Screenwriting: Learn to Write Powerful Turning Points by Analyzing 'Joker'

1. Welcome: Do you sometimes get stuck when you try to outline your movie idea? Just can't decide what's going to happen next. Does writing sometimes overwhelm you? What if I told you it's not your fault? Because, you know, there are so many textbooks on screenwriting, and I've read some of them as well. The problem is that these books are very general. They present screenwriting in a very abstract manner. They're going to give you some knowledge, but they lack specific tools. So it's really hard to use this knowledge in actual writing. And the reason number two is that these books don't give you examples. And if they do, it's an old film that you most likely haven't seen before. So, to make sense of the book, you have to watch a bunch of old movies that don't really resemble modern cinema. So you end up confused and overwhelmed. However, there is a solution. I've been writing my films with many different methods, discovering and refining one of them was a great step ahead, which actually made me a pro. As of this recording, I already made my first feature. And the development of the second one is already financed. And yes, this method is Frank Daniel's sequence approach. I was always looking for solutions that are simple, yet effective. Therefore, over the years, I've distilled everything that was useful about the sequence approach into this easy to follow course on structuring your story. This program is not only going to explain how to write powerful turning points, but also show you practically how it's done. For this, we are going to analyze an example of modern cinema, which is Todd Phillip's 'Joker'. After taking this course, you will be able to divide your film into eight sequences. That way it's going to be more manageable when you'll be writing. So you'll never get stuck again. The core of my course is split into nine lectures. In the first lecture, you'll learn the theory behind the sequences. You'll understand how easy it is to apply. In the next eight lectures, we are going to dive deep into the functions of every particular sequence. I'm going to break down the screenplay of Joker. So you have an example of practical use of the principle that I'm talking about. All the presentations that I'll be using during the class are available to you in the form of a guidebook, that you can download in the resources. Now, you may ask what Piotr, you said that the method is super-simple. How come the course is more than four hours long? And yes, yes, it is super simple. It takes me half an hour to explain the whole method using 'Joker' turning points in the first lecture, the rest of the course is showing you the practical application of the sequence approach. If you're worried that you may get bored while we will be analyzing the script, don't be. I'm going to share my perspective on lots of cool stuff that I discovered while analyzing "Joker", like deleted scenes, didn't make it into the final movie. Together, we are going to peek behind the curtain. It's going to be fun. Now look, for me writing without understanding this method was like driving a car with a hand brake on. If I may use the driving analogy. If you'll take this course, you will feel as if you've just released the hand brake. It certainly felt like this to me. If you're struggling with writing, I want the same thing for you. Hopefully, see you in class. 2. Joker Summary: Thank you so much for taking my class. First of all, I just want to let you know that I treat clarity very seriously. That's why I always proofread the captions. So just remember that at any point you can turn on the subtitles. Another thing that is also important is that, to make sense of the course, you will have to experience "Joker" for yourself. There is no way around it. In this course. I'm going to show you a summary of the movie. I'm going to show you some images from the scenes, but it's there only to refresh your memory. Now, when you'll get to watch "Joker", check if the source of the film is legit. As a creator myself, I can assure you that it makes a whole lot of difference for the people who made this piece of cinema. Okay, so let's get to the summary of "Joker" and the meaning of "Joker" as well. This clip was published on my YouTube channel, so you may have seen it before. And even if you did, I advise you to see it again just to refresh your memory and start watching this course with a clear image of the film in your head. So, okay, let's watch. In Todd Phillips, "Joker", the world went down the tubes. "Is it just me? Or is it getting crazier out there." Because the rich made everyone lives miserable. The film implies that morality is a weakness and violence sets you free. Why so nihilistic? That's what I would ask. We meet Arthur as a victim. He works as a street clown. He takes pills for his mental condition, and he lives with his mother in poverty. Arthur has some aspirations. His romantically interested in his neighbor, but doesn't really know how to spark her interest. He also wants to become a comedian and perform on a late show. He's unconscious NEED is to find a father figure. You see all this, the light, the show, the audience all that stuff, I'd give it all up in a heartbeat, to have a kid like you. Then he's presented with a revolver. Gets fired from his job because of the revolver. He's made fun of by his hero, the late night show hosts. And in his lowest point, he's attacked in the subway by 3 rich guys. But this time, for the first time, he's not a victim. Violence, sets him free. He relishes it, which is depicted in the dancing scene. Arthur's ego is constantly