The controversy over "Joker" continues. Although it is getting more and more intense, it does not have the particularly big impact that those people feared.
And with Dean Films in control, it won’t get out of hand.
On the contrary, the box office has continued to soar along with the controversy.
Some people say that this is because Hollywood has been too unprogressive in recent years. Therefore, even if original script movies like "Joker" are not as good as the reviews, they are already one of the best movies in recent years.
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Especially after "Joker" won the Golden Lion Award at this year's Venice Film Festival, the film has aroused the discussion of many film critics in Hollywood.
Because, as I said earlier, Hollywood has been too, too unprogressive in recent years.
Sequels are rampant and IP comes first. Almost no company is willing to take risks. This situation will naturally make the movie boring.
After all, a popcorn movie is always just a popcorn movie. And the evaluation of "Joker" has gradually begun to recover, and everyone has begun to return to the movie itself.
Famous Hollywood film critic Arenas: "I have seen many comments that actually criticize this movie from the perspective of ideology and world view. For example, it may be too dark and too confusing. In my opinion, this is not...
After all, the purpose of this movie from the beginning was to show such a chaotic and disorderly world and the charming villains born in this world.
After watching this movie, I can probably understand why it can be put in that kind of film festival and win awards. In essence, it actually has a literary sense of understanding, shaping and depicting characters.
Therefore, I think I can talk about my personal opinions from this perspective.
A good film in the literary sense generally needs to have its own perspective. You don't have to worry too much about the views and ideologies of the content it wants to express, but it needs to have a good angle, a unique personal temperament, and the things it depicts.
If it is organic and attractive, for a few moments, you will feel that what the author describes is real, vivid, and naturally alive. I think the image of the clown is inherently charming.
In terms of character creation, there are almost no flaws in the creation of the clown in "Joker". Everything falls into place. By arranging the setbacks for the clown in life, in the large event structure (that is, the TV host's initial affirmation of the clown)
and the final desperate blow) are nested with various small frustrations (such as being bullied by gangsters, searching for the biological father but finding out that everything was actually the mother's imagination). The structure of all scripts is very reasonable, and the actors are also very powerful.
The shaping of the film has been profound. I think, first of all, in the general direction, there is nothing wrong with this movie.
However, if you look at it from a particularly obsessive-compulsive perspective, you will feel that if you want to view this movie as a particularly good and brilliant serious film, it is still too "easy".
The "easy" here means that the screenwriter still has too much power, such as constantly using coincidental events to defeat the characters, such as imposing various dramas in order to shape the characters. The character of the clown has continued to follow the screenwriter's instructions, from the initial
The form has evolved all the way to a mature form without any loss of control. His growth trajectory is still firmly in the hands of the screenwriter.
Of course, because Li's movies always integrate writing and directing, he can't force more.
Regarding the Joker, I personally think that Lee has great ambitions. This may not be the only Joker movie, or it may be a new series.
The charm of this character is that he is undoubtedly a villain, but this character is not popular, but he does have similarities with many ordinary people. Generally speaking, the movie still portrays him a bit like the character from the beginning.
A mentally deficient mental patient, he did not evolve from a more common introverted freak to the final clown form, so people would think that he is not cruel enough here, because after all, he himself is a bit "abnormal", so he is more
It is easy to be destroyed by the suffering events in life, which also reduces the intensity of these suffering events. Of course, this is just a personal nitpick or I do not fully understand it.
What I particularly like is not the dance with makeup as the clown gradually evolves into his ultimate image, nor the various details in it, nor the climax of the last scene (this climax is really wonderful, making the entire script complete, exquisite, and exciting.
(should), but the scene where the clown is putting on makeup at home before going out on the street, and his former colleagues come to the house.
In that scene, as a horror movie lover, I saw the horror created by this actor. He killed the fat colleague and let the dwarf colleague leave. The dwarf colleague was too short to reach the door lock, and he went to help him with his face covered in blood.
He opened the door, and this part made my skin stand on end. It had a particularly cold and scary atmosphere. It was dark, but it was also very funny, cult and humorous. I really liked it.
If you look closely, you will find that "Joker" is actually very much like a Hollywood adaptation of a superhero movie.
