‘Joker: Folie A Deux’ Director Todd Phillips Further Confirms Arthur Fleck Is Not The Real Joker
It’s fitting to say that Joker is more loosely inspired by DC characters than it is a faithful adaptation. The difference is in the length of liberties taken, and writer/director Todd Phillips has managed to take his fair share.
He has differentiated his interpretation as much as possible from anything in any other corner of the DC Multiverse to the point you can call into question the authenticity of Arthur Fleck. As visceral as Joaquin Phoenix’s performance was, he doesn’t come across as a Clown Prince of Crime or even an heir to the throne.
He also doesn’t strike as the kind of guy with a plan, which didn’t stop Heath Ledger’s Joker in the slightest, but the latter at least aspired to be “a better class of criminal.” We knew who and what we were dealing with in The Dark Knight, and he made no bone about it.
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Fleck is the opposite and you don’t have to believe us. Phillips has no problem letting everyone know this and that the path to master criminal, furthermore, was always going to be elusive. “We would never do that,” Phillips explained to Empire. “Because Arthur clearly is not a criminal mastermind. He was never that.”
A vindictive loner, Arthur was always meant to be a symbol, sort of like Christian Bale’s Batman, but in his own perverse way. “Arthur has become this symbol to people,” Phillips said.
“This unwilling, unwitting symbol [is] now paying for the crimes of the first film, but at the same time finding the only thing he ever wanted, which was love. That’s always what he’s been about, even though he’s been pushed and pulled in all these directions. So we tried to just make the most pure version of that,” he added.
Phillips could be tacitly admitting here what some have suspected – that he was just using the Joker name and the Batman IP to sell his movie. Or on the other hand, he wishes to be clear about his desire for a Gotham that doesn’t need a Bat or even an accurate counterpart.
Looking at the hellhole the city is in his films, if the second instance is the case, then it’s mission failed, buddy.
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