I get that it's not a film for everyone, but I'm hearing some bizarre reviews about this film... one guy on a podcast I was listening too was basically complaining it's not a film about anything... and i'm thinking, feck me, this film (as people were saying on the other page) literally goes out of its way to tell you EXACTLY what it's about. Like its hardly ambiguous or anything.
Eh (*shrug*) I can see that argument. Just because it’s incredibly unsubtle about what it claims to be about, doesn’t mean it succeeds in
actually being about that... The Room claimed to be a deep introspective drama, but it failed spectacularly at being that...
I mean, the Joker may basically shout the film’s manifesto down the camera at the end, but ... is it right? He blames society for creating him, and yet the film itself seems to put forward the argument that ...
..is
actually at fault for most of his issues.... In fact, of all the “ills” that befall him throughout the movie, only the mugging at the very beginning really counts as a genuine example of the “society beats down the innocent” message the film
seems to be trying to make.
Even the vague societal themes of “anti-capitalist protest” and “viral shaming” it tangentially brings up (but doesn’t really care about) are modern issues that need some suspended disbelief to work in this late 70s/early 80s setting... so why even set it in this period? What point is that making? Is there a point? Or is it just ‘cos Scorsese did it, and it looks cool?
And then you’ve got the Director’s complete lack of engagement on the themes or issues he’s using as props for his GOAT art film.. and it’s fair to question whether remaking Taxi Driver, but replacing the unsettling undercurrent of “this guy could be your Taxi Driver” with “this guy is so
obviously mad and weird he can’t go 30 seconds without outwardly ticking, and before he does the big evil thing he makes a whole speech about it” is something authentic enough to be considered meaningful?
Consider, for example, how active and involved someone like Chris Morris has been about
his new film. A guy who rarely ever interacts with the media, whose film hasn’t even come out yet, and is (on the surface) an irreverent comedy. Yet whom has spent an inordinate amount of time explaining what he means to say with it, socially and politically, to whomever will listen, and the in-depth, multi year research he’s done on the subject, just to make sure he can make better rounded and more authentic jokes - in a movie hardly anyone will even see!
And then compare it to this... by the guy who made the Hangover trilogy.. whose only desire to make it came from realising how cool it’d be to make something like Taxi Driver “but with the Joker, you know!!?” - that is already being heralded as great cinema, when all it really has to say is...“When things are kinda bad in a place, and people are mean, it might sorta make some other people angry, I guess?... but only if they’re already mad, and the product of abuse...so not really ‘cos of society that much, I guess. But still.. Scorsese, yeah? And the 70s!!”
And for the nth time, I
do actually like this film....albeit mostly on aesthetic merit. But the consistent over-praise of it is increasingly (and ironically) intensely activating the “angry Departed rant” part of my dickish film wanker brain!
So come at me bro! The rat symbolises obviousness!!