I respectfully disagree with almost everything you've said in this episode.
To me, this film is about authenticity and identity. The story is about Arthur Fleck trying to define his own identity while the outside world tries to define it for him.
Fleck believes his purpose in life is to bring laughter and joy to the world, a task for which he is woefully ill-suited. He's not the showman he wishes to be. His singing sucks and his jokes don't land because they aren't funny. It's part of what makes him so off-putting, especially in the first film. That's the core of his character: he is a sad, unfunny clown.
Arthur finally found the fame he wanted by committing a very public act of violence at the end of the first film. It cost him is freedom and in this film he struggles to decide if he should embrace the Joker persona that made him famous or his accept the painful truth that he just a sad, unfunny clown.
At the start of the film Arthur keeps to himself, doesn't talk much and his laughter has been medicated away. He seems to have accepted that his mission to bring joy to the world is an unqualified disaster. But then he meets Harley "Lee" Quinzel, who expresses love for Joker. He sees crowds of fans cheering him on as he goes to trial. He even gets to be interviewed for television. In other words, he gets treated as a celebrity, which plays right in to his fantasy.
Fleck then begins letting his alter ego take center stage again. He fires his lawyer, starts wearing the red suit and clown makeup again, and essentially lets Joker serve as his defense attorney. As Joker he tries to outsmart the prosecution doing a hackneyed imitation of a southern movie lawyer but no matter what his fans think, no matter how hard pretends, underneath he is still just Arthur Fleck and not nearly as clever as he would like to believe.
Arthur, still in his Joker persona, laughs his ass off as the Arkham guards beat him in the shower and toss him half naked into his cell. He starts to smile when he hears his friend mocking the guards on his behalf, but then he hears them strangle the man to death. He feels responsible for the death of his friend. The camera zooms in on his face as he finally feels the weight of that death along with all people he's killed. This cuts to a scene of him washing the clown makeup off, rejecting the Joker persona at last. He realizes he's not a hero or even an anti-hero. He's not going to lead a movement or start a revolution. He's just a loser who's killed a few people.
While Arthur struggles to find his authentic self in a world that wants him to be someone he is not, the film does not. From the musical numbers to the aborted escape scene it outright rejects audience expectations at every turn. It refuses to indulge the fantasy that Arthur Fleck is smart enough to be a criminal mastermind. It refuses to be just another comic book movie.
In the end the fans rejected the film for what it is because it would not, or could not, be what they wanted, just as Lee rejected Arthur for being his authentic self, rather than what she and his other fans wanted. In this way, the film itself becomes the embodiment of Arthur Fleck. I understand why so many people hated this movie but to me that is what part of what makes it brilliant.
Well, I went to see it and left early, the movie is unbearable. Like you said, there's nothing unfolding, it's just sledgehammering the same idea again and again. What came to mind watching the film is it felt like a musical equivalent of Godzilla: King of the Monsters.
A good version of a drama musical would be the movie Distant Voices, Still Lives. This I would highly recommend.
I respectfully disagree with almost everything you've said in this episode.
To me, this film is about authenticity and identity. The story is about Arthur Fleck trying to define his own identity while the outside world tries to define it for him.
Fleck believes his purpose in life is to bring laughter and joy to the world, a task for which he is woefully ill-suited. He's not the showman he wishes to be. His singing sucks and his jokes don't land because they aren't funny. It's part of what makes him so off-putting, especially in the first film. That's the core of his character: he is a sad, unfunny clown.
Arthur finally found the fame he wanted by committing a very public act of violence at the end of the first film. It cost him is freedom and in this film he struggles to decide if he should embrace the Joker persona that made him famous or his accept the painful truth that he just a sad, unfunny clown.
At the start of the film Arthur keeps to himself, doesn't talk much and his laughter has been medicated away. He seems to have accepted that his mission to bring joy to the world is an unqualified disaster. But then he meets Harley "Lee" Quinzel, who expresses love for Joker. He sees crowds of fans cheering him on as he goes to trial. He even gets to be interviewed for television. In other words, he gets treated as a celebrity, which plays right in to his fantasy.
Fleck then begins letting his alter ego take center stage again. He fires his lawyer, starts wearing the red suit and clown makeup again, and essentially lets Joker serve as his defense attorney. As Joker he tries to outsmart the prosecution doing a hackneyed imitation of a southern movie lawyer but no matter what his fans think, no matter how hard pretends, underneath he is still just Arthur Fleck and not nearly as clever as he would like to believe.
Arthur, still in his Joker persona, laughs his ass off as the Arkham guards beat him in the shower and toss him half naked into his cell. He starts to smile when he hears his friend mocking the guards on his behalf, but then he hears them strangle the man to death. He feels responsible for the death of his friend. The camera zooms in on his face as he finally feels the weight of that death along with all people he's killed. This cuts to a scene of him washing the clown makeup off, rejecting the Joker persona at last. He realizes he's not a hero or even an anti-hero. He's not going to lead a movement or start a revolution. He's just a loser who's killed a few people.
While Arthur struggles to find his authentic self in a world that wants him to be someone he is not, the film does not. From the musical numbers to the aborted escape scene it outright rejects audience expectations at every turn. It refuses to indulge the fantasy that Arthur Fleck is smart enough to be a criminal mastermind. It refuses to be just another comic book movie.
In the end the fans rejected the film for what it is because it would not, or could not, be what they wanted, just as Lee rejected Arthur for being his authentic self, rather than what she and his other fans wanted. In this way, the film itself becomes the embodiment of Arthur Fleck. I understand why so many people hated this movie but to me that is what part of what makes it brilliant.
Well, I went to see it and left early, the movie is unbearable. Like you said, there's nothing unfolding, it's just sledgehammering the same idea again and again. What came to mind watching the film is it felt like a musical equivalent of Godzilla: King of the Monsters.
A good version of a drama musical would be the movie Distant Voices, Still Lives. This I would highly recommend.