What do you get when you cross a mentally-ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash!? I'll tell you what you get: You get what you fucking deserve!Forgive mylaughter: I have a condition.
The worst part of having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you don't.
[written in notebook] The worst part of having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you don't.
[written in notebook] I just hope my death makes more cents than my life.
You know what’s funny? You know whatreally makes me laugh? I used to think that my life was a tragedy...but now I realize...it's a fucking comedy.
Is it just me.….or is it getting crazier out there?
You don't listen, do you? You just ask the same questions every week. "How's your job?" "Are you having negative thoughts?" All I have are negative thoughts. But you don’t listen anyway. I said, for my whole life, I didn’t know if I even really existed.But I do. And people are starting to notice.
[to Thomas Wayne] I know it seems strange, I don't mean to make you uncomfortable, I don't know why everyone is so rude, I don't know why you are; I don't want anything from you. Maybe a little warmth, maybe a hug, “Dad“, maybe just a bit of common fucking decency!
[to Penny Fleck] You know, you used to tell me...that my laugh was a condition. That there was something wrong with me. There isn’t. That’s the real me.
I haven't been happy one minute of my entire fucking life.
Everybody's telling me that my stand-up's ready for the big clubs.
Do you watch Murray Franklin's show? I'm gonna be on tonight.[in a Cockney accent] It's fuckin' crazy, innit? Me on the telly?
When you bring me out, can you introduce me as Joker?
Come on, Mur-ray. Do I look like the kind of clown that could start a movement? I killed those guys because they were awful. Everybody is awful these days. It's enough to make anyone crazy.The film provides not only the socio-psychological genesis of Joker, it also implies a condemnation of the society in which a protest can only assume the form of a new tribe led by Joker. ~Slavoj Zizek[1]
Arthur: I heard this song on the radio the other day, and the guy was singing that his name was Carnival.
Social Worker: Arthur...
Arthur: Which is crazy, because that’s my clown name at work. And until a little while ago, it was like nobody ever saw me. Even I didn’t know if I really existed.
Social Worker: Arthur, I have some bad news for you.
Arthur: You don’t listen, do you? I don’t think you ever really hear me. You just ask the same questions every week. “How’s your job? Are you having any negative thoughts?” All I have are negative thoughts, but you don’t listen anyway. I said, for my whole life, I didn’t know if I even really existed. But I do. And people are starting to notice.
Social Worker: They’ve cut our funding. We’re closing down our offices next week. The city has cut funding across the board. Social Services is part of that. This is the last time we’ll be meeting.
Arthur: Okay.
Social Worker: They don’t give a shit about people like you, Arthur. And they really don’t give a shit about people like me either.
Arthur: How am I supposed to get my medication now? Who do I talk to?
Social Worker: I’m sorry, Arthur.
Gary: Did you, er, get a new gig?
Joker: Nah.
Randall: Oh, you must be going down to that rally in City Hall. I hear it's gonna be nuts
Joker: Oh, is that today?
Randall: Yeah... Well, what's with the make-up, then?
Joker: My Mom died. I'm celebrating.
Murray Franklin: Well, that was quite an entrance. You okay?
Joker: Yeah. This is exactly how I imagined it.
Murray Franklin: Well, that makes one of us.
[audience laughs and cheers]
Murray Franklin: So, can you tell us about this look? When we spoke earlier, you mentioned that this look is not a political statement. Is that right?
Joker: That’s right, Murray. I’m not political. I’m just trying to make people laugh.
Murray Franklin: And how’s that going for you?
[audience laughs and Joker laughs along with them]
Murray Franklin: So, I know you’re a comedian. You’ve been working on any new material? You wanna tell us a joke?
[audience laughs, Joker pulls out a book that he made]
Murray Franklin: He’s got a book. A book of jokes. Take your time. We’ve got all night.[audience laughs]
Joker: Okay, okay, here’s one. Knock, knock.
Murray Franklin: And you had to look that up?
[audience laughs, then cheers]
Joker: I want to get it right. Knock, knock.
Murray Franklin: Who's there?[audience laughs]
Joker: It's the police, ma'am. Your son's been hit by a drunk driver. He's dead.[laughs; audience gasps; musician in band goes "wah-wah" on trombone]
Dr. Sally:[unsettled] Oh, no, no, no. No, youcannot joke about that.
