Most of the Oscar nominated movies I haven't seen. So: Joker. A film that grossed worldwide as of this month $1.072 billion. This is not a crowd pleasing film. Rather if it is then should we all be worried about the future of the world? Very difficult to justify one's views of this movie without spoiler alert after alert. I don't think for a minute the box office figure is due to audiences reveling in the violence (viscerally tame though not mentally). Rather, I think many many hear, if not their story, then a story closely relevant to them.
My interest is that I believe it is a story that many Americans just don't want to hear. They want a scapegoat for violent crimes and shootings believing that the solution lies not in themselves but in an external force. Hello: Bruce Wayne. And while there is little sympathy for what Arthur Fleck does in the movie, that box office figure is surely something to do with empathy of his journey or lack thereof and descent into hell.
It isn't Arthur's fault that he is given a gun in the first place to defend himself. This film is not Peeping Tom but it should be allowed the same artistic freedom of expression of rather unpopular subject matter. Matter that potentially could be highly incendiary. I would argue though, that yes, this film could be a trigger for someone feeling empowered with a weapon, but no less of a trigger than many a streaming crime show. Or many a nightly news report. It's an old argument, one that will never go away. I was surprised that the stage adaptation of the film Network was such a modest hit on Broadway.
Everyone can relate to Arthur Fleck (Joker) being beaten down by an indifferent world, his well-meaning clown colleague the catalyst for what will transpire. Dare I be a bit braver and ask: if you were beaten senseless on a subway by three white-collar 'loser a***holes', alas maybe 'winner a***holes', for doing nothing and you had a gun in your possession, simply as protection. Could you honestly say you wouldn't maybe take a few shots at them as you writhed on the floor in agony?
Would those a***holes do it again? Maybe not. Maybe they just wanted to kick at something either to get kicks or to release all that tension of their day. But it doesn't make them better people than Arthur Fleck to return home to their wife/girlfriend/kids and pretend nothin's happened or worse: do it again.
Is Joker a great movie? Maybe not. Is it an important movie for our times? Undeniably YES. Will it stand the test of time? Who knows. Would it work without the extraordinary performance of Joaquin Phoenix? Who knows.
Am I sure of the playout/final credit roll songs? No. What I am sure of is that Joker strikes chords as if thunderbolts into our present existence. Arthur Fleck just isn't very funny. With more help, though, could he be? He is a very sweet, deeply troubled man with a medical condition that causes him laughter. When talk show host Murray King asks Arthur to appear on the show again (after huge response when he's a simple audience member with honest responses asked on stage by Murray) it's the double-edge sword of fame.
It was a lecture on artist Louise Bourgeois tonight that caused me to ponder some more on this, Baudelaire the artist and childhood: Laquelle est la Vraie? but this is the female perspective kinda lacking in Joker. Not that the movie's female characters are script cyphers just that like most of the characters surrounding Arthur Fleck they aren't given the scriptural punch they could have flung. For Baudelaire the artist evokes "the green paradise of childhood loves…but genius is only childhood regained at will, childhood now supplied with the mature means of self-expression, and with the analytical mind that enables it to bring order to ransom experience."
Those nuances would make Joker an extraordinary film instead of an important one.
Audiences in 2019/20 are cheering for the anti-hero of Joker. Look through the highest grossing movies. Do you see a 'Joker' in there? NO. The Dark Knight and sequel, maybe, but there is little else up there no matter how one argues the toss. Even Black Panther!
Alike all revolutions, though, have they thought through what they are indeed wishing for apart from the simply the wheel turning. Alas, I believe not.
Is there anything to laugh about anymore?
Wasn't the human condition ever thus?
Knock knock. Is anybody there...
A somewhat neglected 1983 film now relegated to the vaults starring Michael Douglas is worth seeking out, The Star Chamber. As contemporary as it ever was.
Vladimir Nabokov (1974) 'Look at the Harlequins!', US first edition, first printing, published by McGraw-Hill. Graham Greene's personal copy with annotations.
Did you have to look that up, Professor?
I've seen fire and I've seen rain, thought, I'd never hear my song for you again…
I hear catnip is free tonight at the Oscars (courtesy of an undisclosed British musical entrepreneur…) Dogs just have had always too much privilege;) !
Bloggin’ live: “I dont’t blame you Mark.” You all wanted money :). What else counts in Amerika. God love Liberal endorsement. …
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want an honest smile, trust Tom Hanks. Want n honest pose trust Ms Penelope
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Kitty Litter is alive and well n' thrivin' without all the 'hoopla'. She is filmin' everything tonight at the Oskar's for her debut movie. Forget about litigation, she has sewer rats that worship at her claws. Suffice to say : U R ffffffd!
What a lovely spread, though. Suffice to say, allez…
Song a common' on….
Finally, those Saoirse Ronan eyes (never mind the dress;) would make any man, woman or beast simply dive offa the cliff and court la mermaid from crevice to crevice whilst building a castle of shells, driftwood and hubcaps just for her:)
This website applauds balanced clowns and journalism so here's a photo from one of the 2020 Oscars after-parties. The human has been personally cropped from the image by Prince Harry himself:)) Are those paws dirty or are you just happy to see me?
