There are two clowns set to go on a roaring rampage of revenge (QT continues to play in my mind) in the coming weeks. On September 6, the horrid, sharp-toothed clown, Pennywise, will terrorise the grown-up members of the Losers Club in the rather pretentiously named It Chapter Two . On August 31, ahead of its release on October 2, Todd Phillips’ Joker starring Joaquin Phoenix in the titular role will premiere at the 76th Venice International Film Festival.
The Joker made his debut in the first issue of DC Comics’ Batman on April 25, 1940. Since then this super villain has been creating chaos and crossing swords with the Dark Knight . The tone has varied from prankster in the ‘50s to dark and deranged in the ‘80s.
Phillips’ Joker is an origin story, separate from the DC Extended Universe and a result of both Phillips and Phoenix wanting to do a smaller budget standalone comic book story. The film is set in the 80s, an important decade for Batman which saw the release of The Killing Joke in ’88 and Tim Burton’s Batman in ‘89. Phillips, who co-wrote the script with Scott Silver, looked to Martin Scorsese’s films, including Taxi Driver , Raging Bull and King of Comedy , for inspiration. When Scorsese was attached to the project, there were rumours of frequent collaborator, Leonardo DiCaprio, signing on as the clown prince of Gotham.
Phoenix had his reservations about signing on. He has been quoted as saying, “Oftentimes, in these movies, we have these simplified, reductive archetypes, and that allows for the audience to be distant from the character.” Once he signed on for the role, however, the 44-year-old actor brought his considerable acting chops into the project including losing 52 pounds. The trailer shows Phoenix as Arthur Fleck, a failed stand-up comic driven insane by “one bad day”.
Robert De Niro, a far cry from his alienated, angst-ridden Travis Bickle ( Taxi Driver ), plays vaguely smarmy talk show host Murray Franklin (is that prosthetics or de-aging?), whose ridicule of Fleck seems to push him over the edge. Young Bruce Wayne (Dante Pereira-Olson) is in the film as is butler Alfred Pennyworth (Douglas Hodge). Bruce’s father, billionaire Mayor Thomas Wayne, who apparently has a part to play in Fleck’s descent into multi-hued madness is played by Brett Cullen.
The Joker has fascinated all forms of media, art and design. There was as much if not more interest in the casting of the Joker in Tim Burton’s Batman as there was for the lead played by Michael Keaton. Jack Nicholson was the favourite for the Joker and he was signed on with top billing, his own shooting schedule with time off for Los Angeles Lakers home games, a six million dollar pay cheque and a large chunk of box office gross.
Jack Nicholson in Tim Burton’s ‘Batman’
Burton’s Batman looks to Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s Batman: The Killing Joke for the Joker’s origins. The graphic novel tells of an unnamed engineer who quits his job to become a stand-up comedian and fails miserably. To help his pregnant wife, he guides robbers through a chemical plant and jumps into a vat of chemical waste to escape Batman, accounting for his iconic white face, green hair and ruby red lips and his unhinged mind.
In Burton’s movie, the Joker is a criminal named Jack Napier. In Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight (2008), a follow up to his Batman Begins , Heath Ledger’s multiple-award winning turn as the Joker, gives different stories for how he got his scars. Did his drunken father cut him up or did he cut himself to cheer his wife? Part of the fascination for the character is the uncertainty of his origins. As Ledger’s agent of chaos famously says, “Do I really look like a guy with a plan? I am a dog chasing cars. I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I caught it! I just... do things.”
Heath Ledger in ‘The Dark Knight’
Would the new Joker film’s attempt to uncover his origins, add or detract from his appeal? Some things work better when there is an element of mystery. While the good guys and girls all have solid origin stories, revealing why the villains are wicked, would be explaining the reason for evil. And as we all know, the unknown is far more capable of dredging up dread than a reason for why someone does a horrendous act.
Jared Leto in ‘Suicide Squad’
Phillips’s Joker is being treated more as a psychological thriller and Phoenix has put in his all to present a creepy version of the comic world’s most famous anti-hero. Whatever else the film maybe, it surely would present a better version of the Joker than Jared Leto’s braces-sporting, neon-green haired Joker from 2016’s Suicide Squad . Hunka, Hunka!
