ARTHUR

 JOKER

Before Starting of I would like to say, how amazed I am by this movie. From the great work of director Todd Phillips to Joaquin Phoenix acting, which is captured by the cinematography of Lawrence Sher and followed by the score of Hildur Guðnadóttir this movie is a masterpiece for film history. And that is why I couldn't help my self and just had to write this book. I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it. Doing the research of all kinds of different theory’s and re watching the movie over and over again and studying not only the movie but the very interesting character of Arthur Fleck, made me love the movie even more.

The horrifying origin of the Clown Prince of Crime is finally revealed...

But the movie leaves us with many question marks, and one of the reason is that the story is being narrated to us by Arthur who is not always reliable. The answer to why that is, opens up further questions, like is he doing it intentionally or is it happening subconsciously due to his mental state of mind. And this book is trying to reveal...

What’s Real and What’s not?

Well there is no easy answer, but listening to Todd Phillips or Joaquin Pheonix, you can say there is no right or wrong answer because everyone should interpreted the movie individually.

Which I think makes this movie so interesting to analyse. And this book can be used as a toolbox to analyse every possible theory that’s out there.

Analyzing

Analyzing

Not everything we see in this movie really happend and the moment you realize that for the first time, is when Arthur imagines him self on the Murray Franklin Show.The next time everyone can clearly tell that Arthur was imagining things, is when He shows up in Sophie’s Appartement. But that makes you wonder if there were other things that we might missed.

Many even argue that everything isn't real and just happend in Arthurs Mind while he’s locked up in Arkham. So lets try to analyse all scenes and theory’s step by step.

The one thing that everyone agrees on being real, is when Arthur is in Arkham while he is talking to his psychiatrist. So since we can be 100% sure that this isn't fake it makes sense to start dissecting the movie from here.

But before we do that I think we should analyse the movie not from Arthurs perspective and instead analyse the whole movie from the psychiatrist’s perspective. And there are few good reasons why it helps us to understand Arthur better. And that again makes it easier to see what is or isn't real.

1. We can relate to the psychiatrist because as an audience watching the movie for the first time, we actually already know a few things about Arthur without having seen the movie yet. The psychiatrist knows what Arthur has done and why He is in Arkham. She also already knows a few things about Arthur but her job is it now to find out more. And that more can be anything, e.g. why did he do the things that he did, what were his motives and many other things. And all of those things that the psychiatrist is trying to find out, we also want to find out.

So just Imagine yourself in Arkham Asylum in the white room and your a psychiatrist and your sitting there with Arthur and you have a few background information about him. No I know that this can be a very scary thought since there is only a table between you two but I promise you will be safe and I`ll promise you wont suffer the same faith as the psychiatrist As the movie begins you and Arthur beginn with the therapy session and Arthur starts to talk.

1. But during this therapy sessions you have to keep in mind that while Arthur is telling his story, he can tell you; what happened, how it happened and when it happened BUT it is entirely up to you; to believe him while he is telling you this. As a viewer even If you don’t believe him or don't believe what you see on screen is real, or makes any sense, you don't interrupt, you just listen and observe.

1.  Having all of this in mind we cannot or should not only split everything in real or fake depending on if Arthur is telling the psychiatrist/us the truth or not, we also have to think of it how the entire Therapy Session goes from beginning till end. What I mean by that is that even though Arthur is talking with her psychiatrist during the therapy session, that doesn't mean that he is talking to her non stop. Sometimes he’s maybe not talking to her and instead is just thinking about it. There is a moment when Arthur is asking „Didn't I told you I wanna become a Comedian?“ When he is asking that question we as a viewer know, that’s his dream. Wich could mean that everything that we saw on screen that told us that part about Arthur, was not something he was talking about during his therapy session and instead,was just thinking/daydreaming about it.

An example for that would be when the psychiatrist try's to get his attention back after repeatedly calling his name and he then slowly reacts to her as he looks at her directly after just staring at the table. That could be an indication that he just drifted of into a daydream. If that daydream was a real memory from the past or some fantasy is another(?).

The deeper you dive in, the more complex it seems to get but like I mentioned before in order to keep it simple we just dissect everything in categories.

1. Arthur actually talks to us and

1. is telling the truth about something that really happend (e.g. is working as a Clown)
2. is telling a lie or is adjusting some facts, about something  that really happend (e.g. Moments with Sophie)
3.  is telling something that never really happened, but not necessarily because he is lying but because he believes that it actually happened due to hallucination (e.g. In his eye's his comedy show went good)

And this point is actually a Key reason what makes Arthur so extremely dangerous. Because we can all relate to a) and b) we all have lied before or adjusted things to make a story interesting or make us look better. But c) is defenetly in a category of a mental disorder. Now we only have certainty of 1 disorder of Arthur, wich is called „Pseudobulbar palsy“ (more about that later on), but we don't know what other disorders he may have developed trough out his life. And what side effects his medication has on him when he is using/overdosing or stops taking them. (more about that in chapter Pharmaceuticals)

1. Arthur is not talking to us and instead is thinking about something else or drifts of into a daydream.

There is a key moment at the end of the movie were Arthur is laughing and gets asked why he is laughing. And he responds saying „I just thought about a joke, but you wouldn't get it anyway.“ That could Indicate that in fact, not everything that is seen on screen is being narrated to the psychiatrist as it has been to us.

She doesn't know the whole story therefore it is impossible for her to get the joke that he just thought about. We actually have an advantage over the psychiatrist because we „saw more“ or „know more“ then her. But that slight advantage that we have over the psychiatrist in order to understand Arthur, isn't necessarily enough to get the final Joke.

And that is very Important, you need to have the whole picture. If a small detail or note is missing you wont get it. I’ll give you an example of how Important every NOTE can be. When we see Arthur preparing for the show, he recites his Knock Knock Joke while reading from his notebook. We as the audience can see his notebook where he wrote:

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

“I hope my death make more sense than my life.“.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

(See more in chapter Arthur’s Notebook)

Obviously this Joke isn't funny if you get it or not. But you can Understand the „Joke“ or at least it makes more sense and you can see why a fragile character like Arthur came up with this suicidal Joke where the punchline is that he shots himself in the Head.

So the notebook has a lot of Details you need to see in order to understand Arthur and his Jokes. So If you don't get the final Joke you can be sure you will find an explanation in his notebook.

And that can tell us another thing, first of all, I tried to slowly open up the Idea to you that the social worker is not real, she isn't fake either but she is a projection of Arthurs Mind.

It’s maybe easier for Arthur to actually talk about everything, when he thinks he is not in Arkham Asylum talking to a psychiatrist and Instead he is free and talks to a social worker. 

And that again could be a clue that everything that we see right after that, is Arthur either Daydreaming, Adjusting facts to something that happened or says something that never really happend.

We will Breakdown every Scene from beginning till end and try to unfold the truth/reality and the lies/fantasy of Arthur Fleck by dissecting them in the before mentioned categories.

So here are all categories in a visual:

1. Arthur is Talking: and is saying the truth

2. Arthur is lying/adjusting facts while Talking about something that really happend

3. Arthur is Talking about something that never really happend (Either lying or really believes it)

4. Arthur is Thinking/daydreaming about something that really happend but doesn't shares it with psychiatrist.

5.Arthur is Thinking/daydreaming about something that really happend but is projecting facts to the memory that didn't really happend.