DON'T LAUGH AT THAT JOKER

Yesterday I watched the JOKER in a première session for journalists here in Los Angeles and I can say that the film is excellent, and the interpretation of Joaquim Phoenix wonderful. But when I left the projection room, something was bugging me. In the bathroom, peeing, I heard two Italian journalists speaking in their language, but I understood the essence of what they were saying – Soon a movement of murderous clowns will emerge, wait and see. I laughed along with them, but I started to understand what was the thing that annoyed me with the film…


Outside the bathroom my son and a friend, and my most dear American colleague, Steve Goldman were expecting me. Steve is a first-rate journalist and a very demanding movie critic. The youngsters were delighted with the film, but my friend Steve was not happy. Like me, he didn’t deny the quality of the screenplay, the work of the actors and the excellence of production, but disliked immensely the film’s message, which he accused of being self-condescending: You mean that now, if you've had a miserable childhood and a hard life, you'll have the right to kill people who treat you badly?, he told me. Although I really enjoyed the film, to the point of recommending it, I have to admit that, in this case, Steve is right. An artistic work can have many freedoms but being immoral is not one of them. Communicators have to take great care of what they transmit, especially in works directed to large masses like this. I felt that way when I saw Oliver Stone’s NATURAL BORN KILLERS (1994) and I must say that JOKER commits the same sin. Its message is dangerously immoral, especially for the times in which we are living now, with so much social injustice and political imbecility. We can't become bloodthirsty killers against all idiots who are pushing mankind down the hill. There must be another way.
Joker# Hollywood# Cinema# Batman#