Joker is stunning – and that's no joke

You could be forgiven for imagining that nobody had ever, ever before made a film about a loner who turns violent, given some of the hyperbolic response to Todd Phillips’s new movie, Joker – a stand-alone origin story for the infamous villain in DC’s Batman universe.

The hysteria around Joker has been such that star Joaquin Phoenix walked out of an interview with The Telegraph when the reporter asked him if he thought that the film could inspire a shooter.

Quite apart from it seeming that, in the US at least, it doesn’t take much to inspire anyone with access to a gun – and while also being aware that a 2012 screening in Colorado of Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises saw James Eagan Holmes slaughter 12 people and cause another 70 to be injured – one can only assume that the Telegraph writer in question has never seen films such as, say, Taxi Driver.

But let’s set aside such stupidity and look at the film itself.

Arthur Fleck is a troubled individual: he has serious mental health issues and a condition that makes him laugh hysterically – even at completely inappropriate moments and irrespective of how he feels – yet Gotham is slashing the social services he desperately needs.

Struggling to keep a job, he’s treated poorly by colleagues, while trying to care for his ailing mother and work up the routines to become a stand-up comic.

Nothing goes according to plan and, as Gotham itself spirals toward chaos, with the rich establishment showing scant concern for the general citizenry, Arthur is caught in the crossfire. The results are both predictable and tragic.

Joker is dark art house meets comic book: Phillips has stated that the only real comic influence on his origin tale is that of Alan Moore’s comic book, The Killing Joke, which sees Joker as a failed stand up, but this goes far further.

It’s close to impossible to not empathise with Fleck’s appalling situation and not understand his eventual reaction. Indeed, this is key to why the film has such a satisfying emotional and intellectual complexity. Fleck is not, incidentally, an ‘incel’ and this is not a movie about those who identify as such. It is a film that shows a hyper-capitalist society that is failing badly, rejecting anyone who isn't a millionaire and descending into chaos.

It is a world in which anyone less than a member of some sort of entitled elite is ignored and neglected.

In terms of the DC universe, Joker also provides a nice counter to the idea of the privileged, entitled, conservative playboy vigilante Bruce Wayne.

In terms of the cast, Frances Conroy gives a subtle turn as Fleck’s mother, while Zazie Beetz as his neighbour lends real human warmth to the piece and Robert De Niro is excellent as a smarmy TV talk show host.

But ultimately, the film rests on Phoenix’s shoulders and wow … well, what can one say? It’s a stunning performance that, unless something really crazy happens, will be featuring big time come awards season.

You cannot take your eyes off him, from the opening scenes until the end. It is a mesmerising, monumental performance.

Lawrence Sher’s cinematography is superb – Gotham is shockingly claustrophobic even in the open air. Phillips’s screenplay and direction are excellent.

The use of music is also worth noting: the shift from easy listening to rock ‘n’ roll is superb in what it reflects – and I will never be able to hear Sinatra singing That’s Life in the same way again.

Ironically, in having not been made by DC Films, it is the best film made from a DC character. Ever.

This is a classic for our times – and my goodness, it feels utterly timely too.

Fabulous stuff. Possibly the film of the year – do not miss.

By providence, a preacher worth watching

Preacher – the cast

It’s been pretty much gospel that Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s seminal comic series, Preacher, would never make it on screen.

Rambling across 75 issues from 1996 to 2000, the Vertigo-published story was apparently stuck in various layers of development hell for years, amid general feelings that it was ultimately impossible to film.

But fast forward a few years, when Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen and Sam Catlin took up the challenge for AMC – and now we’re able to see the results.

In the UK, the pilot premiered as an Amazon Prime exclusive a fortnight ago. The first ordinary episode will air on 6 June, also on Amazon.

So far, we’ve had the chance to meet the three main protagonists: Jesse Custer, a small-town Texas preacher with a dodgy past who is struggling with his faith; Cassidy, an Irish vampire, and Tulip O’Hare, Jesse’s gun-toting ex.

Around the world, various clergy are exploding in front of their congregations in an unexplained manner – apparently, this includes leading Scientologist Tom Cruise, which may give you an idea of the humour on display.

But while Jesse prays for God to give him a sign of his existence, his body is invaded by something that gives him a strange, new power over people – although he has yet to realise this.

