Nigohosian 1 - The Joker: A Broken Man

Over the weekend, I watched the Joker and have many thoughts on the film. The Joker is a grim film about a man named Arthur Fleck and his plummet into hysteria and delusion. This movie breaks the conventional mold of the Joker and his previous characterizations, which makes it a highly unique film. Joaquin Phoenix was attracted to the role for this exact reason, and he fits it perfectly. The setting of the film starts in the 1980s in a disheveled Gotham City where the streets are riddled with crime and covered in garbage. The story is centered around Arthur Fleck, who struggles with his job at a clown agency and lives with his ill mom in an apartment complex. Arthur Fleck is presented as a mentally troubled individual, but the extent of this illness is not apparent at first. After being attacked by some teenagers on his job, another clown offered him a gun for protection. Little did he know, this gun would change the life of Arthur Fleck for the worse. As the movie progresses, Arthur’s thoughts and actions become more erratic. The first time that this is presented is when Arthur has a relationship with Sophie Dumond, the beautiful neighbor that lives down the hall. Arthur is shown having a blooming relationship where he went on many dates with her. With this relationship, Arthur’s life seems to be going well until it comes to a screeching halt. Arthur became devastated when he realized that his mother adopted him and he was abused by his father when he stole records from the mental institution. He found out that he was constantly lied to by his mentally insane mother. To cope with this pain, he decided to visit his girlfriend, who was frightened to see him in her apartment. This is the moment where both Arthur and the audience realize the relationship was a figment of his imagination. As Arthur stops taking his medication, these hallucinations only worsen to where the audience can not distinguish reality from fiction. At this point, Arthur’s true mental illnesses come to light. He is shown to be suffering from the pseudobulbar affect, a mental condition where Arthur suffers from uncontrollable laughter that doesn’t always display his emotions, and this affect is a direct result of being abused as a child, which caused him to be stepped on in the course of his life. Being tired of his troubled life, Arthur decides to lash out on society, killing anyone that opposes him, consisting of the elites of Gotham and his enemies. He even kills the man that he looked up to for most of his life, Murray Franklin. He had done these actions because he said that society looked down upon him as a clown. The lower class related to Arthur and revolted against the upper class, and Arthur became the icon of the revolt. This movie shows the small events that can change the character of a person with large implications.