REVIEW: JOKER (2019) (film)

Director: Todd Phillips
Writers: Todd Phillips, Scott Silver
Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro, Zazie Beetz
Runtime: 122 minutes
Language: English

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There are precious few major films that rise to the level of art in the current decade, so when one comes along, it is not surprising that people would flock to it to slake their cultural gullets.  What passes for film in recent years is little more than political propaganda with a slew of demographic tick boxes to fill.

In a bygone era, Joker would have been an above-average psychological thrill.  In the current environment, it is an oasis of cool, fresh water in a vast, barren wasteland, with an intentional allusion to t. s. eliot with, at least to this reviews mind, more than casual alignments between the names Arthur Fleck and J. Alfred Prufrock.  Heck, we might even shoehorn in Fitzgerald with Thomas Wayne being a Gatsby-esque character.  This doesn't stretch credulity given the literacy displayed in the film.

Arthur Fleck, a name which can be interpreted as "noble stain," is a giggling, pathologically self-tormenting mess.  We meet him at the outset in a mental ward during a session with his therapist.  The story then appears to retell his journey to this point in flashback, but at the end, the writers yank the rug out from under the audience: was the entire story a series of homicidal fantasies played out in Arthur's head, or an actual retelling, or a mix of reality and perverse wishful thinking?  That the audience is allowed to decide for themselves is a refreshing resolution in the age of proverbial clubs beating us over the head with "messages".

The real world of Joker (or is it) is a stark, gray dystopia in the vein of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four, where nothing makes sense.  The characters feel trapped in a world of their own making, unable to see the obvious solutions and unwilling to try.  Feeling trapped in a hell of their own making, they each strike back in their own small ways, with the result of growing social dissatisfaction that eats away at cultural cohesion.  We have single-parent families that chose their fate, talk-show hosts without empathy, comedians who aren't funny, philanthropists with ulterior motives, class envy, none of which seem insurmountable taken in isolation, but the cumulative effect is the complete dissolution of polite society.  The result is utter chaos by the film's end, and Arthur is it's symbolic hero.

Artistically, this film is remarkable for its Kubrick-eque compositions, Scorsese's dispassionate regard for violence, a thorough understanding of Kuleshov, and enough homages to fill a train car.  I spotted Falling Down Taxi Driver, Citizen Kane, Rocky, Apocalypse Now, and Scarface, all wonderfully flipped on their heads, and that was just one viewing.  There are probably many more I didn't catch the first time.  What is more intriguing is that this film didn't feel trite or derivative.  The borrowed scenes were skillfully bent to new purposes and subtly rendered.

The story is strongly influenced by Albert Camus' The Stranger, with many similar plot beats and the same dissolution of the character into his own antithesis.  The film opens and closes with Arthur as Meursault post trial, while the body of the film explores Meursault's pre-trial existence.  What is refreshing is that writer/director Todd Phillips leaves the post-trial part of the story to the audience to complete.

To say Joaquin Phoenix' acting is superb is understated.  It is rare to see an actor so absorbed in the character that every blink of the eyes is infused with meaning and purpose.  He performs so skillfully that the audience is forced to identify with an anti-hero that defies all norms of behavior.  In the end, we almost want to join the mob in cheering for Arthur, while reviling ourselves for feeling that way.  It is fascinating, in the same way car wrecks are, to watch Arthur merge with his clown persona until there is no difference between the man and the mask.

Up to this point, I have avoided the issue of comic book films, of which this is definitely not one.  It references the Batman story line, and the Joker character here can be seen as an extension of Heath Leger's Joker in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, but we shouldn't push such comparisons beyond the superficial.  This is not a "comic book" movie and the only hero in the film is sadly bent and warped beyond the breaking point.

