Joker-a Master Of Perspective

Joker-a Master of Perspective

Joker uses perspective to enhance the movie storytelling perspective. It is a story about the descent of a man giving into his darker desires. This is typically seen as a tragic tale, but the music and camera shots portray it as the opposite. It feels like a man going from despair to hope. 

The music in the opening shot is called “Hoyt’s Office” and it has a sinister and foreboding feel to it whereas the music at the end of the film called “Call Me Joker” is much more hopeful and delicate, the music is softer and more personal instead of the sharp low tones of the beginning. The shot choice also changes the perspective of scenes that should be dark like when Arthur kills his mother Arthur sits next to the window which bathes the shot in light and creates an uplifting atmosphere and the lens reflects light which gives the shot a dreamy look like Arthur enjoys his choice and has finally fulfilled one of his wildest dreams. The final shots of him in the asylum are again bathed in light with minimal sound and the actions are happening slower than normal giving it that dream like feel to it once again. The final shot I’ll talk about is when Joker is dancing on the car during the riot. He is the center of the frame once again and everything around him seems to fade away. This is emphasized by the shots at a superior angle where only Joker and the sky are in shot with everyone else just out of view and the wide angle view when everyone else is in shot but the noise they would have been making is overtaken by the score. He is finally “seen” by people. He has become the center of this revolution and the world can finally see his solo performance.

The perspective is also in use when it comes to the fact that Arthur is made to clearly be an unreliable narrator in the film which can bring many interpretations of the events that unfold. Until the first time Arthur gives into his darker desires most of the abuse he endures is physical. Once he kills the three men on the subway the abuse shifts to emotional with his mother and then once he kills her it becomes verbal until he kills Murray and then he becomes the Joker and the movie ends with Arthur feeling free and not hesitating to give into his desires. This can be seen as the journey of how much Arthur can justify his actions. With each killing he is able to justify his actions with less and less provocation. At the beginning he shot the men in self defense and by the end he was killing people because he deemed it “what they deserve”. (This was also seen when he killed Randall when Randall came over to try and comfort him about his mother’s death and he kills him because of what Randall did at the beginning of the movie. Now that Arthur has made it this far in his descent he sees nothing wrong with killing Randall when earlier he held himself back.) Because of how the abuse seems to shift to allow Arthur to justify his actions it can lead to questions on if the abuse was really like the way it was portrayed or if it had been warped in some way due to Arthur’s perception. (This is just a single possibility that is left up to the viewer’s interpretation)

Joker is incredibly interesting in its use of film making techniques and how it uses all of the facets of the audio visual medium to convey its story. I was left fascinated in how well made it was with a great performance by Joaquin Phoenix, masterful cinematography and directing, and an emotive score. The film and superhero nerd in me loved every second of it.

Korra’s Growth (Book 3: Change)

In season three Korra is shown to be much more understanding of others right away when she connects with a random man who is scared at the top of a bridge. This is something that Korra wouldn’t have been able to do prior to the end of season two. It also shows her first major impact on the balance of the world with the return of the airbenders. She realizes that the airbenders where brought back through the opening of the portals during harmonic convergence and focuses on using it to help the world achieve balance instead of a notch in her status as an impactful avatar. She has become less focused on her possible legacy and comparisons to her past lives and instead focuses on how she can help now. The public reaction to her bothered her, but she didn’t let it drive her actions in this season like she did in past seasons. She actually thought her actions through and made sure her friends were in agreement with her and would help her before going through with a plan like in the Stakeout, In Harm’s Way, and Enter the Void. She even talks some sense into Lin over Lin’s misplaced anger alibi in her blunt straight to the point way. Korra’s emotional growth is on full display in this season. She has learned from her past actions and made a conscious effort to change. She is still emotional but has gotten much better at handling it and channeling it into the task at hand in a positive manner. This change culminates in her final decision, which she makes after seeking counsel from many other characters, to give herself up to Zaheer in exchange for the airbenders.