pumped by citizens who liked the fact that this three reached guys were murdered in the subway earlier. They think it was the act of social justice against the privileged ones. Now, Arthur has courage to kiss the girl, perform in comedy club and go meet his supposed father Father Thomas Wayne, to actually learn that in reality, he was adopted and abused by his mother in his early childhood. The fact that his relationship with his girlfriend was imaginary all along is also a bummer. When Arthur is invited the Late Night Show, he plans to kill himself on the air. But first, he settles some all debts. During the show, he's provoked by the host who is not really empathetic with the protesters. Arthur changes his mind. He kills the host instead. This violent act insights more riots in Gotham. The Joker is put to the pedestal as the savior of the poor, because violence sets you free. At least that's what the authors of "Joker" are implying. "Good night. And always remember that's..." Thank you very much for watching. You can re-watch this summary whenever you want to start a new lesson if you feel like you don't have the fresh perspective on the "Joker" story. 3. Joker Turning Points Explained: In this lecture, I want to talk about the theory of turning points. So, I am going to explain Frank Daniel sequence approach using 'Joker' as a example. Let's get started. The core of Frank's Daniel sequence approach are not the sequences themselves, but the way he thinks about the character and the journey of the character, the sequences are there to help you bring your character from your beginning point to the endpoint. And in this particular example, we are going to be talking about how Arthur became Joker. This film, in my opinion, is about the violence and how violence, under certain conditions, is something that will set you free. It may be not the most positive message, but this is how it is in 'Joker'. In 'Joker', we have, at the beginning, we have Arthur, who is a lonely, troubled guy, but he is humanistic and he is losing his humanism and becomes Joker who is absolutely ruthless and relishes chaos. And it's in this film, in this particular film, it's something that is a happy ending. This is a positive change for our main character. It's exhibited as a positive change by the authors of the movie. So, it is a happy ending. So, what is the core of Frank Daniel sequence approach? It's the WANTS of the main characters, his conscious ambitions. And then there are the NEEDS of the character, which are hidden in his unconscious mind. So, in this particular case, this is what is driving this movie. So, we have Arthur, who is humanistic and have this humanistic WANTS, because he wants to bring people laughter and joy and become a stand-up comedian. This is his plan to do that. He wants to find a father finge, so he wants to know who he really is, right? Because he is not fully developed as a man, as a grown-up. It's a coming of age story. And then he wants to find a romantic partner in Sophie. It's another part of his coming of age. And then when all of this doesn't work for him, he wants to kill himself. So these are the conscious ones of the character. So as you can see, this part also develops through the story, because when these three first thing's doesn't work for him, he wants to kill himself. And then you have the unconscious needs of the character, that he doesn't know about. And of course, the audience also doesn't know about. They are being developed during the story. We discover NEEDS. And these needs usually are absolutely against what is the Arthur wants or the character wants. So in this particular case, Joker, who wants to kill his father figure. He wants to bring people terror and suffering. And this is his predisposition because he is ruthless. He doesn't feel any remorse. But we don't know that when we begin with the Arthur. And the sequences are a vehicle in which Arthur is going to become Joker. And what is going to happen in between are the obstacles, which is this part. They are going to be obstacles for Arthur to becoming his true self, who is Joker. In this particular case, because the underlying message of the movie is nihilistic and negative, which is that the violence sets you free. And Arthur is losing his humanism in the process of becoming a Joker. These obstacles are going to be actually something that is something positive in his life. So, The first thing is that he likes his job as a clown. The Dancing Clown. He likes it. He is romantically interested in Sophie. He wants to date her, you know, like, he wants a relationship. And then the third one, He takes care of his mother, right? And Arthur is going to overcome these "obstacles" to become Joker. In another slide. In the sequence, we are going to see how, he's going to overcome this humanistic obstacle to become this nihilistic character. So let's get into the sequences right now. At first, we need to see how it differs from the Aristotle three-act structure. And it really doesn't. It's a addition. The sequence approach which you see here is a addition to the Aristotle three-act structure. It's something that is much more specific in what is going on with the character, then three acts. So in first act by Aristotle, it's the beginning. The character is, has a problem, but it's not... But he's not ready. He or she is not ready to go on the journey, to fix the problem. And then in the second act, he goes on a journey. The problem at the end of the first act seems unbearable and he makes a first step to tackle the problem head on. So this is what happens in the second act. He has adventures and, and the tension is rising. And then he arrives