After the screening of this film at the Venice Film Festival, the audience clapped for eight minutes and shouted "bravo." Over the past weekend, this picture topped both Russian and foreign distribution. Disputes and scandals are raging around her, someone comes to the film several times, and someone is afraid to come at all.
This is Todd Phillips' Joker, a brutal drama about an unfortunate villain that has already won the Golden Lion.
The film is one of the first swallows that will soon hit the minds, especially the young. Often times the film industry (as well as the music industry) is driven by very specific people with their own interests and concepts.
To begin with, let’s analyze "Joker" both as a film and as a phenomenon. It's no secret that he was born within the DC comics universe as the main enemy of the famous superhero Batman.
In order not to return to this topic later, let's just say a few words about DC Comics. In short, this is one of the largest comic book publishers (the second such is Marvel, stamping Spider-Man, X-Men and Avengers, and now also the charming monster villain Venom). They specialize in feature and animation films as well as games and comics. DC's main difference from others is its fierce gloom, ranging from a dark palette to praise for killers and psychos.
DC are not shy about creating as cynical and brutal worlds as possible for such a genre. A particularly subtle point is that children get hooked on this business, although most of the products are designed for adults, and most cartoons and comics contain both erotic scenes and overt violence.
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And for those who watched such cartoons in childhood, DC also releases films. At first, the company promoted Batman as much as possible, but soon began to work on villains, who often turned out to be much more lively and interesting (remember how Heath Ledger played the Joker).
The last notable "disish" project was "Suicide Squad" - a bunch of villains, which, according to the plot, the government uses as cannon fodder for its own purposes.
This project simply caused a nuclear explosion in modern culture. They did a great job on the PR of the film and comics, and the main role of the Joker was handed not to anyone, but to Jared Leto (the famous actor and frontman of the rock group 30 seconds to Mars, about which we already wrote earlier).
For the first time, villains have come to the fore, showing their good sides in full growth, and looking much better than any superheroes. The villains successfully save the world, and then again suffer from the attacks of the government and superheroes - the henchmen of the government.
Ultimately, "Suicide Squad" was received by the youth very warmly, despite the frank failure, vulgarity and ill-conceivedness of the picture.
The film turned out to be the most mentioned film in the Russian media in 2016, and social networks were flooded with discussions, drawings and photographs in the images of the main characters.
Some even took the risk of playing a wedding in the guise of supervillains.
Apparently, now the filmmakers have realized that the villainous film needs to make not only a beautiful picture, but also deeper content. And this is where Todd Phillips' Joker comes in.
The authors deliberately excluded all sorts of noise and action, focusing on the dramatic component. So much so that they did not even invite the famous Jared Leto to the main role, which he was offended by - according to the singer, he felt "rejected and upset."
But the role of the Joker went to another, indisputably talented, actor - Joaquin Phoenix.
The plot of the film is quite simple. The main character is a clown with mental disabilities. He works diligently, supports his mother and is generally a good person, mental illness prevents him from living, yes, but he is diligently treated and does nothing bad to anyone.
Problems arise when they begin to spread rot in society. To further justify the comedian's act, the government cancels all social benefits (does it look like anything?), And the main character cannot receive the necessary medications. Unable to withstand the pressure, the clown becomes a killer.
Moreover, having become a killer, the main character is transformed - a loser clown becomes a "Joker", much stronger and, in a sense, even charming. He gradually, step by step, destroys everything he loved - his mother, a comedian idol, a colleague who took pity on him.
This character has nothing to do with the Joker from the DC universe, despite the director's attempts to pull some storylines by the ears. If Nolan's Joker is a strong, well-formed person, like Professor Moriarty, predicting all actions several steps ahead, then Phillips is just a sick egoist, incapable of anything but senseless murders.
It is significant that the motto of the protagonist throughout the film runs the phrase "The meaning of life is only in my death." Glory comes to the Joker only through a misunderstanding. At best, he can become a symbol of the anarchist movement, but he cannot create anything, because for this he must at least somehow interact with the real world. Joker Phillips lives in narcissistic illusions, in his own world, where there is no one else except him.
However, despite this, the Joker turned out to be a trump card. At screenings of the film all over the world, cinemas are overcrowded, and the media and social networks are full of news and reviews about it.
In October, from the first days of the show, all sorts of scandals began. The first thing to note is the outbursts of inadequacy from the audience. The reaction of some people became so violent that the theater owners took various measures to suppress the sudden aggression.
A similar situation happened in 2012, when another similar film was released - "The Dark Knight Rises" by Christopher Nolan. At a screening in one of the cinemas in the United States, a 24-year-old man shot the audience. As a result, 12 people died and about 60 were injured.
The families of those killed in the shooting at the screening of "The Dark Knight" warned the filmmakers in advance and opposed the "Joker".
“We encourage you to become part of a community of industry leaders who understand that they have a social responsibility to ensure the right level of safety,” - written in their open letter.
The owners of the cinemas have listened to their advice, while there are no casualties, despite the fact that many viewers complain about the turbulent environment (when at the time of the murders one of the spectators starts to laugh and applaud strangely, then anyone will feel uncomfortable). Many US citizens did not go to the cinema just out of concern for their lives and health.