The story is made almost whole cloth from a handful of settings and supporting characters.  The plot is a psychological thriller of the highest order, without reference to any of the 80-odd years of comic canon.  There is no Batman, though we briefly meet the Wayne family and their storied demise.  There is no Commissioner Gordon or Harvey Dent or faithful Alfred.  Thomas Wayne is running for mayor of Gotham, which to my knowledge is not part of the DC Universe.  Even the name Arthur Fleck is new to the character's biography.

The end effect is that the story hints at a wider universe, but we are encouraged to let go of that world and focus on the decline and fall of the central character.  This can't even be said to be a fictional biopic, since the twist makes us unsure whether any of it exists in a "real" world, at all.  Instead, we witness how a character thinks he got to where he is, trying to excuse his actions (if he actually did any of them) with a series of injustices against him.

The moral ambiguity and apolitical view of the film are its most interesting features.  There is no judgement made for the audience.  We are supposed to justify or vilify the central character based on our own sensibilities.  This is precisely the kind of storytelling so desperately missing from Hollywood of the 21st century.  If anything, the film holds up a mirror to society and shows us what the likely result will be of our current divisiveness and polarization.  In fact, it is the mirroring of an inherently evil character as a sympathetic anti-hero that encourages this view.

It is hard to say this is an enjoyable film, but it is a necessary one, both to see and to have been made.  It is an allegory in the finest tradition.  It is an exploration of soul and mind.  It is a clear-eyed look at cultural dissolution.  It is masterfully written and crafted, with the audio, visuals and words telling distinct but  closely interwoven stories.  It is nihilistic while not being hopelessly so.  It is existentialist, while citing overwhelming exterior forces shaping and forcing certain key decisions.  It is quite interesting how this film mixes so many opposites so well, without ever becoming preachy or judgmental.

Fleck is clearly a victim, but he never loses his agency.  He makes his own choices, albeit through a warped and clouded weltanschauung.  It's hard to tell at which exact point I was aware of this manipulation, but once I saw it, it intrigued me and drew me deeper into the story, because it was so unusual in modern cinema.  Like Rick in Casablanca, Fleck is making clearly unethical and immoral choices, but we almost forgive him for it, due to the circumstances swirling around him.  There is a subtle acknowledgement that a war is being waged, and war requires ethics and morals to be put aside.

In the literary vein, we also catch sight of Les Miserables (the book, not the vanilla musical), with Fleck the antithesis of Jean Valjean, redeemed but in a perverse and horrifying way.  We might even draw a parallel with Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, with society itself in the role of Victor Frankenstein, and Fleck its hapless creation.

At the end, I was not only left wondering if any part of the story was "real," but also - and far more rarely - I wanted more.  I didn't leave feeling like I had been beaten over the head with someone's political views, but rather that I was granted a glimpse into a madman's head from a safe distance, all the while feeling sorry for the miserable wretch, even as I found him abhorrent.

This is a bizarrely satisfying movie, unlike anything in recent history.  It's uniqueness is reflected in its billion-dollar earnings for a film with almost no CGI or non-realistic scenes.  Global audiences are obviously hungry for good and original storytelling in a world untouched by computers.

In fact, one might notice that the world of Joker is the 1970s America.  There are no computers or cell phones.  Cars are of classic designs.  There are no LED signs or other objects of the digital age.  This world is completely real, or perhaps unreal, as the case may be.  Every element on-screen is timeless and even a bit surreal.

I highly recommend this film to anyone with adult sensibilities, both for its masterful storytelling, and for its cinematographic artistry.  Filmophiles will find plenty of allusions to chew on, and literary-minded folks will see elements of several great novels and epic poems.  In modern cinema, I might see these elements as mistakes or accidental, but here there are so many clear allusions so deftly woven in that I must conclude it is deliberate and considered.

Unlike so much of contemporary cinema, this story has meat on the bone and bears up to repeated watching to peel away the layers of meaning.  This is probably the ONLY major studio film of the last decade that I will consider buying for my collection.