XX Kitty Litter
P.S. so pleased the horses danced in freedom last night, Bong Joon Ho. There’s a sea-change…Andrew was right!
Kitty Litter loves this. 18 months ago- yikes, cat years…
As a P.S., believe it or not, I finally caught up with the Oscar ceremony today (Tuesday) and Mr. Joaquin Phoenix's Best Actor Oscar acceptance speech. Easy to make fun of these award ceremonies, perhaps, quite rightly so. That was a beautiful, beautiful speech Mr. Phoenix. I am still crying, sop that I am;) Of course you know why. Film is not just film. Even if one's creatures are imaginary, without a beating universal heart they fade back into the darkness from whence offered them light. I worry about revolution, movements; about the kindly leopard that would not change his/her spots and gets beaten to death for some 'greater good' that he/she couldn't possibly understand. The greater good is in our hearts but we need a greater mind to ensure that we are not all left again in darkness. Without crossing the line, breaking the mold, reaching for the stars when constantly we are told there are none, where would we all be?
The reason for me posting above the pic of Graham Greene's Nabokov book is inherent in this quote from his autobiography A Sort of Life:
the well-known lines are in bold but it's important to read in context
Robert Browning’s Bishop Blougram’s Apology (excerpt)
Are men still, catch a wheel within a wheel,
See more in a truth than the truth's simple self,
Confuse themselves. You see lads walk the street
Sixty the minute; what's to note in that?
You see one lad o'erstride a chimney-stack;
Him you must watch--he's sure to fall, yet stands!
Our interest's on the dangerous edge of things.
The honest thief, the tender murderer,
The superstitious atheist, demirep
That loves and saves her soul in new French books--
We watch while these in equilibrium keep
The giddy line midway: one step aside,
They're classed and done with. I, then, keep the line
Before your sages,--just the men to shrink
From the gross weights, coarse scales and labels broad
You offer their refinement. Fool or knave?
Why needs a bishop be a fool or knave
When there's a thousand diamond weights between?
So, I enlist them. Your picked twelve, you'll find,
Profess themselves indignant, scandalized
At thus being held unable to explain
How a superior man who disbelieves
May not believe as well: that's Schelling's way!
It's through my coming in the tail of time,
Nicking the minute with a happy tact.
Had I been born three hundred years ago
They'd say, "What's strange? Blougram of course believes;"
And, seventy years since, "disbelieves of course."
But now, "He may believe; and yet, and yet
"How can he?" All eyes turn with interest.
Whereas, step off the line on either side--
You, for example, clever to a fault,
The rough and ready man who write apace,
Read somewhat seldomer, think perhaps even less--
You disbelieve! Who wonders and who cares?
Lord So-and-so--his coat bedropped with wax,
All Peter's chains about his waist, his back
Brave with the needlework of Noodledom--
Believes! Again, who wonders and who cares?
But I, the man of sense and learning too,
The able to think yet act, the this, the that,
I, to believe at this late time of day!
Enough; you see, I need not fear contempt.
As a plug for classic cinema: it used to be that suggesting someone watch Visconti's The Leopard at home would be unthinkable. Now given home cinema it has a far better chance though nothing compares to watching the restored version (thanks to Martin Scorsese's The Film Foundation) on a huge cinema screen. I had seen this film many many times but never like this!
What is so relevant this very day about The Leopard is the idea that ‘everything needs to change, so everything can stay the same’'. Still a divided room in intelligentsia politico circles.
An irony is that the eponymous creature in question isn't in fact a leopard but a smaller spotted cat, the serval (emblazoned on writer Lampedusa's coat of arms).
And there is a dog denouement, but that is only in the book, I think. The dog got upstaged by Burt Lancaster in the movie, though not in sentiment.
During the flight down from the window, his form recomposed itself for an instant; in the air one could have seen dancing a quadruped with long whiskers, and its right foreleg raised in imprecation. Then all found peace in a little heap of livid dust.
(last lines of Il Gattopardo)
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I take it for granted (as many of my colleagues have/do) that people know who is/ now was Agnes Varda (cited in the Oscars In Memoriam). If ever there was a People magazine career…!!!! I've created my own luck, have been blessed with a few but many, many detractors along the way to even get a few steps, with meeting and working with some of the most talented and famous talent in the industry. It takes an Agnes Varda (and artist J.R.), way ahead of her time, to realize that most of us could/should be famous. Who's to say that face on a billboard isn't/couldn't/wouldn't be…
One does cherish those blessings when someone looks you in the eye and immediately knows what you didn't nor ever wanted. Realized what one believed for.
Thank you Agnes.
[Am I being soppy again….] everyone will hate me for writing this but what the ….
The moment when Agnes knocks on Jean-Luc's door and gets no answer. Isn't that a metaphor for the artist? The act may not be a rejection. It may indeed be a sign! A belief.
Allez-vous en!
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Je ne Kitty pas
Je ne Kitty pas
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