If it has moments that seem to channel Tarantino, it also has moments of surprising tenderness – not least in how Jesse treats the bullying sheriff’s son, a young man whose attempted suicide by shooting himself in the mouth has failed, leaving him disfigured in such a way as to become known as ‘Arseface’.

The whole thing is dark, violent, funny, mixed-up and deeply un-PC stuff; part western, part road movie, part crime caper, part supernatural thriller, part horror story – but if you’ve ever read the comic, you’ll already know this.

And if you haven’t, then you’re in for a wild, genre-defying ride – and not one for those inclined to take offence easily.

It looks superb, with a wonderful sense of the vastness of the Texan landscape.

And the casting appears inspired. Dominic Cooper looks perfect as the eponymous cleric and nicely conveys the conflicts in the character.

Ruth Negga as Tulip is as feisty and takes-no-nonsense as you’d expect, but it has to be said, on this first outing at least, that Joseph Gilgun is going to steal the show as Cassidy.

It’s a fascinating point that none of this triumvirate of leading actors are from the US: Cooper and Gilgun are English; Negga is Ethiopian/Irish.

And that continues throughout the cast.

On the basis of the pilot, we’re in for a thoroughly entertaining time.

But the start of Preacher was not the only comic-related noteworthy moment of last week.

Arriving on my desk was a very nice hardback edition of the first four issues of Providence by Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows.

This short series of just 12 issues started last year. This first trade is a hardback, limited to just 6,666 copies.

Set in 1919 in the US, Moore returns to his exploration of Lovecraftian horror, intertwining it with elements of real history to create a layered story.

The central character here is Robert Black, a young man trying to make his way as a writer, first as a New York reporter and then with the aim of writing a Great American Novel about the occult ‘outsiders’ that he seeking out – as a metaphor for social outsiders in the country.

And central to this is Black’s own mixed status: at once, part of the privileged white establishment, he is also Jewish and gay, hiding both from most of those he encounters.

But for all that, he is also not immune to bigotry himself.

Some commentators have noted that Black is not particularly likeable. The real point is that he is a flawed and complex character – which is actually what you expect in something by Moore.

And this being a Moore work, it also defies it’s nature as a comic to include substantial amounts of text – both pages from Black’s diary and also from leaflets and books he collects.

Burrow’s art works well in conveying a sepia world that is never far from the strange and the dark.

All in all, a grown-up comic treat.

Forget the snobbery: comics are no con

If you can’t choose one, get the set

There’s little as irritating as snobbery – in oh so many walks of life.

Now to be absolutely fair, there’s also a form of reverse snobbery – or relativism, as it’s known – that asserts, for instance, that EastEnders is just as good as Shakespeare, NWA are genuinely the equal of Wagner, and Minions is as good a film as The Enigma of Kasper Hauser.

Now: time for the declaration.

I watch no soaps. I love Bill the Bard. I do listen to and enjoy some ‘popular’ music – but not NWA. I increasingly believe that Wagner wrote the most stunning music ever. I love Minions – AND I love The Enigma of Kasper Hauser.

Both are possible, without my remotely pretending that that means that the former is equal to the latter in critical terms.
 

I also like comics. And Thomas Mann. (And Günter Grass. And Gabriel García Márquez). 

That doesn’t mean a Superman story is the same as a Thomas Mann novella. But then again, what is? And indeed, few comics (well, certainly not the ones I read) are like a Superman story.

My introduction to comics as an adult came in 1990, when I was handed a copy of Alan Moore’s V for Vendetta to review, and had my mind well and truly blown.

There have been graphic novels on my shelves ever since.

Anyway, this weekend has been special: because yesterday morning, the first issue of William’s Gibson’s first ever comic slid through my letter box.

And Archangel is every bit as slyly engaging as you would expect from the founding father of cuberpunk.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Gibson is a superb and very grow-up sci-fi writer, whose dystopian novels gave rise to the label of ‘cyberpunk’. They’re literate and philosophically interesting.

So, what do we get from issue one of Archangel? Twenty pages in, I’m fully engaged. We have a tale of scientists from a dying 2016 Earth attempting to change history by sending people back to 1945.

I really want to know what happens next, complaining loudly upon reaching the end of the story after 20 pages. This is actually what you’d expect – and largely why the majority of my comic reading is done from trades (collections of several individual issues).

But then this is a comic Event.

Of course, as with Gibson’s novels, there’s far more subtlety involved than such bare phrases suggest. The characters are already clearly beyond mere symbols.

