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| Character belongs to Warner Bros. Pictures |
When our friends at Warner Bros. released the final trailer for Joker at the end of August, I admit that it left me a little chilly. Despite the star draw of a colossal talent like Joaquin Phoenix, the trailer looked like a bloated fluff-ball of artistic pretense to me. But upon burying my initial knee-jerk reaction, I opened my eyes to what Warner Bros. was trying to do. As the first in a series of standalones under the newly-minted DC Black label, Joker looks like a breath of fresh air — a touch of indie-style creative freedom to flush the commercial muck clinging to the much maligned DCEU. Director Todd Phillips envisioned superhero 'verse climbing out of the MCU's long shadow, with creators committed to bringing strong stories to life unstained by the push to pound them into a multi-film behemoth like mismatched puzzle pieces. And for what it's worth, he looks like he's succeeding. Though the film’s already seen light in Venice, it won’t make stateside until the 4th next month, so in the meantime, I'll list a couple of reasons I think Joker will enrich our appreciation of this pivotal dark fulcrum in the Batman mythos.
1. It Was Influenced by a Batman Comic Classic
Back in 1988, illustrator Brian Bollard teamed up with the incomparable Alan Moore to create Batman: The Killing Joke. Moore and co. scrapped the criminal mastermind shtick from the 40s and 50s, opting instead to drape the villain’s tale in tragedy: he was now a chemical engineer and failed comedian driven to crime by desperation, culminating in the now quintessential “one bad day” which changed a struggling family man into one of the most notorious killers in comic book history. This solid story has been a guideline for most iterations of the character, directly or indirectly, ever since its inception. It has made headway into Batman animated adaptations, other comics, and even inspired the Nolanverse’s terrifying take on the character. The comic's basic plot works so well because of how it warps the Joker into a fun-house reflection of the Dark Knight himself. Batman remains an evergreen pop culture legend because of how he rose to become one of the most feared heroes in the world just by turning a terrible experience into a singular, obsessive drive. The Killing Joke runs a parallel tale with our demented clown; much as one senseless murder transformed Bruce Wayne from ordinary boy to God-like vigilante, the Joker was just an average Joe whose “one bad day” pushed him into a pitch-black shade of monstrosity that makes even the most eldritch of beings tremble in disgust. It speaks to a deep part of us, both hopeful and fearful, that all it takes to propel us to godhood or sink us to the Black Pit is a choice any normal person can make after just one, life-altering event.
2. It Completes Chritopher Nolan’s Image of the Joker
Though set in a different universe far removed from Nolan’s groundbreaking trilogy, Joker shares a peculiar darkness with Ledger’s take on him. The Dark Knight’s Joker remained a blank from start to finish, less a man than a destructive force of nature — without origin, identification, or particular reason for his insane, nihilistic march. The closest we get to a motivation is the variable backstory he doles out on his scars (another inheritance of The Killing Joke) and his exchange with Batman during the interrogation scene. Otherwise, the man swaddles himself in a fog of Machiavellian manipulation and flat-out sociopathy so thick you can't tell what, if any, truth lies beneath. But Joker offers to lift the veil, to see the man before the monster, and would be the first such major treatment of the character since the one-dimensional mobster portrayal in Tim Burton’s Batman back in 1989. But Joker may just as easily serve as antithesis to his Nolanverse counterpart. Again, Ledger’s Joker embodied a mysterious force of evil, almost tailor-made to sow discord and whisper millions of little devils into the ears of Gotham’s unsuspecting citizenry. But in Joker, Arthur Fleck is merely a man, one forged by circumstance and bad luck into becoming one of DC’s most notorious monsters. None of that excuses his actions, but it speaks yet again to the wealth of relatability Killing Joke-like stories bring to the table. Ledger’s Joker inspired a combination of fear and awe over his marvelous displays of manipulation and cruelty; but Phoenix’s take on the character will no doubt bring him back down to earth.
3. It’ll Wash the Taste of Suicide Squad Out of Your Mouth
Okay, this one’s subjective, but bear with me. Though I wasn’t especially kind in my review of the movie, I didn’t hate it, either, but even Suicide Squad's most ardent supporters felt cheated with Leto’s minuscule screen time. He was more a prop, a device, than an actual character, and the hullabaloo drummed up about his presence in the film borders on false advertisement. This is a shame, since the little snippets that seeped out from the extensive post-editing left me a little curious for more. But with plans to revive his role for future DCEU films apparently shelved for the time being, we’ll have to rely on this standalone to sate our killer clown fix.
Without question, Joaquin Phoenix will add his own defining stamp to the iconic character, and with its heart-rending backstory and dark feel reminiscent of the celebrated Nolanverse, this may be the film to finally bring the character out of Ledger’s generous shadow.