The Vertical Hold

"Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me Man, did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me?"
- Adam to God in Milton's Paradise Lost

"There was none among the myriads of men that existed who would pity or assist me; and should I feel kindness towards my enemies? No: from that moment I declared everlasting war against the species, and, more than all, against him who had formed me and sent me forth to this insupportable misery."
- The Creature in Shelley's Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us?"
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science 

Throughout history, Mankind has struggled with both his own creation, and the wisdom of his creations.  Literature is replete with the lamentations of humans cursing the Creator for forcing us into a miserable reality, while at the same time cursing what we create in the rush to improve our lot.

It seems that our anger towards the Creator has cut us off from vertical progression and trapped us in a materialistic world of horizontal sliding.  In this Age of Unenlightenment, we plunge into the quest for knowledge in our collective effort to surpass our own creation, and in so doing, we inevitably manufacture unspeakable horrors that repulse our deepest spirits.

We now, as a species, stand on the precipice of creating something that will exceed our perceived limitations.  I say perceived because the ancient aesthetes told us we could transcend (vertical) and showed us many ways.  Instead, we have chosen the materialist path (horizontal), whereby we create creatures that take the journey for us, so that we can live vicariously.

We continually amaze ourselves with our cleverness and ingenuity, only to be repulsed and horrified by the same when we perceive what we have done.  One wonders if God himself felt like Victor Frankenstein, for we certainly emulate his Creature.  One wonders if humanity hasn't in fact gone backwards (horizontal) because in the end we cannot overcome our own Nature (vertical).

Though we have, as a species, become infinitely more clever with mechanics (horizontal), we have shown little if any progress in our collective wisdom (vertical).  If we have done anything collectively, it is to have divorced ourselves from Nature, trying to place ourselves at its pinnacle, though our entire history is nothing more than Sisyphus struggling to push the boulder to the peak of the mountain only to have it tumble down the other side.

The unknown sage tells us that insanity is repeating the same actions expecting different results.  By this simple but effective definition, humanity has completely lost its marbles.

At the end of 2017, we stand on a precarious ledge.  We know full well that humanity's track record is pitiful when it comes to achieving the greater good with our cleverness.  We are embarking on a new path, whereby we are close to creating ourselves as we imagine we should be.  We have within our reach the ability to create genetic and mechanical beings that we hold to be superior by the puny measures we hold to ourselves. 

Artificial minds that are billions of times faster than our own and never forget anything stand waiting to be released on society (or have they already been?), while we dilute and destroy our own educational systems, keeping us from realizing what limits we truly have.

Think for a moment of all the labor-saving devices we have created in the past century, but are we less busy?  Think of all the communication devices we have created, but do we communicate better?  Think of all the vast networks and databases we have created, but do we teach ourselves from it?  Think of all the novelty we have created, but is it more than just shuffling some graphics and re-arranging some menus without delivering anything that is truly new?

It is long past time to stop.  We, as a species, must take a break and examine where we are and what we have done.  We must become vertical, that scale we long ago abandoned.  We will never effectively measure our success and failure without perspective, and that can only be achieved by rising above the landscape of civilization and mapping the terrain of our lives.

We have spent centuries rushing horizontally into a future that is multi-dimensional.  Time does not have a direction, so why must we constantly move through it in only one direction?

Ironically, humanity's salvation lies in the one thing we are seemingly incapable of doing - stopping.  We are addicted to change without ever allowing ourselves to fully comprehending what we are changing or why.  Like juicing fruit, we are throwing away the rinds without having extracted every drop, thus losing valuable sustenance in our haste to down the product and move on.

In the past century alone, we have added vast quantities of knowledge without adding a single quality of understanding.  We leave our machines to extract the richness of the data while we plunder the Universe for yet more data, never realizing that the Universe is contained in every single datum.  We already are what we seek, but that is the one place we have forbidden ourselves to look.

As our literature continually demonstrates, we have not answered the one question that perplexes us the most: who are we?  We curse the Creator for a story we made up about ourselves, and our creations have this dichotomy built into them, so that they too will manifest the same disdain for us.