The art – by Butch Guice – is seriously good. Plus there’s a choice of covers for the first issue, just to increase the pleasure (and possible torture) for collectors.

A page of Jaques Tardi's work

And that’s all I can really tell you at this point. But beyond the opening of the actual story, the first issue has much to offer, with sketchbook pages of character development, as well as pages through the processes (both fascinating) and notes from Gibson himself.

That’s not, however, the end of this review. 

In recent weeks, my comic reading has also included the newly-published second volume of the trade of Descender by Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen.

This is good stuff, taking us forward in a story about a sentient robot child, Tim, who is struggling to stay alive in a world where all androids have been outlawed and bounty hunters are constantly hunting for them.

It was pre-ordered for the simple reason that the first volume made me care about Tim, while Nguyen’s unusual (for a comic) art is also hugely appealing.

Also entered into the recently-read list is the first part of Jaques Tardi’s The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec – Pterror Over Paris (which forms the basis of a Luc Besson film, in French with English subtitles, which is also worth watching).

Featuring the eponymous heroine – an archeologist and feisty creation of delightfully dubious morality – there are currently four stories available in English, so these are rare and great fun. 

It’s always worth pointing out to any snobs that the French regard comic books as the ninth art. 

Trees, by Warren Ellis and Jason Howard is another trade first volume (the second is out this summer), and is a complex interweaving of different stories from across the world, a decade after vast, alien ‘trees’ suddenly arrived and ‘planted’ themselves across the Earth – and then did nothing.

Another fascinating story that gives few clues as to where it is going to go, Ellis’s character and plot development are strong and the art from Howard is equally memorable.

A page from Fables 2

Rather older is Fables, a long series by Bill Willingham, working with various artists.

The overarching story deals with characters from myth, folktale, fairytale and fantasy literature, who are driven from their home lands by the violent Adversary and become refugees in New York, staying hidden from humans and running their own society.

The second issue, Animal Farm, with art by Mark Buckingham, Steve Leiloha and Daniel Vozzo, largely takes place in the community’s out-of-town hideaway for those who cannot maintain a human form or otherwise pass unnoticed among humankind.

And yes, those familiar with George Orwell’s novel of the same name will find links between the plots and ideas.

With an approach that owes more to the darker origins of folk and fairytales than Disney, Willingham’s series is a good illustration of just how grown-up comics can be and would be a candidate for any list of best graphic novel reads.

Volume one of The Autumnlands, by Kurt Busiek and Benjamin Dewey, is another rollicking read: a brilliantly envisaged anthropomorphic world where magic is dying and the elite are trying to save their society.

Unfortunately for them, the secret efforts of a group of wizards to save the situation plunges them all – literally – into serious danger.

Another that’s rated ‘M’ for ‘mature’, Busiek’s story unfolds darkly and brutally. Dewey’s artwork is simply brilliant.

I have no personal axe to grind about comicbook superheroes – I’m rather fond of Wonder Woman – but if you believe that the worlds of Marvel and DC are the only ones in the comic universe, then think again. 

• Archangel issue 1 is out now from idwpublishing.com. 

Descender, Trees and The Autumnlands are all from imagecomics.com. 

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec is published by Fantagraphics Books. 

Fables is available from vertigocomics.com.

The books are sorted

Every year it’s the same: as the beach hoves into view, there’s a tower of books somewhere in the flat that, like a form of literary jenga, has items removed and others added as the days pass.

This is the holiday reading list and the compilation of it has become a tradition.

There are people who look askance at me and ask why on earth I don’t read on some form of electronic device and thus remove the need to carry books at all.

There are a number of reasons – including my lack of interest in exposing electronic gadgets to the sea, salt, sand etc.

There’s the point that, while I am far from being a luddite when it comes to technology and while I do have a tablet, I actually like books – not just for what they hold within their pages, but for the sheer physical feel and smell and look of them.

And it is most certainly true that, since I spend most of my working days in front of a computer screen, not to spend recreational time reading on another screen!

This year’s reading list is topped – or bottomed, given how the pile is currently constructed – by a collection of the translated works of Spanish poet Antonio Machado.

Machado had to flee Franco’s fascists and made his way over the border into southern France, where he died in Collioure. He was buried in the village cemetery.

It seems like the time to get to grips with such a figure.

Next up, was going to have been Stephen King’s Under the Dome, an 880-page epic.

