Joker 2's Fortunes: An Analogy

A relatively low-budgeted, noirish, drama of a marginal, lonely, man losing his shaky grip on reality who crosses paths with a candidate seeking office in a decaying "Gotham" in post-post-war boom America culminating in chaotic violence becomes a critical darling (Best Picture nominee!), and good-sized box office hit. Flush with success the movie's now lionized director brought back its star for his next film, which is a musical with a way bigger budget--and the movie fails catastrophically with critics and audiences alike, as the entertainment press reported that the "auteur," misusing the considerable good will his prior success had won him, was out of control and made a horrible mess of things.

That description could be of Martin Scorsese going from Taxi Driver to New York, New York. However, it could also be of Todd Phillips going from (the Martin Scorsese-inspired and Martin Scorsese-produced and, I thought, Martin Scorsese-imitating-to-a-fault) Joker to its recently released sequel, an analogy that has been on my mind ever since I heard Joker 2 would have a musical element, but which only a few seem to have drawn, and that only recently.

Perhaps this is because the movie was something of a low point for the still highly lionized Scorsese, all as that particular film, in spite of the fact that Scorsese's productivity and good repute have outlasted those of so many of his contemporaries, contrasts with how many of the less successful films of the stars of the Hollywood new era (most obviously Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now and Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate, but also others like William Friedkin's Sorcerer) never enjoyed redemption in the eyes of the critics, and has lapsed into obscurity.

Or perhaps they thought of the analogy, but didn't speak up about it in public, because citing the notorious flop would have been at odds with their role as Les Claqueurs du Cinema. (Granted, King of Comedy was a commercial failure at the time, but it is at least pretty well respected as the gap in the Rotten Tomatoes score shows--King having an 89 percent fresh rating against the 57 percent rotten rating of the poorly regarded New York, New York.)

In either case it just did not come up much, but will probably come up more in the years ahead when people talk about the film--especially if Joker 2, like New York, New York, does not find its way to the kind of redemption for which those few who have spoken in praise of the film might regard as its rightful due.