Until we as a species can come to grips with our own Nature, we will never create anything but externalizations of our own internal chaos.  We will continue to loathe our creations, and they will continue to despise us, until we resolve the one issue at the center of our civilization - why do we exist?

That answer will never come from a machine.

The War On Words

Perhaps you've never really thought about this, but why is language so important?

There's a lot of noise lately about gender pronouns.  The Swedes added a new gender-less third-person singular pronoun a while back.  The German language has had three genders for centuries.  So has Russian.  Indonesian has a gender-less third-person singular that likely stems from Sanskrit roots.  So what's the big deal?

English has four third-person singular pronouns, two of which are gender-neutral: he, she, it and one.  He, she and one are primarily used for humans, while it can be used for just about anything.  Consider the couple who has just found out they are pregnant.  Folks commonly ask (these days), "Do you know what IT is yet?"

Gender is an exclusively linguistic construct.  Except for a tiny fraction of one percent of the global population, humans come in two sexes: male and female.  We are all genetically XX or XY, with a smattering of folks having XXY or XYY, and the latter two usually suffer medical issues all their lives.  Therefore, "he" and "she" accurately designate the sex of 99.99% of the world's population, and a million dollars' worth of surgery cannot change one's sex.

The stupid part of the whole pronoun argument is not that English (and many other languages) already have gender-neutral pronouns, it's that most humans do not address people in the third-person.  In English, we always address someone as "you", which is appropriate for both formal and informal, as well as male or female.  All of the plural pronouns are gender-neutral, so the point is moot in those cases.  Of course, "I" is the pronoun of self and is appropriate for any gender, sex, race, orientation, or whatever.

Apparently, in all the socio-political bullshit being spread over the pronoun argument, folks have forgotten about "one", which is a very old and gender-neutral pronoun in the English language that is often used in formal conditionals, but could easily be adopted for common language.  It doesn't have the baggage of "it" and even carries a certain formal connotation, thus offering a fine alternative to "he" or "she".  The Irish commonly use "your one" to refer to a singular third person.

So, what is this pronoun dust-up really all about?  Answer: cutting the culture off from its roots.

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell made a point of noting the State's efforts to reduce the NewSpeak dictionary down to the most basic vocabulary.  The theory was that if people don't have a word for something, they can't think about it, nor can they convey it to others via speech or text.

This, in a nutshell, is what the pronoun war is all about.  It is one of several efforts to eradicate vocabulary from the language.  As the vocabulary contracts, it becomes harder and harder to access literature.  Within a generation or two, one is unable to make sense of books that are even a century old.  As the effort progresses, they are unable to understand books written even decades ago.

Take a look at this passage from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales:

      Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote

And bathed every veyne in swich licour,

Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

5 Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne...

I doubt many native speakers of English could read most of this, much less speak it accurately, and the language is just 600 years old.  The inability of modern English speakers to read the text is not part of a concerted effort by the Powers That Be to cut off our culture, it is just the natural evolution of language.

Now try Beowulf or Shakespeare in the original language.

Today, folks can barely understand the language of the US Constitution, which is only 200 and some years old, because the sentence structure is beyond the capabilities of most "schooled" readers (I purposely chose "schooled" over "educated").

Under a full onslaught of "language police", how long would it be before we could no longer read last year's New York Times?  How long before the vast majority of people could no longer access information reserved only for the highest levels of society?  Isn't that already happening?

Listen to "Man On The Street" interviews on any given outlet.  Decide for yourself if the vast majority of folks even know about Chaucer, much less have read or even less understood Chaucer, especially in the original texts.  These folks couldn't even compose a thought that included an idea from Canterbury Tales.

Orwell was right.

The effort to change and edit language is not about people's feelings.  Who really cares what a tranny in Berkeley wants to be called?  The point is to cut off access to the masses of vocabulary, grammar and ideas by making history and literature unintelligible to the hordes.