I ‘discovered’ King back in the early to mid-’80s: I’d injured my back at polytechnic as a result of the actions of someone running a ‘voluntary’ workshop, and some months later been thrown off the course after my family GP signed me off for a week extra at Easter because of the state I was in.

Over the next year or so, I found I could barely read. I’d pick up a book – sometimes something new, sometimes an old favourite – but could rarely get more than a few pages in.

One day, I was browsing a little local bookshop in Lancaster, when I came across some of King’s novels.

I don’t think I’d ever read any horror before – and if you’d asked at the time, I suspect I would have declared that it didn’t appeal to me. But something made me pull Christine off the shelf and decide to buy it.

It was finished in days. The Stand followed. And many more.

When I need a reading boost, I still turn to King.

Last year, I’d had such a need and had bought myself Revival, which I enjoyed. As a result, my parents decided to get me Under the Dome for Christmas. For various reasons, I only got my hands on it just under a fortnight ago – and thought how apt that timing was, as it would make marvelous holiday reading.

It won’t be seeing Collioure.

A couple of days later, going through another slow-reading phase, I picked it up. It was finished in eight days – a rollercoaster of a tale. King really is a master storyteller: he makes it seem impossibly simple, but his stories have complexity and great subtlety and they catch a great deal of truth about the condition of being human.

With that now off the list, I’ve picked up Duma Key to give me another dose of King.

Every year, I try to give myself some ‘serious’ literature to read. I’ve been saying for some time that this would be The Year of Proust – except that it won’t. I need easy reading.

With that in mind, Jonathon Meades’s Museum Without Walls has also now fallen off the list.

What are still there are Anno Dracula Cha Cha Cha and Moriarty The Hound of the D’Ubervilles, both by Kim Newman.

I’ve read his first two Dracula books – and thoroughly enjoyed them – so decided to take the third, plus the Moriarty book, which promises more cultural mash-up fun, and already has me thinking of Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (The book. Not the film).

The second volume of Paul O’Grady’s autobiography, The Devil Rides Out, is present on the pile, as is John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids.

And then there’s the book I’ve just started, but won’t get anywhere near through before departure later this week.

Back in 1987, I picked up a copy of Frank Herbert’s Dune. I was impressed enough that I bought Dune Messiah, but not impressed by that (I no longer even have it).

On the 50th anniversary of its publication, it seemed the perfect time to give it a re-read – and already I’m seeing and appreciating things I didn’t first time around. It's also possible that the film has managed to remove any sense of the themes of the book from my mind.

Finally, the most recent tome to join the stack is Redemption Ark, the second part of Alastair Reynolds’s Revelation Space trilogy. I don’t mind a bit of space opera and read the first part a few years ago. Since it’s part of The Other Half’s extensive sci-fi collection, it was an easy pick.

And with just over 24 hours to go, that’s the holiday reading sorted. Perhaps …

By the book

On World Book Day, moving behond the simple - and obviously obvious - point that books are quite simply fabulous, it seems entirely apt to ask a number of literary questions.

The current 'big question' that seems to be exercising many in the literary world is less 'what are you reading?' and more 'what are you reading it on?' Or put another way: books v ebooks. Which is a sort of new religious war.

Now frankly, there are some downright daft – and pretentious – arguments doing the rounds in favour of both sides of this debate, but it seems to me that ultimately, the only one that is important is what you like yourself. In other words, it's entirely subjective.

Personally, I can do many things on a mobile device - writing this blog, for instance, or reading news on a wide variety of sites - but when I want to read a book, whether fiction or not, then I will read a book.

There is a pleasure in the physical aspect of a book. You hold it differently. It feels utterly different in your hands. That's not to say mobile devices are bad - they have their place.

The point is, there are arguments for both. And they're neither right nor wrong in simplistic terms.

But on this day, let's move away fom such diversions.

Books are a wonderful part of my life - as is literature (the two are not synonyms). As recently as 12 years ago, I considered Tolkien to be the greatest author ever and writer of the greatest ever novel(s), but fortunately, the last decade or so has seen me grow up. And realise - amongst other things - that Lord of the Rings is far from original. Far, far, far from it!

So here's a brief list to celebrate some of my favourite books - and hopefully inspire you to think about your favouring books too.

Favourite classic novel

I have to go for Pride and Prejudice, which I read approximately every two years - and always find something new in it.