Murray Franklin:[tense and somewhat spooked] Yeah, that's not funny, Arthur. That's not the kind of humor we do on this show.
Joker: Okay... Yeah, you know what? I-I’m sor-I'm sorry. I know. It's just, you know, it's been a rough few weeks, Murray. Ever since I... killed those three Wall Street guys.
[the crowd murmurs nervously and some of them even gasp]
Murray Franklin:[confused, but trying to stay in character] Okay, I'm waiting for the punchline.
Joker: There is no punchline. It's not a joke.
[the crowd gasps]
Murray Franklin:[a bit concerned and edgy] You're serious, aren't you? You're telling us you killed those three young men on the subway?
Joker: Mm-hmm.
Murray Franklin: And why should we believe you?
Joker: I got nothing left to lose. Nothing can hurt me anymore.[chuckles and scoffs] My life... is nothing but a comedy.
Murray Franklin: Well, let me get this straight, you think that killing those guys is funny?
Joker: I do. And I'm tired of pretending it's not. Comedy is subjective, Murray. Isn't that what they say? All of you, the system that knows so much, you decide what's right or wrong. The same way that you decide what's[points to himself]funny or[gestures over to Murray]not.
Audience Member:[angry yet frightened] Get him off!
Murray Franklin:[trying to stay composed] Well, o-okay, I-I think... I-I might understand that you... did this to start a movement? To become a-a symbol?
Joker: C'mon, Mur-ray. Do I look like the kind of clown that could start a movement? I killed those guys because they were awful. Everybody is awful these days. It's enough to make anyone crazy.
Murray Franklin: Okay. So that's it, you're crazy? That's your defense for killing three young men?
Joker:[smugly] No. They couldn't carry a tune to save their lives.[the crowd boos and jeers; Joker/Arthur grows frustrated] Ugh, why is everybody so upset about these guys? If it was me dying on the sidewalk, you'd walk right over me! I pass you every day, and you don't notice me! But these guys... What, because Thomas Wayne went and cried about them on TV?!
Murray Franklin: You have a problem with Thomas Wayne?
Joker: Yes, I do. Have you seen what it's like out there, Mur-ray? Do you ever actually leave the studio? Everybody just yells, shouts, and screams at each other. Nobody’s civil anymore! Nobody thinks what it's like to be the other guy. You think men like Thomas Wayne ever think what it's like to be someone like me? To be somebody but themselves? They don't. They think we'll all just sit there and take it like good little boys! That we won't werewolf and go wild!
Murray Franklin:[growing impatient] You finished? I mean, there’s so much self-pity, Arthur. You sound like you're making excuses for killing those young men. Not everybody, and I'll tell you this, not everyone is awful.
Joker:[coldly whispers] You're awful, Murray.
Murray Franklin: Me? I'm awful? Oh, yeah, how am I awful?
Joker: Playing my video. Inviting me on the show. You just wanted to make fun of me. You're just like the rest of 'em.
Murray Franklin:[offended] You don't know the first thing about me, pal. Look what happened because of whatyou did, what itled to. There are riots out there. Two policemen are in critical condition,[Joker starts to laugh] and you're laughing. You're laughing. Someone was killed today because of what you did.
Joker:[giggling] I know. How about another joke, Mur-ray?
Murray Franklin: No, I think we’ve had enough of your jokes.
Joker: What do you get...
Murray Franklin: I don't think so.
Joker: ...When you cross...
Murray Franklin: I think we're done with your jokes, that's it.
Joker: ...A mentally-ill loner with a SOCIETY THAT ABANDONS HIMAND TREATS HIM LIKE TRASH?!
Murray Franklin: Call the police, Gene!
Joker: I'll tell you what you get!
Murray Franklin: Call the police!
Joker:YOU GET WHAT YOU FUCKIN’ DESERVE!!!
[Joker pulls out his gun and shoots Murray in the head, instantly killing him. The crowd is heard screaming in horror and seen running away.]