Her final decision to give herself up for the airbenders shows that she had really become a selfless avatar. She decides to give herself up knowing full well that she had a high chance of being killed. And for the first time in the series she is punished for a truly selfless act and is forced to endure physical and psychological torture. Her immense self doubt comes to the forefront as a result of this torture. It has been festering since the beginning, but until this point her end victory had always proven, at least to some extent, that she did have a place in the world. Through her enemies she has been told time and time again that the world would be better off without her, without the avatar. She starts to seriously doubt what it means to be the avatar and if the world really does need her. Being the Avatar has brought her nothing but pain. She has paid tolls that no one should have to, but, until this point, has kept moving forward in spite of them. Her enemies weren’t the people who pushed her over the edge during her internal crisis it was actually Tenzin. Korra is struggling to move forward after the traumatic events that the red lotus put her through and Tenzin’s final speech in season 3 echoes similar, unintentional, similarities to what the red lotus believed. In Tenzin’s speech during Jinora’s tattoo ceremony he declares that the new air nation will follow in Korra’s footsteps and step up and “take” her place in her absence working to bring peace to the world. It is one thing hearing her greatest fear from her enemies, but hearing it from someone she trusts and looks up to made her self doubt come crashing down on top of her. She is already at her lowest physically and mentally she was teetering on the edge. Tenzin’s statement made her think that her enemies were right, that the world didn’t need her, because it had people in it that could do her job for her. Zaheer preached that “new growth cannot exist without first the destruction of the old” and Korra feels like she is seeing the beginnings of a new force for change and balance through Jinora and the new air nation and that maybe the Avatar is the old, obsolete and unneeded . And in that moment she can’t hide the pain anymore and a single tear slips out. That single tear was Korra’s breaking point.

Korra has defined herself by being the avatar and once that is stripped of her she doesn’t know her place in the world or if her existence means anything. This book was about her becoming a more understanding and patient avatar but it was also about breaking down that avatar identity within her. She had begun to separate herself from the avatar subconsciously and was more able to put herself into other people’s shoes and understand others, but she continued to define her meaning in the world as being the avatar. As the avatar she has nigh infinite power within her universe which can make you distant from others especially if others around you constantly put you on that pedestal. Korra started the series having been put on that pedestal all her life while also being kept completely separate from the world and people she was supposed to bring balance to. This lead to her initial personality, attitude, and complete inexperience interacting with people. She is forced to experience the hardships that came as a result she managed to grow out of that previous mindset that was sort of forced upon her by her upbringing and be able to connect with everyday people, but to connect with her enemies she needed to discover how to define herself outside of being the avatar. She had to learn to define herself not only as a force for change but also as a force for balance. As in not every enemy needs to be defeated by force, but some can be understood and empathized with and brought down without force. That her enemies weren’t completely wrong in their philosophy and that to bring about balance their views can’t be entirely discarded. No one ideology has all the answers. And that comes with her journey for purpose and finding her own place in the world that starts out book four.

Jessica Jones Season 3 Spoiler Review

I want to start off by saying I loved this season. I can understand why people have problems with the direction they took some characters, but I can say that I was satisfied because they built towards those endgames throughout the previous seasons. After the end of season 2 I knew they were setting Trish up to be Jessica’s final opponent. It embedded seeds in season one and built upon it in season 2 but it finally came to fruition in season 3 and it was a delight. I think it was a smart decision to have entire episodes follow Trish and show her descent into villainy and how until she was put away she managed to convince herself she was the good guy. I thought it was an interesting character exploration of Trish while still managing to conclude Jessica’s arc towards being a hero.

Jessica Jones has always been good at dissecting grey morality and it has always been at the forefront of its storytelling. This season the main questions were “at what point is someone beyond redemption” and “can we really be the judge of that”. The show has been gradually morphing Jessica into a more conventionally heroic character and I felt this season completed that arc. Jessica in the latter half of the season feels like heroes from the comics. She is ultimately a success story of someone who keeps losing things but manages to forge forward and become a better person in spite of it. Trish was on the opposite path and it culminated in an emotionally charged finale. The theme was that you can let abuse define you or you can fight back and create your own path. Trish and Jessica’s relationship has always been at the heart of the show and that has never been more true with this final season. When Jess and Trish’s conflict came to a head I was emotionally invested in it from start to finish. I don’t think I have seen a better build-up of friends to enemies on superhero tv.

I actually thought this was a fitting sendoff to Jessica Jones and her corner of the marvel netflix universe. I do wish there could have been more because with Trish’s final scene I didn’t believe she was beyond redemption. I think that had there been a season 4 there could have been a Trish redemption arc. It did have a bit of a pacing issue. The first two episodes were really good, but it seemed to slow down from episodes 3-5 only to take off running for the rest of the show. I was glad that they followed through with the setup of Trish’s downward spiral while also not letting Jessica lose her familial love for Trish. So while I am sad with the loss of a potential reconciliation of Trish and Jessica I thought the build up and payoff to their conflict was well done.

Korra’s Growth (Book 1: Air)

Korra starts out having been separated from the world and immediately put on the pedestal of being the avatar. This leads to her entire self-identity and self-esteem being based around being the avatar. She isn’t allowed to establish herself as a person before she is discovered to be the avatar. This lead to her valuing her physical strength and bending prowess as the visual measure of her worth. When that physical side comes into question her entire self-identity is shaken and she doesn’t know how to deal with it which leads to frustration. This frustration feeds the impulsive characteristics she already has and leads to poor decisions, which she is faced with consequences for time and time again.