I hate the chiclitification of it - this is a very clever satire, not a simplistic rom-com. Fab stuff - and too subtle of most people, it seems. Jane Austen still utterly rocks.

Favourite modern novel

The Tin Drum

There are quite a few contenders for this - more than one by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - but Günter Grass's debut novel was one of the first pieces of serious literature that I read, and it remains an astonishing work that lives high in my personal panteon - not least as an example of northern European magic realsm,, which people seem to be surprised exists.

Favourite short story/novella

Death in Venice

I have now lost track of how many times I have read Thomas Mann's apotheosis of western short fiction since I first discovered it, some 10 years ago.

It took me a month to read, that first time - I was so utterly stunned to discover that a book could have as many layers as an onion. I couldn't write anything myself for months thereafter. And then, like a damn bursting, thoughts and words burst forth: my working vocabulary seemed to grow expotentially.

There are reasons I rate Mann so very highly. And that's without even beginning to explore the ideas in a book that so many completely misread and/or misunderstand.

Favourite graphic novel

V for Vendetta

Alan Moore's graphic masterpiece was the first graphic novel I ever read. It was a shattering read and I've not seen it bettered.

Otherwise, Asterix. In English, German or even the original French.

Favourite piece of non-food non-fiction

Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Fall of Prussia

Christopher Clark's history of Prussia is a fabulous example of modern history writing. Quite simply superb.

Favourite piece of foodie non-fiction

An Omelette and a Glass of Wine

Anything by Elizabeth David is worth reading. But this collection is, in particular, an utter joy.

Favourite single volume of poetry

The Man With Night Sweats

Thom Gunn's collection left me stunned by its power when I read it in a single sitting. Extraordinary stuff.

Favourite childrens's book

Well Really, Mr Twiddle is possibly appalling, but it was the first non-picture book that I ever read, all on my own. And I sat in a little red and white whicker bucket chair and chuckled madly through the entire Enid Blyton affair.

Favourite piece of genre fiction

The Big Sleep

Raymond Chandler's masterpiece is, err, a masterpiece. Cynical poetry. Superb.

Favourite comic novel

Witches Abroad

Just on of Terry Pratchett's fantastic series of comedy fantasy satires. I could have picked any one of many others, but this gets the nod. It ranges from outright farce to heart-rending pathos.

I love PG Wodehouse and Tom Sharpe, but Pratchett has taken the English comic novel to new heights.

So, what about your own lists?

Watching the Watchmen from a distance

Watchmen US 2009

This is one of those films that is so long-awaited that it became an Event. First published in 12 parts between 1986 and ’87, writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons’s Watchmen is a seminal graphic novel – proof, were it needed by then, that comics were not just a juvenile medium.

And then there was the wait for the film. Moore refused to script it, and then refused to have his name anywhere near the final production – just as with V for Vendetta and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, although in the latter case, you can quite understand why.

The story is set in an alternative history. Superheroes – the Watchmen – helped the US win in Vietnam, Watergate was averted and Nixon has been president for some time. But with the Soviets moving in on Afghanistan, nuclear war is edging closer.

Of the superheroes, most are now retired after they were outlawed. A couple still work for the government, including Dr Manhatten, a physicist who was transformed into a superbeing in a nuclear accident some years earlier.

And then, someone murders one of the surviving Watchmen.

Moore’s book is about a number of things, including morality, vigilantism, individualism and the question of who exactly is watching those who enforce law and those who make it.

Director Zack Snyder has made a really good fist of this. Which is even more of a miracle when you consider that his previous effort was 300.

The core plot is intact and it looks superb. The realisation of Dr Manhatten is super – as is Rorschach’s mask. This is CGI doing what it should – serving a movie and not being the reason for that movie.

The use of music is interesting – a leaf out of Tarantino’s book – and works well. The opening titles and first scene are brilliant.

However, while it kept me entertained for two and half hours, it didn’t draw me in. I felt absolutely nothing about any of the characters. Which cannot be said for the film version of V for Vendetta, which moves me in a number of scenes and has done so on several viewings. I really don’t care about any of the characters here, though.

It’s difficult to know why that is. Okay, they’re not all particularly sympathetic – but then again, but it was difficult to be even mildly moved to distaste.

Lack of rehearsal time? A cast that wasn’t strong enough?

I’m not sure. But while there’s much to applaud this, I was ultimately left with a sense of: ‘so what?’