First of all, when we look at the superheroes, their appearance, especially the civilian superheroes, always goes through a tragic experience like the clown.
But the difference is that many times, superheroes gain superpowers and begin to bring order to the chaos and reverse those difficult situations according to their own sense of justice.
But the difference between the Joker and the Joker is that the Joker turned dark in the end, but if you think about it carefully, in comparison, turning dark is a greater possibility, and superheroes can only appear in movies.
Therefore, it can be seen that "Joker" is a reality-subverting version of superhero movies.
The movie "Joker" completely subverts this superhero myth. Arthur, who has not yet transformed into a clown, uses his unbearable painful laughter to repeatedly ask the audience: When the social order itself is the source of oppression, the disruptor of the order is still the villain.
Are those who maintain order still heroes? In the movie, from when Arthur was teased and beaten by three Wall Street elites on the subway, he rose up and killed the three of them, to finally being publicly shot and killed in the studio as the "Joker"
The host of the show, his crazy killings undoubtedly destroyed the existing social order as a villain.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click the next page to continue reading the exciting content! But he was regarded as a hero by the masses, and people started riots in response to his killings. The villain who disrupted order became a hero instead, which is not the case in superhero movies.
It is rare, but its logic is nothing more than that the villain uses deception to gain public trust, and the superhero restores order and successfully saves the world by revealing the truth. In "Joker", the truth is in the hands of the clown - Arthur becomes the villain by doing things
A hero, precisely because he showed the public the real but cruel social picture of Gotham.
On the one hand, the movie uses grim images and heavy rhythm to quietly outline the dark and depressive social background of Gotham: depressed economy, rampant violence, staggering gap between rich and poor, shrinking social welfare, and the elite’s unabashed treatment of the poor.
The arrogance of the people at the bottom, the long-standing anger of the people at the bottom...
At the same time, Arthur's personal experience of sinking into the crazed and chaotic Joker is not just a dramatic "crazy bad day" that happened to him, it is an allegory of everyday life in Gotham.
The pain of every low-level individual in the story, whether it is the arrogance of the elite towards the bottom, the alienation of people and the gradual disappearance of the social protection network, are just exaggerated displays and amplification of the daily life of Gotham people.
Life.
So, after a clown-clad Arthur is forced to fight back and shoot three Wall Street elites, mayoral candidate and billionaire Thomas Wayne treats the murdered elites - who were also employees of Wayne Investments - as people.
People who create a better life disdainfully call the murderer a clown who has nothing and is jealous of others, but the people quickly side with the murderer and take to the streets with slogans like "We are all clowns." This kind of situation quickly spreads between the elite and the masses.
The aroused opposition reflects the social structure's long-term suppression and alienation of the people at the bottom. However, despite the secret dissatisfaction, people still strive to maintain the peace of daily life.
Arthur's actions shattered the daily social order and raised the issue of inequality to the public in the most intense and direct way. The real Gotham was revealed, which also triggered the real resentment of ordinary people. In the studio
In the room, Arthur angrily asked the host Murray why people were so concerned about the deaths of elites, while the deaths of people on the margins of society like him were ignored; even so, the elites still expected the people at the bottom to behave.
Making trouble - observing social order. In the subsequent live broadcast, Arthur shot Murray to death.
It is worth mentioning that Arthur has been working hard and dreams of becoming a talk show actor one day. Murray is his idol. He believes that one day he can become Murray, or become a member of the elite group.
The act of shooting Murray declared that Arthur's dream of rising in a way allowed by the social order was completely disillusioned. It also announced to the public that Gotham's existing social order was oppressive and unsustainable.
The public's response was to launch a full-scale attack on social order, causing Gotham to completely fall into a state of anarchy and disorder. The Joker was eventually born from this riot, and the crowd gathered around him and cheered, as if welcoming the birth of a hero. In this
In one scene, instead of saying that Arthur transformed into the "Joker" as the prince of crime and villain, it is better to say that he became the incarnation of the "Joker" in Gotham, revealing to everyone the absurdity of the existing order and mocking it in a violent way.
and challenge it.
Therefore, I can’t help but wonder, isn’t this kind of city the best place for superheroes to appear in traditional superhero movies?
So if there is a superhero, I'm certainly not talking about the Joker.
