Todd Phillips, the director of Joker, has discussed reasons for leaving the film’s ending intentionally ambiguous.
One of the biggest objections to a Joker origin movie was that it would remove the mystery from the character. Well, Todd Phillips’ Joker looked to retain some of that mystery by leaving the film’s ending intentionally ambiguous, casting doubt on whether events of the film actually took place.
In an interview with Comicbook.com, Phillips discussed his thoughts behind making the Joker an unreliable narrator. When asked about leaving the ending up to fan interpretation, he said:
“That was the idea, the idea that all of ‘My past is multiple.’ I like to think of my past as multiple choice, it’s a little bit of like, ‘Wait, did that happen? Did this?’ It’s really kind of fun when you make a movie with an unreliable narrator. There is no greater unreliable narrator than Joker. He’s an unreliable narrator and he’s Joker, so it’s sort of like a double whammy, and so I think that lends to people’s reaction to the movie and I like that people don’t really know what happened. There are certain things if you see it again, on a second viewing, you’ll notice about that white room at the end that kind of picks up at the beginning, and you go, ‘Oh, wait a minute, that’s interesting.’ Its kind of one of those.”
SEE ALSO: Joker smashes October records with $234 million global box office opening
So all the talk about the film’s ending was certainly something the director intended. Did you like this approach? Let us know in the comments below and on Twitter @flcikeringmyth.
Joker centres around the iconic arch nemesis and is an original, standalone story not seen before on the big screen. The exploration of Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), a man disregarded by society, is not only a gritty character study but also a broader cautionary tale.
Joker is set for release on October 4th 2019 and stars Joaquin Phoenix (The Sisters Brothers), Robert De Niro (Goodfellas), Zazie Beetz (Deadpool 2), Bill Camp (Red Sparrow), Frances Conroy (American Horror Story), Brett Cullen (Narcos), Glenn Fleshler (Billions), Douglas Hodge (Penny Dreadful), Marc Maron (GLOW), Josh Pais (Motherless Brooklyn), Shea Whigham (Kong: Skull Island), Douglas Hodge (Robin Hood) and Dante Pereira-Olson (You Were Never Really Here).
