: what would the quest mean without his unhinged behavior? And without a doubt that’s what we want, and Nolan picks up on Burton and Nicholson’s work in his The Dark Night, moving the madness from highlight to a full-blown takeover. It doesn’t take long for Nolan to show us where he’s heading.

High Society Suaveness

There’s a scene towards the beginning of Nolan’s The Dark Night where the Joker and his men crash a high society party. The Joker starts to assault an old man, and Racheal Dawes, Bruce Wayne’s childhood friend, yells at him to stop. Her indignation and sense of justice are designed to mirror Batman’s, which makes what follows that much more fun. He looks at her, kind of startled by this brief interlude in mayhem, and as he walks towards her, he pulls out a comb, straightens his gnarly, ugly hair, and says, “Hello, beautiful.” I want to talk about the hair straightening. It’s such a stupid gesture from such an ugly man. A more put-together hairstyle isn’t going to help him, but it’s fun to think that he thinks it does or even that he thinks it doesn’t and does it anyway because, you know, what the hell.

Heath Ledger takes him for a spin

The gesture is fun, but what’s even more fun is his awareness of the gesture. Really, with behavior like this, why is Batman even there? Well, in this scene, he’s not there, at least not yet, but do we really need him? We know the story is all Joker, and, in a way, Nolan builds that into the logic of both the character and the story in how the Joker is always telling a stupid...

Story and, you know, there’s nothing like a story

The one thing you can’t miss from Heath Ledger’s Joker is the scars that elongate his sneering smile. In The Dark Knight, the Joker tells how he got those scars repeatedly, over and over again. The only problem is that he keeps changing the story. The first time is pretty enjoyable. He is lying on a pool table surrounded by criminals, pretending to be dead when he suddenly gets up and says, “How about alive?” That’s absolutely hilarious and fun. Everything from the reversal of logic in the question to the fact that he’s been waiting there to set up a bunch of criminals for a truly juvenile joke. It’s both silly and wonderful; I mean, if he weren’t so murderous.

You don't want to hear this

But what really kicks the scene off is when he grabs the face of one of the criminals, holds his head in place, and asks him, “You know how I got these scars?” At first, the scene is funny, but it turns scary fast. All of a sudden, we’re placed in the position of the hapless criminal who is about to get his face disfigured by a maniac. It’s an excellent example of how the Joker character can move from a joke to terror in the blink of an eye, and that, of course, is what makes him strangely attractive. We never know what’s coming next, as he seems to have an answer to all our questions both within the film and outside it.

A man we love to watch

Three times during the scene, he asks, “Why so serious?” The obvious answer is that he’s going to hurt someone, but it’s clearly not an answer that he cares about but a rhetorical move designed to inspire fear. Of course, the fear is also quite funny, and there’s no real answer to the question. So, where Nolan’s Joker leaves us with unanswerable questions, Phillips’ Joker, with no Batman in sight, takes on some of the weight and character of a lead role, though a scarily violent one.

The First Crime

In Joker, Arthur’s first crime is a stunner. He’s on a subway and, as usual, not having a good time. You can sense his nervousness. He sees three young Wall Street types: twenty to thirty-year-old white guys out for a good time after work. They’re a little drunk, and they’re bothering a young woman. They’re despicable assholes, and we want to put them in their place. Phillips puts us in a tricky situation, because we want the Joker to hurt these guys. And the more we see them bother other people, the more violence we want him to unleash against them. When the Joker starts laughing uncontrollably, the three Wall Street guys switch their bullying to the Joker and start to beat him up. Here, our anger, on the Joker’s behalf and society’s, starts to boil, and we want him to take revenge. We want the Joker to mete out justice. The only problem is that he metes out just too much and kills all three of them.

Ouch!

One way to look at the scene is to say how awful, but the real way to look at the scene is that the Joker is just doing what we want him to do. As in all the other films, the directors always make us root for the Joker and, in some sense, want to be him. Here, in some sense, Phillips just finishes the equation and leaves us feeling a little more queasy about it.

The Joker killings are horrific, so the fact that we sympathize with him is even more disturbing. The lighting is especially startling in this inaugural murder scene. As the subway zips along, sometimes the lights are off and on, which has the curious effect of making it seem as if there is no continuity to the action, as if nothing makes sense, as if there are gaps in our knowledge and understanding of what’s going on.

Lights out

What makes sense about this lighting is that it helps to give us the opportunity to choose the Joker, not to see these events as one long event but as a series of bursts of light. You might say that what Phillips is really doing is setting us up for mayhem, and unlike Burton and Nolan’s depictions, there’s no good Batman to hide behind: we are here to watch mayhem and injustice. Nowhere is this more apparent than in...

Talk Show Mayhem

The "Talk Show Mayhem" scene in "Joker" is a pivotal and intensely emotional moment in the film. Here, Arthur Fleck secures a guest spot on Murray Franklin's talk show. For Arthur, this is a significant opportunity to realize his dreams of becoming a successful stand-up comedian despite his evident incompetence in the field. The scene is fraught with anticipation as he takes the stage, and it's here that the audience is exposed to a potent and intriguing blend of emotions.

On one hand, there's a palpable empathy for Arthur, which stems from the relentless tragedies he endures throughout the film. The character's life is marked by poverty, isolation, and constant mistreatment, and these hardships elicit sympathy from the viewers. However, there's also a disconcerting desire among the audience to witness the Joker's violent retribution. That split in our emotional response underscores the complex relationship we have with him. It pushes us to grapple with our own shifting moral compass as we navigate the fine line between empathy and our perverse fascination with chaos.

Phillips employs a masterful combination of cinematography and lighting to create a unique atmosphere for this scene. It's as if the lighting itself is choreographed to mirror the unpredictability and chaos that Arthur is experiencing, which, in turn, resonates with the audience's disorienting emotional journey. The fragmented bursts of light serve as a visual representation of Arthur's deteriorating mental state. It reinforces our internal tug-of-war between sympathy for the character and the growing anticipation of witnessing his transformation into the Joker.

Sympathy for the devil?

The climax of this scene arrives with Arthur's shocking decision to kill Franklin instead of enduring the humiliation of being the butt of his jokes. It marks a cataclysmic shift in his character's trajectory, symbolizing his full embrace of the Joker persona. The act is an assertion of control over the narrative of his life, where he transitions from being a victim to becoming the agent who inflicts pain and chaos on others. It's a striking and profoundly unsettling moment that forces us to ponder the thin line between victim and perpetrator, and the film challenges us to confront our own desires for justice and revenge. In asking what Arthur has become, we can’t help asking what we have become in witnessing this transformation.

"Talk Show Mayhem" is a powerful and provocative scene that captures the essence of Joker as a film. It leaves the audience with a profound sense of discomfort and reflection. It encourages us to think about our own understanding of justice and revenge in a world that often appears indifferent to the suffering of its most vulnerable members. This scene, with its emotional depth and striking visuals, stands as a testament to the ability of storytelling in cinema to prompt viewers to examine their own complex and often contradictory reactions to the characters and the world they inhabit. And, for now, marks the end of our culture Joker saga.

©Jason Chou and the CCA Arts Review