Superheroes are usually seen as lawless guardians of order, while clowns are naturally destroyers of order. The two are naturally in opposition. Isn't it interesting?
Of course, we need to ask our Miracle director if he has such an idea. Personally, I think this is a very interesting thing.
The sharpest criticism many critics have made of "Joker" is that the film portrays the Joker as a civilian hero who starts a revolution, but in fact he is just a mental patient who abuses violence. The problem here is that the violence in the film is too violent.
Is it flooding?
In fact, the reason why the violence in "Joker" scares film critics and even considers it inflammatory is precisely because the film has an extremely ambiguous attitude towards the depiction of violence. This also throws us another difficult question to answer: We
Should violence be condemned unconditionally? Can violence only be seen in a negative light?
People's comments and worries are indeed correct. The whole movie is soaked in violence from beginning to end, but the violence here does not refer to just physical violence such as shootings, assassinations and riots, but "systemic violence" and direct disruption of the normal state.
Different from "subjective violence", "systemic violence" refers to the hidden relationship of oppression and exploitation in the daily operation of social life. It cannot be attributed to the evil intentions of any one person or group of people, but it operates systematically and continuously.
Gotham in the movie is repressed, indifferent, and alienated. Except for the elite, everyone seems to be ravaged by life. For example, the staff at Arkham Asylum told Arthur that not all people in the hospital are mentally ill, and some
People just had nowhere to go; the government cut welfare funding so Arthur couldn't get medical help; the elite turned a blind eye to the ubiquity of homeless people. None of this was direct physical violence, nor did it disrupt the normal functioning of daily life
, rather, this is the normal functioning mechanism of society, and this invisible violence has been eroding Arthur, treating him - and the lives of marginalized people like him - as some kind of expendable garbage, until he is
Driven to madness.
Arthur's way of responding to this kind of systemic violence is to gradually liberate subjective violence from his originally weak and docile body - from the beginning when a few teenagers snatched the billboard and beat him wantonly, unable to resist, to rebelling on the subway.
Killing three Wall Street elites, he finally shot the host in the studio. His violence became more and more energetic and proactive, and he used the most violent way to fight back against the oppression of system violence. At the same time, as an individual, he
The liberation of violence ignited people's long-suffering resentment, radiating their expectations for violence to the entire city, and the violence among the people at the bottom became more and more intense. From the beginning, they just held placards to protest, and finally reached the climax of riots throughout the city.
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This chapter is not finished yet, please click the next page to continue reading the exciting content! If you take away the systemic violence that permeates the air of Gotham, "Joker" will become a poor man who is forced to die by various dramatic life events.
The tragedy of a sociopath, but if we pay a little more attention to the liberation process of the clown's subjective violence, we will find that this is the desperate response of the people at the bottom to systemic violence: when self-discipline and hard work cannot prevent sinking, then people can only
They hope to curb the violence inflicted on individuals by the system by stopping society. To a certain extent, film critics who simply criticize the violence of the Joker are the same as the elites in the film. They only focus on how terrible the desperate counterattack from the bottom is, but forget the real
Brutal forms of violence operate in their most subtle and harmless forms.
The most frightening part is the liberating intention of violence in the film: after each use of violence, as Arthur dances more and more skillfully, the clown dance symbolizes his continuous sinking and degradation, and his weakness and incompetence
However, his body became more and more powerful and confident, allowing him to obtain everything that he could not obtain when following social morality. At the climax of the film, the clown was even able to issue a clear and complete statement in the studio against the elite class and the entire social system.
Winning the resonance and response of the public is in sharp contrast to Arthur's broken and clumsy expressive ability before - Arthur, who was originally a marginalized person in society, experienced the baptism of violence again and again, and finally became a hero of the people.
As Arthur transformed, the people at the bottom became more and more violent, which also allowed them to gradually get rid of their neglected situation. From the beginning, they were ridiculed by Thomas Wayne as a group of clowns, but in the end they used violence to make the indispensable
The rich and powerful were so frightened that they even shot Thomas Wayne himself. This undoubtedly meant the most radical rebellion of the people at the bottom against the elite. Violence appeared here in the form of liberation. It empowered the powerless and empowered the marginalized.
Become the focus of society and help those who have been insulted and hurt regain their dignity."