In the first season Korra’s overconfidence and brash attitude put her into many precarious situations. She challenges Amon to a one on one and ends up ambushed and almost gets her bending taken away. She refuses to shut down the pro bending championship and the arena ends up attacked and Amon sends a signal to the rest of the world that the revolution is a force to be reckoned with. She gets ambushed by Hiroshi and kidnapped by Tarrlock after jumping into situations she wasn’t fully prepared for. All of her actions come from good intentions, but she doesn’t know how to enact them in a way that brings about a peaceful resolution because of her inexperience with society and other people as a whole. Korra struggles with the conflict of wanting and being expected to bring change and balance with her lack of social experience which is the root cause of her inferiority superiority complex as well as coming right after Aang, one of the most influential and powerful avatars. It’s made very clear that up until this point Korra is desperate to prove herself to others and herself. She is struggling to balance her waning confidence by being in the shadow of Aang with the impending threat that Amon and the equalists face. When the equalists finally make their bid for the city and everything goes south Korra is forced to face the outcome of her inability to adapt to the circumstances and develop her power. This is a wake up call for Korra who hadn’t had to adapt to anything within the confines of the white lotus compound. Her lack of experience when it comes to the world and its complex inner workings left her wholly unprepared for the equalists and their revolution. Korra is forced to realize that the situation won’t wait for her to be ready to face it and that she has to step up to the plate in spite of her spiritual and airbending shortcomings.

She rushes to finish Amon to save the city, after finding reasons to avoid the situation until this point, and loses her bending in the process. Korra’s biggest fear becomes a reality. The physical strength and bending she so prided and based her self-worth on has been taken away. How can she be the avatar if she can’t bend the four elements? She reaches her lowest point, but instead of having to face her worst nightmare she is given a way out through the past avatars. Korra then comes to think that her powers can solve all of her problems, that her powers are a get out of jail free card. Amon was the biggest and first threat she had faced until that point so her careless mindset when it comes to her power develops because of this outcome. This makes her attitude at the beginning of season 2 make complete sense. Korra throughout season one was slowly becoming less brash, but because she managed to get her bending back through her avatar abilities she becomes even more overconfident in her power. With season two her over confidence and lack of thought for consequences due to the ending of season one had to be excised through the trials and tribulations she faced once again. To overcome this she had to face something that challenged her weaknesses and made it so that she couldn’t rely on her powers to be a get out of jail free card so that she no longer had that safety cushion and would be forced to move past her carelessness.

Korra’s Growth (Book 4: Balance)

Korra has been a character defined by her resilience. She is broken down time and time again and the tolls she is forced to pay become greater with each season. The biggest problem with her resilience was that to forge forward she pushed her pain back and with the breaking of her spirit and body in Book 3 she can’t push it back and avoid it any longer. This time she can’t move forward until she deals with the trauma of what has happened to her. People seemed to struggle with understanding Korra’s mental illness and even Korra herself struggled to understand it. Korra’s journey to recover brings her to a greater understanding of who she is and this understanding allows her to open herself up to her enemies and friends in a way she couldn’t before. She grows to realize that being the avatar isn’t really about being able to bend all the elements, but who she is as a person. The most influential avatars were able to enact real change during their time because of their ideals and their individual identities. Korra’s struggle to grasp this and discover her own identity is realized in this Book.

Korra was at her lowest point from the end of book 3 to the beginning of book 4. Her struggles with identity and ptsd don’t just go away and she can’t truly move forward until she faces them. She avoids them for many years and they fester into a negative mindset towards herself. She completely disregards her own wellbeing throughout the latter part of the Korra Alone episode and spirals into a state of self destruction in her desperation to get better and discover herself. Her recovery process is slow which frustrates her because the longer she is incapacitated the longer others do her “job” for her and the less her place in the world matters. Korra’s decision to go out on her own mirrors Zuko’s in the episode that this one was named after, Zuko Alone. They are both trying to discover for themselves what they should do and their identity separate from their birthright and their frustration at their inability to find what they are searching for leads to their inward anger turning towards an outward conflict. With Korra the outward conflict manifests differently in that she sees herself. That version of her is a manifestation of her trauma and the destruction of the basis of her believed identity. She tries to defeat it and destroy it, but fails time and time again. She takes a while to learn that she can’t destroy it but instead needs to accept it and learn to channel it positively because it has shaped her and made her who she is. She struggles with this and it leads her to Toph. Toph is exactly what she needs at this moment because Toph won’t hold back and will be frank with her. Korra needs to know that she isn’t in this alone but she also needs someone able to give her a reality check. She is so busy fighting herself that she hasn’t taken the time to think of what she is really running from and Toph opens her eyes to what exactly that is. 

