Phoenix’s integrity, his refusal to say
anything that isn’t 100 per cent honest, carries
through to his performances. You don’t get
one without the other. And his work in Joker
is transfixing, says Phillips. “He’s unsettling in
the movie. The movie is unsettling, and I thin
that’s a great thing. The Joker movie should
be unsettling.” It will, naturally, be rated R
in America. “I don’t think you can even
smoke cigarettes in PG-13 movies any more,”
laughs Phillips. “This guy smokes more than
Humphrey Bogart.”
For all the film’s reality, it is rooted in
its character’s legacy. The aim is to present
“a very clear-cut interpretation of Joker’s orig
story”, says Phillips. Still, he wants to clarify
that this is not your regular genre flick, let alo
a superhero extravaganza. “This is not an acti
movie,” he says, calling the film a slow-burn.
“This is a character study about a guy on the
brink.” And despite the heritage, the prior
concern is honouringthistake. Decades of other
interpretations could not distract them. “It’s its
own fictional story,” says Phoenix. “Of course
there are such fans of the comics, so every once
in a while that thought process will creep in. But
you just have to say, ‘We’re not doing that, we’re
doing this.’”
For Cooper, the film perfectly straddles both
worlds. “The movie’s utterly real and believable,”
he says, “but as you’re watching it, you’re aware
of the mythology of what you’re watching, and
that’s a very hard thing to pull off. Todd was able
to walk the line of both things throughout the
entire film. At the very end you’re very pleased
with where you end up.”UDGING FROM THE
footage Phillips screens
toEmpire, the film
delivers everything
we’ve been discussing.
It is intense, intimately so,
and gorgeous — and odd.
A scene involving Arthur dancing on his own,
to Hildur Guðnadóttir’s disquieting, cello-heavy
score, is particularly disconcerting. It was
improvised by Phoenix on the day. Phillips
gets lost in it. “I just love watching him,” he
says, before snapping out of it. “I don’t know
how theFast & Furiouscrowd are gonna take
that!” he laughs. “Interpretive dance.” It does
feel beautiful. “Yeah, it’ll be interesting to
see how people react to this film. It’s bonkers,
I’ll tell you that much.”
Phoenix is just as taken with the work
they’ve done. “The process was one of the
most gratifying I’ve ever had in my career,”
he says. It surpasses the vague notion he had
a few years ago to do something interesting with
a comic-book character. “I could never have
imagined anything this cool,” he admits. This
film might just be a little miracle.JOKERIS IN CINEMAS FROM 3 OCTOBERBelow, top
to bottom:
A raging Ronald
McDonald just
out of shot;
Fleck is a failed
stand-up. Hard to
see why...;
An extreme
approach to
securing a seat.
HE WAS A GANGSTER
The Joker’s first origin story was by his
co-creator Bill Finger, in Detective Comics
#168, in 1951. Here, he was a lab worker
turned criminal called the Red Hood, who
escapes Batman by jumping into a vat of
chemicals, leading to his disfigurement.
HE WAS A STAND-UP COMIC
In Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke (1988) he
is once more the Red Hood, but this time a
failed comedian. The Joker himself, though,
says this might be BS: “If I’m going to have
a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice!”HE KILLED BATMAN’S PARENTS
In Tim Burton’s Batman (1989), Joker
again resurrects after falling into chemicals
due to the Caped Crusader, but, more
egregiously, this guy, named Jack Napier,
is also said to have killed Bruce Wayne’s
parents.HE WAS ALWAYS
A WRONG’UN
In 2010’s The Atom And The Joker comic-
book story we’re told the Joker was always
a violent psychopath: as a kid he locked his
family inside their house and set it
on fire after they found his collection
of animal skeletons.HE IS A CENTURIES-OLD
UNKILLABLE DEMON
In DC’s 2014 Endgame arc, we learn that
he’s an eternal, immortal demon who’s been
around forever. Unless he’s faking his own
mythology to mess with Batman’s head.HE WAS THE VICTIM OF
CHILDHOOD ABUSE
In a 2009 panel about the Joker, TV’s
original Batman Adam West said he’d
“reasoned that he was kidnapped by a
perverted clown when he was a youngster.”n
kginone
ionTHE JOKER HAS NEVER HAD A
DEFINITIVE CANONICAL ORIGIN —
TODD PHILLIPS’ FILM IS ONE OF
MANY SIDEWAYS SPINS↓