[Joker seems to enjoy the hysteria, to the point of briefly laughing to himself; after getting up, firing another round into Murray's corpse, and throwing the gun onto the desk, he walks up to the camera and looks into it]
Joker: Goodnight. And always remember, that’s li-[the signal is suddenly cut off, replaced with anIndian Head test pattern; as "Spanish Flea" plays in the background, the shot gradually pulls away to reveal a multitude of news reports of Joker's act, revealing he was arrested almost immediately]
[Joker/Arthur, in a police car, is laughing and chuckling at the chaos being spread throughout Gotham]
Cop 1: Stop laughing, you freak, this isn't funny.
Cop 2: Yeah, the whole fucking city's on fire all because of you.
Joker: I know. Isn’t it beautiful?
[Arthur is laughing loudly during a psychiatric examination at Arkham State Hospital. He soon settles down, but still laughs]
Psychiatrist: What's so funny?
Arthur:[laughing and chuckling some more] I was just thinking... just thinking of a joke.
[shot of a youngBruce Wayne standing over the bodies of his dead parents as the camera pulls back and Arthur's laughter is heard]
This Joker’s genesis is determinedly mature and uncartoony, compared to, say,Jack Nicholson’s low-level crook Jack Napier falling into a chemical vat in Tim Burton’s Batman, turning him into the Joker with whiteskin, greenhair and a rictusgrin. ~ Peter BradshawI think that it's important to really look at those individuals who aresuffering frommental illness and really try to find somelove andempathy for thesepeople. ~Emma Tillinger KoskoffThe film is set somewhere in the late ’70s in Gotham City, and Phillips makes no attempt to disguise it for anything other than what it is:New York City, the headquarters of mostreal-lifevillainy: therich who rule us, thebanks andcorporations for whom we toil, themedia which feeds us adailydiet “news” they think we should absorb. ~Michael MooreThis movie is not aboutTrump. It’s about theAmerica that gave us Trump — the America which feels no need tohelp theoutcast, the destitute. The America where thefilthyrich just get richer and filthier. Except in this story a discomfitingquestion is posed: What if one day the dispossessed decide tofight back? ~Michael Moore
We share each other’s grief and try to lighten each other’s burdens caused by that "one bad day." And so we continue to grieve with and support the survivors and victims’ families like those of the 2012Aurora, Colorado, shooting during a screening ofThe Dark Knight Rises thatkilled 12 andwounded 70 others. But, while their campaign againstJoker andWarner Bros. may evoke oursympathies, it is counterproductive to their goal as it sets a bad precedent foractivist groups trying to define the boundaries betweenfree speech,hate speech andviolence-promoting speech. However, though I am supportive of their goal, this is the wrong movie and the wrong strategy to promote the fight forgun control because it creates adiversion. First, thestrategy is wrong because it feels uncomfortably close to passiveextortion. Even though there is no call toboycott, they have cast a pall over the film that is meant to be damaging. No matter how Warners reacts, the damage has already been done. Even if Warners complied with their demands, the movie has been tainted in the eyes of the average moviegoer. A photo of a Warner Bros. executive handing them a large check wouldn’t change that. There’s therefore no incentive for the studio to comply. In fact, according to a Warner Bros. statement in response: “Our company has a long history of donating to victims of violence, including Aurora, and in recent weeks, our parent company joined other business leaders to call on policymakers to enact bipartisan legislation to address this epidemic.” Second, Warner Bros. and Joker are the wrong focus ofattention, which further compromises the group’s goal. Despite their claim that “we support your right tofree speech andfree expression,” launching this campaign around a movie — especially one like this that strives to be more artistic than exploitative — can have achilling effect on free expression.
This Joker’s genesis is determinedly mature and uncartoony, compared to, say,Jack Nicholson’s low-level crook Jack Napier falling into a chemical vat in Tim Burton’s Batman, turning him into the Joker with whiteskin, greenhair and a rictusgrin. (The look of DC’s Joker was originally inspired byConrad Veidt in the 1928 silent classicThe Man Who Laughs, a man whose face was disfigured into a grin by his father’s political enemies.) There is no reason why Phoenix’s elaborately backstoried Joker shouldn’t be as powerful asHeath Ledger’s mysterious, motiveless, originless Joker inThe Dark Knight. But at some stage the comic-book world of supervillaindom has to be entered, and Ledger was more powerful because he wasn’t weighed down with all this realist detail and overblown ironic noir grandeur, and he wasn’t forced to carry an entire story on his own. This Joker has just one act in him: the first act. The film somehow manages to be desperately serious and very shallow.