Korra was completely broken after her confrontation with the red lotus. This was the third time that she had hit “rock bottom” and to her it must have seemed like everytime her rock bottom somehow got lower. She grows to subconsciously dread what could come next which leads to her inadvertently holding herself back from fully physically recovering. The fact that she has to be the one to take the poison out of her body shows that only she can make the decision to move forward and return to her duties as the avatar, no one else can do it for her. They can only help her get to that point. Toph not only opens Korra’s eyes to the reality of her physical state, but also teaches her how to see expand her view and see the world through a different lens in both a metaphorical and literal sense with the philosophies of her enemies and the spirit energy respectively. This widening of her scope makes it so that she can be found by the airbending siblings and in a way Korra has discovered a part of herself that she didn’t know about, her connection to the whole world through energy bending. Once Korra is found by the airbender children she decides to remove the poison and go with them to Zaofu. In this moment she decided to stop letting her fear hold her back from doing what she needs. She had conflicting feelings because she simultaneously dreaded the possibility of the avatar having no place in the world and the pain that came from being the avatar. Her decision to move forward in spite of these fears and face at least the physical part of her fear shows her desire to do what she believes is right and her resilience. In Zaofu she is brought face to face with Kuvira, the source of unrest. Korra tries to approach the situation with diplomacy first, much to the chagrin of Opal and Suyin, showing a blatant change from previous seasons. Korra admits that the “old her” would have jumped straight into physical conflict with Kuvira to end this, but she thinks that there must be a better way. Korra knows now that solving problems with force more often than not causes detriment to both sides and that trying to find a middle ground is the best course of action for everybody. Suyin tries to end the conflict with force by, what is implied to be, assassinating Kuvira which escalates the situation and leads to the forceful takeover of Zaofu. Korra takes considerably more caution and only uses violence when absolutely necessary, but mentally Korra still hasn’t completely recovered from the fight with Zaheer and sees the shadow version of herself projected onto Kuvira. Korra sees herself in Kuvira: the confident attitude, adeptness at the physical side of bending, and her penchant for physical conflict. Kuvira is a dark mirror to what Korra could have been if she hadn’t gone through the trials that she did. She is a dark version of what Korra’s trauma could have made her if she didn’t decide to change and also a dark mirror of what Korra could have been if she hadn’t learned humility, but this also gives Korra hope that Kuvira wasn’t beyond reason or redemption. Korra can’t quite reach Kuvira yet though because she hasn’t yet dealt with the mental and spiritual block she has that is preventing her self-realization. Korra hasn’t fully realized the similarities between her and Kuvira and found a way through to her. 

Korra is then pushed into a situation where she needs to confront the root of her spiritual disconnect and the man who pushed her to her physical and mental limits. She initially confronts Zaheer to say to his face that she isn’t afraid, but she’s lying when she says this and he calls her out on it. He calls her out on her denial. The problem isn’t that she’s afraid it’s that she won’t accept what happened to her and that she is afraid, she’s pushed it back like she did everything else. Zaheer guiding her into the spirit world marks a notable change within Korra in that she found a middle ground with an enemy and accepts his help. She realizes that his offer for help is genuine because he realizes that his actions have brought about the exact opposite effect of what was intended. Her acceptance of his help is where she enacts Toph’s lesson about learning from her enemies and it is through these actions of trust towards her enemy that she is able to grow to empathize with her enemies to the point where she can get them to trust her and end a conflict without force. By accepting what has happened to her she is able to feel whole and stronger than before. She has discovered who she is and is now confident in that identity. 

She uses this new understanding of herself to become the leader she was always meant to be. She leads the republic city forces against Kuvira’s colossus and cooperates seamlessly with everybody to infiltrate and take Kuvira and the colossus down. Once the colossus is down Korra tries to reason with Kuvira. Now that the weapon of mass destruction is no longer threatening anybody Kuvira no longer has her power over everybody and there is a greater chance of getting through to her now that she has lost her advantage. Korra realizes that to prevent greater bloodshed Kuvira needs to stand down. Korra deciding to protect Kuvira from the spirit energy blast was the culmination of her journey as a person and as the avatar. Her deciding to protect Kuvira shows her growth in empathy and desire to help not only her friends, but also her enemies. Kuvira and Korra are mirrored against each other again in the spirit world with Korra blue and Kuvira originally being a purple Korra. This visualizes what Korra herself has come to realize about the similarities between her and Kuvira. Korra uses this understanding to connect with Kuvira and be honest about her own struggles and find common ground. She has come to see that no one ideology has all the answers and that to truly achieve balance she needs to open herself up to change. Through her trials and tribulations she has remained resilient and picked herself up each and every time she fell. It is through this desire to keep going that Korra is able to find ways to grow. Korra had to find balance within herself and with that personal growth came spiritual growth and an ability to change the world for the better through lessons learned from her enemies.