Measures against people with a shattered psyche were taken different - somewhere they simply banned spectators decorated with the Joker from entering the cinema, and somewhere there were police officers with machine guns and service dogs.
The second scandal of the film was the use in the culminating scene of the film of the music of the musician convicted of pedophilia - Gary Glitter, who is currently in prison for attempted rape of a 12-year-old girl, as well as for child pornography. Some viewers refused to go to the film in order to reduce Glitter's fee for the soundtrack.
In Russia, "Joker" became the leader of the box office this weekend and by Monday collected about 664 million rubles.
But let's finish with the already released "Joker" and look a little into the future, continuing the theme of the villainous clown with another film - "Birds of Prey". It is essentially a prequel to Suicide Squad. The main role in the film is assigned to the Joker's girlfriend, Harley Quinn (the name plays on the word "harlequin").
As in "Joker", the writers tried to emphasize the excuse of the crazy villain. However, the dramatic and semantic part of the film is clearly lame, so the picture will surely gain popularity only due to the beautiful wrapper and feminist theme - the main character in the plot quarrels with the Joker and gathers her villainous gang, but exclusively from female representatives.
It is worth noting that Harley Quinn's "beautiful wrapper" is gaining popularity - more and more girls with tails painted in blue and red can be found. However, few people decide to make up like evil clowns in everyday life, except that representatives of specific metal bands (American Slipknot and Marilyn Manson, Polish Unsun, Japanese ARLEQUIN) do this at concerts.
Like metalheads, the image of an evil clown is actively inscribed in the film industry. So, on September 6, the horror movie It-2 based on the novel by Stephen King was released. The main character, the killer clown Pennywise, whose prototype was the real serial maniac John Wayne Gacy, like the Joker, has become an integral part of popular culture.
In King's novel, there is more than just a psychopath hiding behind the clown's shell. Pennywise is a powerful and ancient creature who came from outside our universe. Why did it end up under the guise of a comedian who should bring fun and goodness to the world?
According to Stephen King, he chose the clown, because clowns most of all make children fearful: “I asked myself: 'What is the most frightening thing in the world for children?' And the answer was: "Clowns". So I created Pennywise the Clown."
However, King was not the first to identify clowns and circus with something dark and frightening.
So, the great Swedish director Ingmar Bergman at the beginning of his career created a bright image of comedians, but at the end of his life he portrayed death in the image of a clown, and also turned circus performers into priests of the dark cult of the mother goddess.
Indeed, it is easy to hide something completely different under the mask of a clown, because the image of a jester is also an image of a trickster, who can be both good and evil, generally accepted laws and norms are not written for him.
Laughter culture is a very delicate matter and easily slides into the wrong place if you wish, fun can be both light and kind, and dark, insane. As you know, the same carnivals appeared not just from anywhere, but from Saturnalia - quite terrible holidays.
At such holidays, turning everything upside down was the cornerstone. Slaves became masters, men became women, and evil became good. As we can see, it is on the substitution of good and evil that the above films are based.
A film with the clearest example of such a substitution is the upcoming Disney film, Maleficent: The Lady of Darkness, which will be released on October 16.
Who is this Maleficent? For some reason, the creators of the picture affectionately refer to her as a fairy, but in this way the horns and black wings of the heroine do not fit well. The plot of the new film, like the previous one ("Maleficent"), is based on the tale of the sleeping beauty.
According to the version of the new picture, the wicked witch, who put a curse on the princess, actually had good reasons for that (the king once did a very bad thing with the witch). When the damned girl turns 15, the witch begins to be friends with her and steals her from the witch aunts, and then kills the king.
At the age of 16, the princess falls asleep in a deep sleep, the spell of which must be broken with a kiss by the prince. The prince does appear in the picture, but only in passing and without much sense, because it is not he who wakes up the princess, but Maleficent's kiss.
Here is the plot of the first part. Even if the second part has not come out yet, it is unlikely that there will be something very different from the first. So, the journalists who were allowed to watch the film have already said directly that the film is interesting, but "black and white in it change places."
The main positive character in the new part is Maleficent's assistant-raven named (attention!) Diaval, and the antagonist is Queen Ingrit, the princess's mother, who was left a widow through the fault of the horned "fairy".
At the same time, the movie promises to be interesting and exciting. Sometimes it can be difficult not to fall under the spell of famous actors, for example, Angelina Jolie, who plays the main role.
However, despite the good direction and talented acting, it is still important for us to understand where is good and where is evil. Even an adult who has seen enough of such films begins to doubt the possibility of humanity as such.
At the same time, Maleficent, clearly blurring the boundaries of good and evil, is intended for children. The child's psyche is arranged somewhat differently than that of an adult; it has not yet been formed. And here a positive role model often turns out to be "dark", inverted. Who the children will grow up, following the example of Maleficent and the Joker, is a big question.
“Nothing is true, everything is permissible” - that is what stands behind the glorification of madness and the praise of murder. Is it not this motto that is guided, for example, by underage "shooters" in schools, throwing, like the Joker, a challenge to the rotten government and society?
And who and how will be able to respond to the challenge? Indeed, in a sense, it is really fair, and therefore just sitting and keeping silent on the sidelines until the waves subside will not work - the wind for the storm has already been sown.
Victoria Maximova
