What are your thoughts on the Joker movie? Could it be considered somehow leftist?
66 posts and 13 image replies omitted.>>7866>who is displayed as a charismatic, good looking guyDid you watch the same movie as I did? He's a skinny mentally ill middle-aged dude. He isn't charismatic except in his own mind.
>turned invincible slaughtererHardly, he just lucked out in the situation
>A real freak, or a mentally ill person is someone you would probably never relate with or feel sympathy forHaving known a few 'freaks'… I disagree.
Since this is a Joker thread I might as well ask this. Which version of Jokers - (in films, cartoons/comic-verses or games) - do you like the most?
Which do you hate/dislike?
Personally I think Nicholson plays a good Joker, but is overshadowed by Heath Ledger's Joker. The Joker in Mask of the Phantasm is essentially the same Joker as Batman TAS's Joker and was great. The Batman Beyond Joker was mediocre, it had a similar feel, but compared to the original dynamic was more boring, though Batman Beyond was still great.
Jared Leto was a hip-hop version of Joker that was just cringe… like most DC media of the current era.
Cesar Romero was memeworthy, but was a terrible Joker… (but then again Adam West was a cheesy AF Batman so whatever.
The Joker in Killing Joke was just a bit too edgy and insane to my tastes, compared to the comics, the film was meh. And the version where he killed himself by twisting his head until his neck broke is just obsurd.
I don't know anything about the game Jokers, but apparently one of them roids up or some shit, which was dumb.
>>11141Cheer's Batsy!
My favorite one is this
"See, there were these two guys in a lunatic asylum…and one night, one night they decide they don't like living in an asylum any more. They decide they're going to escape! So, like, they get up onto the roof and there, just across this narrow gap, they see the rooftops of the town, stretching away in the moonlight… stretching away to freedom. Now, the first guy, he jumps right across with no problem. But his friend, his friend daren't make the leap. Y'see…y'see, he's afraid of falling. So then, the first guy has an idea…He says 'Hey! I have my flashlight with me! I'll shine it across the gap between the buildings. You can walk along the beam and join me!' B-but the second guy just shakes his head. He suh-says… he says 'What do you think I am? Crazy? You'd turn it off when I was half way across!'" Pic related is a good encapsulation of
>>11133 opinion
>>8856Honestly while dark capeshit, or a breakdown of capeshit with real consequences is interesting, I feel that outside of escapist consumerism, it only works in films and portions. You see this with Joker (2019) and with Batman TAS and Mask of the Phantasm as they really break down the grime but in the case of TAS don't bog you down with grimdark shit, because that only works with media like Berserk which dedicates itself to that exploration. Where it doesn't work as well/gets bogged down IMO is in media like the recent arcs of BnHA - with its superpowered zombies and backstabbing and killing and deranged factionism reminiscent not of capitalist society, but of a feudal one. Stain had an impact because he was a stark contrast to normal villains and before that everything was still pretty upbeat.
The Joker doesn't go into this with all the 'powers' and crap, and instead hits home with real talk - the people, poor and hungry and uncared for, who are trying to live and struggle every day.
I'm sort of rambling here but my point is dark capeshit is good as singular films or arcs, but when you make massive TV series over it, it begins to get tiresome and edgy.
Mark Fisher would be proud, since the Joker is an analysis of the nihilistic hedonism of late capitalism. There is no politics in Gotham, and Arthur says it explicitly to Murray that he isn't political. The moment that Arthur loses his identity is the moment that he identifies with the clown that everyone sees in him, when he states that his life is a comedy and not a tragedy. When pressed about why he murdered those rich cunts, rather than defend himself (e.g. "they attacked me first") he immediately moralises - "I killed them because they were awful." In fact, his entire appearance on Murray's show devolves into moralisation, signaling his impotence. Even when he shoots Murray, it is an act of senseless rage hat further highlights the power he lacks. Arthur becomes the Joker when he loses all desire and becomes helplessly controlled by a pure drive towards destruction, internalizing a society that is itself self-destructive. The end of the movie is exactly what you'd expect: unguided chaos in a dying city stuck in a deadlock, with no hope of any change but it's own destruction, and the newly born Joker, apolitical and a slave to his impulses, becomes a symbol for it. On the same night, Batman is born when Thomas Wayne finally gets what he fuckin' deserves.
Truth is that it isn't a political movie at all, which is what makes it so political. The creators simply wanted to give a realistic backstory for the Joker, asking how Gotham city might have created him. What they ended up with was a tragic situation so traumatic that in the protagonist must view it as a comedy in order to survive, and that such a situation reflects the state of many under late capitalism so well is striking. One must wonder why so many liberal reviewers seem to hate the movie for it's nihilistic core. What did they expect to see, of course it's nihilistic because it's about the Joker…right?
>>30982I agree. Just make another thing.
>>31898How the fuck did you break the site?
Heath Ledger's Joker is (for good reason) considered one of the best Joker depictions in live action. What people don't know or have forgotten is that a large portion of the Dark Knight films' aesthetics are taken from the fantastic 90s film, The Crow.
Chris Nolan stated that the look and cadence for Joker were based on Brandon Lee's performance and role. The crow symbol being painted on walls and the burning gas Crow symbol was also used for the burning Batman logo in those same films. Ghost Rider and DareDevil also used this idea (pic 2 rel). Moreover the dark humor and violence is also similar, with the Crow taking hits intentionally as did the Joker while calmly replying.
As a side note, there's also a connection to Keanu Reeves. Back in the 90s it was rumored that role of Neo was written with Brandon Lee in mind, which if you look at The Crow's trenchcoat you can see the aesthetics of, and considering Brandon Lee's martial arts training and that Keanu hadn't really played such serious roles at the time, makes sense. Lee's stunt-double and friend, Chad Stahelski, was also Keanu's stunt-double in The Matrix, and later went on to Co-direct Keanu's other hit performance, John Wick.
The Crow in general had huge influence on films after itself despite being rather obscure itself, even in more tragic areas, as Brandon Lee's death due to the gun mishap lead to a lot of changes made in filming as a result. Big time safety precautions were put into law that pertain to film sets. There were no incidents for a long time after this film fortunately, because of these safety changes. Unfortunately not everyone got on board and took safety for granted, like on the set of that Alec Baldwin film.
>>40518> I don’t know if I would call it leftist since Joker doesn’t have a coherent ideology and is just acting on vengeful instinct. The whole point of the movie is that he doesn't and what happens is driven by material circumstances rather than some belief system.
>The shooting of the bankers snowballing into mass riotsIt's just the spark that ignites the tinder. The whole movie is spent showing conditions in the city deteriorating. Arthur Fleck is just one person experiencing social decay.
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