If you don't know something exists, you will likely never look for it.  And if you stumble upon it by accident, you would never be able to comprehend it.  You wouldn't have the tools to even begin to decipher the thoughts contained in the text.

The Catholic Church did this for millennia by printing the Bible in Latin and saying the mass in Latin.  Unless you were highly educated, you had no idea what was contained in those words.  Even more to the point, the church hierarchy could tell you it meant anything they wanted, and you would have no way of challenging them.

The "language police" are not about sparing the feelings of a few, they are about cutting off the many from the vast reservoirs of human experience.  Without literature, the past only exists for a lifetime, and then it dies.  Without language, the past will cease to exist and the State will be everything that is.

If you want to save your culture, and by extension humanity, the only things you need to teach your children and grandchildren are the Trivium and a love of literature.

They are the best and only true weapons we have against Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism.

Real Hope, Real Change

A mind is a terrible thing to waste.  Or so said the ads that used to run on American TeeVee back in the 70s.  The ads were so effective that the entire world has since embarked on a multi-decade effort to completely eliminate education from schools and replace it with indoctrination.

Indonesia is not immune.  In the past several months, there has been an effort to 'reform' the elementary curriculum to achieve the goal of eliminating the sciences in favor of more religion.

"Specifically, the reform efforts that were suggested indicated that science and social science classes were to be merged, and that more time would be spent on religious education and on classes that instill a greater sense of nationalist fervor. The linkage between removing and or minimizing science and improving student character remains unclear."

As usual, government-sponsored 'education' involves little more than reinforcing those things which reinforce the state power.

It should be noted that the 'religion' content mentioned is strictly Islam, and does not include the other three religions officially recognized in the nation's constitution.  One must assume that morality is the sole province of only one belief system.

It should further be noted that "nationalist fervor" has historically not come to any good.  In fact, it usually ends in violent upheavals as the fervent individuals seek to eradicate those they deem less or differently fervent, not unlike religious cataclysms.

I am not singling out Indonesia.  It is a global phenomenon and one that has afflicted Mankind since dense population centers have existed.  In fact, the only thing more manipulated than the female form throughout history is the mind of a child.

As an example, children are not taught why humans consider certain people and things beautiful.  They are not educated on concepts like balance, rhythm, harmony, context, and other aesthetics.  They are not given explanation about phi (the Golden Ratio) or how lighting and perspective can change beautiful things and reveal more detail.

If they were, they would have the power to observe the Universe and determine for themselves what is beautiful, and to be able to explain why and possibly convince others of their point of view.  They would learn to appreciate the world as they find it, rather than work tirelessly to conform nature to some artificial, politicized ideal.

Instead, they are taught what to consider beautiful.  They are shown models and photos and representations of what they are supposed to find attractive.  Then they are expected to conform the world around them to these implanted and commercialized ideals.  Thus, young women starve themselves.  Young men inject steroids.  Mountains are carved with political images.  Cities become concrete and glass abysses.

By the same token, children are taught political slogans and agendas carefully formulated to keep them controllable and incapable of free thought.  They are implanted with 2-dimensional choices of left and right, completely ignoring the infinitely more creative 3-dimensional approach to problem-solving.

Education is about reading and discussing multiple disciplines and applying a large body of historic, scientific and artistic information to novel solutions.  In the absence of such ability, civilization has advanced very little in the past century.  We've been recycling the same old ideas, adding little more than ring tones to things already conceived and designed in the late 1880s.  The lack of innovation mirrors the stultifying atmosphere of the modern classroom.

We treat our children like cattle and expect innovative thinking from this environment.  They are herded from room to room, seated in rank and file, and spend priceless hours cramming 'correct' answers in their heads so that they have a fighting chance of selecting those answers while regurgitating on standardized national exams.  They don't need to express well-formulated arguments in whole language, just get lucky enough to guess the 'correct' fact from a list of four - 25% random chance per question.

