Joker: The ending of Folie à Deux answers a disturbing question
He lost his love, as Gaga’s character—one classic serial killer group— walked out of the courtroom in grand style as he spoke. She was attracted to the carefree, seemingly indestructible personality he influenced. Man below it is opposing her. His admirers, gathered on the street outside, certainly felt the same.
Arthur continues to shatter their illusions about him when he ends with a joke that highlights how much of a nobody he is, and it is: “Knock, knock,” he says. “Who’s there? … ‘Arthur Fleck.’ Who is Arthur Fleck? The joke ends there. So does Joker.
Caption, Folie à Deuxis a French psychological term for the “illusion of twoness,” in which the distortion of reality is exacerbated by the involvement of another person. After he admitted his guilt and expressed remorse, he was the one who walked out of the dance, leaving many of his partners still reeling.
His epiphany begins earlier in the film, when the Joker examines one of the direct witnesses to his serial killing spree, a former street clown named Gary Puddles (an extraordinary man). Leigh Gill). As the little man sits nervously on the witness stand, recounting the murders he has witnessed, Joker/Arthur attempts to humiliate and remonstrate with him while strutting back and forth and using a regional accent. Nam to make himself sound like a grotesque parody of Atticus Finch.
He begins by questioning the man’s name—Puddles—and whether it could be real. The “joke” faded but he continued to push hard. Joker himself also feels betrayed by Gary, someone he considered a friend, someone he allowed to live. He is angry that Gary does not appreciate this gift and is ready to mock him mercilessly. On his legal pad, he had scribbled a line about “a man of your size,” mocking Gary’s diminutive height, but he never said those sassy words. .
The cross-examination broke down when Gary admitted he did not see the Joker’s “actions” later that night, when he carried out summary executions on live television. Joker simply cannot believe this, but Gary explains: “I was locked in the police station, in the interview room. They think you might come and kill me. They kept me there all night.”
“Don’t you see what I have to say? I can’t believe it? Arthur said, temporarily dropping his Southern accent.
His goal is to get Gary to say that he seemed like a “different person” when he committed his murders, thereby proving his innocence through insanity—and making the Joker as a real and genuine presence, not a hoax. A shaken and tearful Gary admits that his followers see the Joker, but he also makes Arthur see him as a real person. “I can’t go back to work,” he said. “I still can’t sleep. I’m scared all the time. I’ve never been scared, but I’m scared right here, with you in front of me. I couldn’t do anything that day. I feel so small. It reminded me how helpless I really was.”
“You’re interested in drama,” Joker said, brushing him off. “You’re tugging at my heartstrings, little Gary.”
But Gary remains strong. “Do you know what that feels like, Arthur?” Arthur couldn’t deny that. “You are the only person at work who has never made fun of me. You’re the only one who’s been nice to me,” Gary continued, as Joker tried to silence him.
Gary is disillusioned because the kind and gentle man he knows as Arthur seems to be just a façade. He wanted that man to be real. For a moment, a moment that grew and lasted until the end of the argument, Arthur wanted to come true too. But if that humane and kind part is his true self, then the Joker is definitely a fake identity. And that’s what Harleen, his ultimate refugee killer, and his legion of masked men can’t stand.
The reveal is the gag that the Joker chooses not to carry out. He never mocked Gary’s height, despite scripting such an attack. He’s not that person anymore.
Joker: Folie à Deux make the same choice. It’s not what you might think. This may be why those who enjoyed the first film’s thrilling thrills may now be backing off. What will cause his supporters to finally turn on him? The answer is disturbingly simple: I was wrong to shoot those people on Fifth Avenue.
As a touchstone of popular culture, Joker serves as a middle finger to how things turn out, a 21st century supervillain variation on fallingtells a similar story about a besieged people (by Michael Douglas), who criticizes the injustice around him, first righteously, then unforgivably violently.
That film also ends with his vigilante anti-hero realizing his mistake in his dying moments. “What have I done?” is a common trope for storytellers to explore. Alec Guinness’s Colonel Nicholson has a similar awakening Bridge on the River Kwai when his mortally wounded body fell on the trigger that destroyed the enemy’s bridge he helped build out of a false sense of honor. There are countless other examples.
Arthur did not die a hero. But at least he ended his unhappy life knowing who he really was.