Phoenix makes Arthur an exceptionally vividmonster. His performance is asymphony ofscowls,howls,grins,grimaces and, of course, those endless fits oflaughter. It's a big, grotesquely showy piece of acting, but you can't take youreyes off him.
But as convincinglygritty as it looks, "Joker" falters in its attempt to conjure a backdrop of social unrest. We hearnews of a rise in violent crime and anti-rich sentiment aimed at billionaire tycoons like Thomas Wayne, whose son Bruce Wayne will, of course, grow up to becomeBatman himself. But these stabs at political relevance feel mostly coy and disengaged.
I think that it's important to really look at those individuals who aresuffering frommental illness and really try to find somelove andempathy for thesepeople. For me, the themes in that movie were empathy and feelingsad and empathetic for that character.
But whatcondition? Could it bepseudobulbar affect, which is neurological in origin and gives rise to uncontainedlaughing andcrying? Understress, Arthur certainly breaks into a hyena’s cackle, which stops as abruptly as it starts; he also weeps, and, in closeup, we follow the tracks of the tears on his clown’s white-painted face. (I haven’t seen such artful drips since 1971, when Dirk Bogarde’s hair dye melted, along with his soul, at the end of “Death in Venice.”) The film, however, takes no serious interest inwhat might bewrong with Arthur. It merely invites us to watch his wrongness grow out of control and swell into violence, and proposes a vague connection between that private swelling and a wider social malady. “Is it just me, or is it getting crazier out there?” he asks. Guess what: it’s both!
What is agreed upon, among those who have seen “Joker,” is the prowess with which Phoenix holds it all together. His face may get the greasepaint, but it’s his wholebody, coiled upon itself like a spring of flesh, from which the movie’s energy is released. He’s so thin that, when he strips to the waist and bends, his spine and shoulder blades jut out from the skin; is he a fallen angel, with his wings chopped off, or a skeleton-in-waiting, halfway to the grave?Francis Bacon, I think, would have stared at Arthur with a hungry eye.
“Joker” is nosuperhero norsupervillain norcomic bookmovie. The film is set somewhere in the late ’70s in Gotham City, and Phillips makes no attempt to disguise it for anything other than what it is:New York City, the headquarters of mostreal-lifevillainy: therich who rule us, thebanks andcorporations for whom we toil, themedia which feeds us adailydiet “news” they think we should absorb. This movie is not aboutTrump. It’s about theAmerica that gave us Trump — the America which feels no need tohelp theoutcast, the destitute. The America where thefilthyrich just get richer and filthier. Except in this story a discomfitingquestion is posed: What if one day the dispossessed decide tofight back?
For 42 years, I’ve studied the cause ofcrime andviolence. And while watching thisfilm, I thought, Wow, what a revelation this was. I need to buy this movie down the road, make excerpt clips of it to illustrate […] It is a great educational tool about the making of themurderer. That threw me. I talk about all of these factors in the class, and honestly, it’s really hard to get a true-life story that fits all of these pieces together, let alone a very dramatic and stylized movie that illustrates these factors quite strongly. That was really a revelation.
Physical abuse is on the list, as isneglect andmalnutrition as a kid. Being brought up inpoverty is a risk factor. He’sadopted, and kids who are adopted are two to three times more likely to become criminal…certainly twice the rate of violence is well established. If you’re wondering why that is, it’s because with adoptions, thebaby is separated from the mum for time—and that is breakage of themother-infant bonding process in a critical period that we know affects personality development down the road.
[T]he link betweenmental health problems andviolence is, of course,controversial. We don’t want tostigmatizementally ill people as beingdangerous people. But we do know that mental illness is a significant predisposition to violence, which we have to recognize so that people can be treated.
Mentally ill people don’t go aroundserial-killing people—plotting ahomicide or abank robbery or aburglary. No, they react on impulse emotionally. It’s impulsive and emotion-driven.” And in the film, Raine pointed out, all of Arthur’s violence seemed authentic to him because it was “reactive aggression.”
I don’t think the Joker hadfree will, given hislife. He was a walking time bomb waiting to explode—all it took was some significant life stress, beatings up, losing a job. You’ve got nothing left.… The well-documentedrisk factors—this was [the character’s]destiny. No one isborn into that kind ofviolence.
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