Entertainment
Todd Phillips Breaks Down The Fascinating Facts On The Opening Scene Of ‘Joker’
Meticulous attention to details, stellar acting and believable CGI.
The whole film of ‘Joker’ was shot with aesthetics we don’t see everyday in theater. It’s a movie that focuses on how one of the most tenacious villain of DC Universe became. As how a commentator put it, ‘they descended to that [bad space], they didn’t start off there’.
Explaining to Vanity Fair, Todd Phillips began with a scene of socially isolated Arthur Fleck sitting in the makeup room. This scene was actually shoot on a real second floor of a real storage facility up in Harlem on the far west side of Manhattan.
Todd Phillips repeatedly praised the acting performance of Joacquin Phoenix. “A lot of people always assume that Joacquin would be a method actor,” says the director.
“The beautiful thing about Joacquin is we were shooting this movie and we spent half the time just laughing off set. But he’s so amazing that he’s able to sit down, action gets called and we do this slow pushing and if I think I remember it right, in this particular scene I was playing the score for him in the room.”
Todd Phillips reveals that the score was done before the movie to be able to use to impact the acting. The score was composed by Hildur Guðnadóttir (‘Chernobyl’) who had the script to be fully inspired by.
Todd went on showing the ‘Gotham Square’.
On the part that was squared, Todd Phillips believed it is CGI effect where only the front parts are real. The even built the theater and that’s where Arthur Fleck is performing as a clown next to the pianist. And there, he performs with a sign, which was not easy!
He also pointed out how hard it is to run in these shoes and praised the wardrobe for creating such a great outfit that still looks like a clown, but allows Joacquin to run and chase against the kids that bothered him.
Watch Todd Phillips breaks down the movie as well as his obsession of blank space!
Have you watched ‘Joker’ yet? We’d love to hear your thoughts on the plot, acting, and whether Todd Phillips brought that 1980s summer feels to this anti-hero movie.
