What does it mean to be a brave filmmaker? In some cases, it means taking advantage of the lesser-known characters of a movie franchise with a rabid, easily offended fan base (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story). It might mean adding an unexpected twist to a reliable formula, like taking the classic breakup story but packaging it in a scary way (Midsommar(Pulp Fiction). Mostly, though, it means letting your characters take you where they want, the demands of the audience and the studio – and even the plot – abandoned.
By that count, Todd Phillips is a very daring filmmaker. Joker: Folie in Deuxsequel to his 2019 blockbuster film The Jokerstarring Joaquin Phoenix, was panned by critics (“lazy”, “wasting Lady Gaga’s talent”, “confused”) and viewers (“hates its most devoted fans”, “lame music”) alike. The $190 million budget film bombed with a $37 million domestic opening (international collections, roughly $100 million, were better) and earned a ‘D’ CinemaScore, the lowest of any comedy-based film. However, in a very important way, it is not only the best and most daring films of the year, it also offers one of the most important lessons in writing – be it a film, a novel or a short story – for the price of a movie ticket. It shows why any creator must not only have a deep understanding of his creation, but must also be willing to go along with whatever wild creations that creation – and their story – throws at him.
The most famous work of this method is Stephen King who has written several times, including his memoir On Writing, about the writing process as an act of faith in human characters and their journey. While King’s output over the decades has varied greatly in scale (great epics like The standaside from the immediate, internal horrors of Gerald’s game or The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon) and quality (classics that are not placed as Sadness again The Shining beside the same illegible daubs The Dreamcatcher), the one constant has been the commitment to character. All that is required is to understand the character and how they would react to a certain situation (the total amount we call “the story”), and to trust the process. Over fifty years, with 65 novellas/novels and over 200 short stories, King has shown time and time again how this approach can pay off. Can the grieving father come in? Animal Sematarysince he has the knowledge of how to bring his beloved son back to life, should he make any decision other than the disastrous one he made? Couldn’t the brutally abused Carrie, who recently gained mysterious powers, destroy her entire school after one extreme embarrassment?
Todd Phillips, in both The Joker and its sequel 2024, proved that he understands why this is a compelling – some might argue, the only way to tell a story. It paid off big with Joker, which not only broke box office records and received more than a few awards, but also managed to win over comic book fans who are notoriously hard to please. It was at the point where their understanding of the film – the origin story of a beloved villain from the Batman universe – was very different from what the film was actually about – a look at how a mentally ill person can reach a critical stage in society, as Arthur Fleck/Joker, says in the film “he treats him like trash “. The Joker owes little to the Batman universe, except for its beginnings and a few references along the way: Most of the plot, and almost all the flesh, blood and creative spark that animated the film came entirely from Phillips and his co-writer Scott Silver (with a slight tip to Martin Scorsese’s hat Taxi driver again The King of Comedy).
The problem with Joker: Folie in Deuxin the opinion of those who loved the first film, that it has the courage to continue the same road of faithfully telling the story of this character, Arthur Fleck and his long journey in the Joker persona, instead of the story of the Joker himself. . Phillips, it turns out, was still devoted to his character, not to the comic books that provided the original inspiration. That Phillips and his film weren’t so much interested in a terrifying Batman villain, but in a weak, frightened and vulnerable man who (spoiler alert) may or may not be that villain, was a huge betrayal of the fandom. Fleck, indeed, denies his Joker identity completely at the end of the poem, taking responsibility for his crimes and admitting, finally, that he is not, not even the mobs that rose up and looted in his name or the woman who claims to love him. , let him see who he really is.
Joker: Folie in Deux he defies the very idea of the comic book universe that somewhere, without being seen at the moment, perhaps, there is a hero (or anti-hero) who will raise an order that does nothing to the poor and weak, and who, instead of turning the other cheek, will beat the whole system to pieces. It’s a fascinating tale in its own right – and it’s a key reason why, in the Batman stories, the Joker, who embodies chaos as opposed to the Caped Crusader’s command, is such a compelling villain. But it was nowhere Phillips wanted to go. He gave Arthur Fleck – briefly a hero of the downtrodden in a bad world but really a lonely, tortured man out of his right mind – the only possible, and ultimately, story he could do. That’s writing, that’s storytelling.
pooja.pillai@expressindia.com