I Want to Take Time to Talk about What I Love about the Third Books in Rick Riordan’s Quintologies

The third books in Rick Riordan’s quintologies all create massive paradigm shifts within their respective series. In all of the third installments the stakes become real and the heroes are faced with decisions that alter the courses of the series and change the tone moving forward. I want to talk about each individual book and express my thoughts on how they change the status quo of the series and characters as well as what I liked about what was done and how I think they stand apart from the first two entries and set up the rest of the series.

First up is the Titan’s Curse. Many people, myself included, remember this book fondly because this is where Percy Jackson and the Olympians got serious. There were hints here and there about how dark the series could become, but no death stuck until this book and the deaths present carried lasting effects as the series continued. Bianca’s death affected Nico from this point up until the Hidden Oracle where he had finally made peace with what had happened. And even after the quest was over there is a hanging sense of melancholy and foreboding of the losses that had happened and the ones yet to come. This is where it hit that the trials would only get harder and more emotional from here. I really liked that the deaths in this book weren’t cheap and that they weren’t reversed. Bianca’s death had the biggest impact on the story moving forward of any of the death in any of Rick’s series (we’ll have to wait an see the ramifications of Jason’s death, but I think it may surpass this one in terms of personal impact on the characters). Zoe’s death is, in my opinion, the most emotional death in this book and really set the tone for the sacrifices that will have to be made in the future.

The Mark of Athena signalled the start of the seven questing together. This book gave us Annabeth’s solo quest, the beginning of greek-roman relations falling apart, and the iconic fall into Tartarus. This book probably changed the status quo of the series less than the other two books because the stakes were already built up in the two books leading up to this installment, but this book succeeds at building up to the following installments and showing the heroes both what they will have to endure and the trials they will have to face. Unlike the Titan’s Curse there isn’t a sense of mystery and foreboding because you know what trials the heroes will have to face moving forward. We know Percy and Annabeth will have to trek through Tartarus to get to the doors of death and we know that the rest of the seven will have to meet them on the other side, but it’s the fact that this is how it will play out that surprises us. It succeeds because this is the first time Gaea’s threat becomes real, where things don’t work out for the heroes and there isn’t some sense of momentary safety. It ends with the heroes in their most precarious situation, Annabeth and Percy are plummeting into Tartarus and the rest of the seven guided by Nico must find the doors of death, both of which are built up to be the most difficult tasks the half-bloods will have to face. I believe this book does a great job of paying off on the stakes set up in the previous two books and while there isn’t a sense of loss for characters who died it gives us a sense of loss over the fates of Percy and Annabeth, two characters we have followed since the beginning, with the knowledge their suffering is far from over.

The Burning Maze completely changed the tone of the trials of Apollo series and in my opinion for the better. I didn’t really like the Hidden Oracle. I found the Dark Prophecy to be good, but not anything special compared to Rick’s other books. The Burning Maze blew me out of the water. This book gave us the most radical shift in tone and changed the main players within the story permanently. Piper and Apollo change the greatest throughout the course of the story and I was captivated by how much they changed within the span of one book. Apollo, throughout the course of this book, truly learns the pain and suffering demigods go through because of the gods and by the end had resolved to remember what it’s like to be human. This is such a radical shift from the arrogant self-centered character we were introduced to in the Hidden Oracle. There were deaths that changed the characters and I hope carry through and guide the characters actions going forward. I really liked that Grover, Jason, and Piper all came back for this book and it was a really good move on Rick Riordan’s part. While a lot of people are mad Jason died in this series and not the heroes of olympus I really liked the decision. I liked Jason in HoO and having him die after surviving all the trials he was put through by being brought into yet another quest and having him stand up for Apollo in HoO it made it have more meaning to Apollo specifically. It also helped to emphasize the message that the gods are unfair. Jason was put through trial after trial and in the end it was Apollo and the god’s mistakes that did him in and makes Apollo realize that he has to remember what it means to be human in the mythological world. Piper was really compelling in this book and the development she was given in this book alone put her in my top 5 favorite characters in Rick’s mythological series.