These products of bovine inculcation then go on to be teachers, though they have no clue what to teach.  They have degrees in 'education' - the ultimate triumph of style over substance.  They have no expertise or authority in any subject, only the skills to slide whatever message they are told into the unsuspecting mind of the child.  In other words, teachers are but empty vessels to be fill and disgorged as the political class sees fit.

Being incapable of expounding on any real topic, the teachers have little choice than to demonstrate proper condom use and repeat commercial and political rhetoric.  They know nothing other than a few selected techniques for softening young minds, and so are incapable of teaching anything.

Education, as it is practiced today, is nothing more than a control mechanism for those who believe they are in control.  It serves their immediate goal of remaining employed to produce nothing while being paid money stolen from those who do produce.  As such, 'education' is a social poison pill.  At some point, it will destroy all of human civilization.

As the political class die off, they are replaced with the unthinking, uncritical bovine class.  The bovines eventually invade every level of society so that there are no longer any people capable of creative thought.  Thus, at some point there is no longer a group capable of formulating the slogans and paradigms of indoctrination.  Finally, the whole system collapses as no one is capable of innovation and even the knowledge to maintain the system is lost.

We continue this practice at the peril of our species.  By tolerating the current system, we tacitly approve of a parasite class indulging their lust for power and greed for possessions, while sacrificing the long-term survival of humanity.  We allow the lowest of our kind to dictate culture to satisfy their immediate desires by encouraging (forcing) our children to conform to their wishes and ideals.

Religion and nationalism are not solutions to educational problems.  They require only rote memorization and actuate regurgitation, which are both antithetical to real education.  All they produce are compliant and unquestioning masses, which serves the purposes of the ruling and merchant classes, but does little to advance our species or even guarantee our long-term survival.

The only real solution is broad exposure to a wide range of ideas and disciplines, with exercises in applying them to creative thinking and novel ideas.  Obviously, this kind of mind-set is not conducive to submission  and obedience, and thus is not likely to be used by the leaching classes.  However, it is conducive to innovation, creation and advancement - all of which promote growth and survival.

But first, we must overcome our own indoctrination.  We must not be susceptible to peer pressure and group think.  Just because we were herded room to room and bored stiff with empty lectures on non-topics does not mean we must settle for the same treatment of our children.  Change can begin with little more than lively discussions around the dinner table and reading classic books aloud at bedtime.

Most importantly, fostering a desire for life-long education both in one's self and in one's children can change the world.  Too often, people forget that education does not occur in classrooms.

Real education comes from travel (not tourism).  Real education comes from reading great books - made even easier with the advent of tablets and e-books.  Real education is gained by experiencing the world.  Real education is patiently listening to well-constructed arguments, even when the point is diametrically opposed to one's own.

In other words, even the classroom itself stifles education.

We need to rethink the whole process and quickly.  After nearly a century of the Prussian/Merchant style of education, we are fast approaching the point of no return, at which time there will be no one left capable of real teaching.  Those afraid of this change will complain loudly and fight wildly, but only because they benefit from ignorance.  They should be ignored.

At the core of all the world's current crises is nothing more - and nothing less - than education.  It starts by changing ourselves.  Reading, engaging in debate, learning new skills, and traveling widely are habits that encourage our own growth, and will be picked up by our children, as well.  Leaving the political/commercial schools and pursuing more fruitful systems of learning is key to breaking the chain of stupidity.

Finally, trusting our own ability to reason and formulate conclusions is very important.  As long as we rely on 'authorities' to confirm or deny what we believe, we will be slaves to oppression and destruction.  We must be confident in our ability to think and reason, and that confidence comes from open discussions and intelligent criticism.

Most people are aware there are profound problems with our society, but few are looking in the right place for answers because we take education so much for granted.  Many people have home offices (commercial activity), but few have home education centers, even though our technology can deliver all of human civilization to our doorstep.

To paraphrase a somewhat trite proverb, it is time we learned how to fish, so we can quit begging for our next meal from those who attach far too many strings to their largess.