FILMS

JOKER Beginning with a glimpse of the funky Warner Brothers logo from the 1970s, Joker makes clear from the outset that the touchstones involved here are the gritty, provocative movies of that decade rather than the Batman movies of Tim Burton or Christopher Nolan. Indeed, the presence of Robert De Niro and, behind the camera, executive producer Martin Scorsese help further anchor Joker’s aesthetic in the milieu of Mean Streets, Taxi Driver and King Of Comedy.

Joker may not quite scale the artistic heights of those films, but it feels just as dangerous, marking a huge step up for director Todd Phillips, whose earlier promise seemed to be swallowed up by the Hangover trilogy. It’s worth noting that Phillips made his debut with Hated – a documentary about GG Allin – and there is perhaps something of the scatological punk singer in Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck, a loner who works