It was two years and a few months ago – only a few months before lockdowns – that I dragged myself to see The Joker, a movie I dreaded but ended up respecting.
“It’s a movie about one man’s descent into madness,” said the ticket taker. “Nothing else.”
Why was the ticket seller pre-reviewing this movie for me? The line seemed overly rehearsed, a cautionary note to viewers as a way to prevent what has concerned people, namely that the movie’s fictional mayhem would generate real-world copycats. This was the great worry at the time.
Still, his mini-review did give me some reassurance. The previews alone were too creepy. Life is tough enough without movies introducing more sadness, which is precisely why I like to stick with uplifting fare. Still, I marshaled my way through this one.
There is a superficial way in which the man was correct. This was just about one guy. Even after leaving, I kept telling myself that. And yet after it was over, I experienced precisely what so many others reported at the time. The movie imparts an aura that you can’t shake. You take it home with you. You sleep with it. You wake up in the morning and see that damned face again. You think through scenes. Then you remember things. Then more starts to make sense – not moral sense but narrative sense.
It was also tremendously unpleasant viewing, the most difficult two-plus hours of movie watching I can remember. It was also brilliant and gripping in every frame. The score is perfect. And the acting didn’t seem like acting.
As for the “just one man” interpretation, that’s hard to sustain. The street scenes. The subways packed with people wearing clown masks, headed to the protest. The rich, established businessman running for mayor and the protests that engenders. The strange way in which this unsettling and violent figure becomes a folk hero on the streets. There was surely a larger point here.
Continue reading “The Joker: A Premonition”
