Taxi Driver is an obvious textual and formal antecedent to Joker - Fleck is a clear update of Bickle, and Phillips’ Gotham is a clear update of Scorsese’s New York. In the iconic Taxi Driver “You talking to me?” sequence, where De Niro’s Travis Bickle points his gun at his mirror and threatens a would-be opponent, the protagonist feels in control throughout - unlike Fleck’s clownish falling on his face. It’s also a blatant homage to Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro’s paranoid masterpiece of antihero terror. The whole sequence walks the tightrope between psychological and physical terrors, before faceplanting off the damn wire altogether. Of course, Fleck’s gun accidentally fires into his wall, putting an end to his brief moment of imagined power. Then, Fleck pulls out a damn gun and starts asking questions to an invisible guest, waving around his firearm haphazardly. He sloppily mimics the physical movements and speech patterns of his show biz hero, like the alien at the end of Annihilation watching Natalie Portman. In a startling Joker moment (one of many), Arthur Fleck sits at home and watches his favorite television show, Live With Murray Franklin. ![]() Spoiler Warning: In discussing the following films, light spoilers for Joker will be revealed. Enjoy these 10 films that are a must-watch after seeing Joker. So if you’ve danced your way through a screening of Joker and want to see more stuff in that style, you’re in luck. Gotham City and its residents might technically exist in a fictional vacuum, but Phillips’ version is clearly in dialogue with other big-screen cities and characters. And yet, much of the pleasures of Joker’s style comes from its borrowing of films before. ![]() While some MCU films feel invisibly directed, this self-contained DC title could not feel more idiosyncratic, more auteur-driven, more unique. ![]() Every camera angle, piece of production design, and font choice screams at the audience, “This is a movie!” - the perfect formal extension of Arthur Fleck’s ( Joaquin Phoenix) primal need to be noticed, to be appreciated. Director Todd Phillips’ expectation-busting take on the iconic supervillain, on track to become the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time, bursts at the seams with filmmaking style.
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