at the third act where he is completely changed, when he is already discovered himself. And then at the resolution, at the third act, we're going to see how the world that he is facing now as this new character is going to react to him. And this is the epilogue, the third act. This is where we're going to see what happened next to the character. And if it's going to be a tragedy or if it's going to be a happy ending. And this is exactly what happens in the 'Joker'. Because here we'll begin, as I told you before with Arthur. And this is the first sequence. It's establish status quo where we see him as a troubled man with a mental condition that he's facing. We know that he's taking care of his mother. And we know that his problem is the laughter that he laughs uncontrollably and he cannot stop it. And we know about his ambition of becoming a stand-up comedian. And remember that we are getting here right into this, this ruthless creature who is Joker. So the first turning point is where he receives a gun from a friend in his work. It's here. This is where he receives a pistol and he's really very reluctant to take this pistol. But he takes it. Then after taking the pistol, which is the first sequence, he's not yet ready to use it. He just hangs around with the pistol and we see how Arthur is mesmerized by the pistol. He dances with this gun, when he's alone. He sees it as a mean of expanding his ego, right? And in the second sequence, we actually get to know more about him. We get the know about Safi that he's romantically interested in his neighbor. So, we established subplots here in the second sequence. Everything that we haven't said about our character in the first status quo sequence, we are going to establish in the second sequence with the subplots, right? And then what's going to happen is that he's going to use the gun for the first time. And this is what happens when he is attacked at the subway station. ,actually it's in the subway card, buy these three guys, three rich guys from Wall Street. Usually in the third sequence, which is the first big set piece, which is like a several scenes that, you know, you see some action. If it's an action movie, you see the action there. So, we have seen this few scenes that depict the first use of violence by Arthur. And usually in the beginning of the second act, the third sequence, the character fails miserably. But because the meaning of the 'Joker' is nihilistic. It's the other way around and the character is going to face a positive outcome of his violent behavior, right? Because this is his neet, his need is to lose his humanity, right? Therefore, everything is peachy in the third sequence for our character. He has the courage to kiss the girl. He feels better because he protected himself. Well, he overdid it, right? Because these guys were attacking him and he killed them ruthlessly the murdered these three guys. I don't think they deserve to die after beating him, but that's what he did and what the authors wanted us to experience in the third sequence is to feel a little bit relieved because in the first two sequences, we have seen Arthur as a victim in every possible situation. As an underdog. And now in the third sequence, we see him succeeding. Not only that he kissed the girl, but he also, you know, take took her to a date and other positive stuff happened to him. And that's why we are going to get to know about... We are going to come back to his main character arc, which is: he's going to face his father for the first time because one of the parts of his becoming is to get to know his father. And this is the sequence that is called the first culmination. So the fourth sequence begins with Arthur reading the letter from his mother to Mr. Thomas Wayne, a local rich guy and the father of Batman, of course, that he is a son of this businessman. And what he does is, he wants to confront this guy. So he goes over to his place and meets his kid. But he's not let inside the mansion, right? And at that point at four sequence, the reality comes back and the negative things start to happen again for the Arthur. Because when he comes back from this journey to Wane mansion where he wanted to talk with his father, with his supposed father and he didn't. He finds that his mother is going to a hospital because she had a stroke and that the police are looking for him, which is all negative. And this is the repercussions what he did in third sequence. So the culmination, the first culmination that we are talking about is the culmination of the letter. In this particular situation, this particular film, Thomas Wayne, is the secondary father, as I call him. Because the main father figure for Arthur is the Late Night Show host Murray Franklin that we see here. This is the main father figure for our character Arthur, right? But as the story goes along, he gets to know about his supposed father. And the first combination is usually not with the main antagonist of the character, but with his right-hand man. And this is how it happens in the 'Joker' as well. So that's why they show us his confrontation with Thomas Wayne, where he sneaks into the cinema to see him in the bathroom. And this situation, this first culmination usually ends up pretty badly for our character. Just to keep in mind, if this situation would go as our character planned, because he wants to find his father, right? And if the Thomas Wayne would become a father figure for Arthur, he would never become Joker, right? This is his opportunity for humanistic outcome for the Arthur. But as we know, this situation ends up pretty badly for Arthur. And it gets even worse than that after this. Because he gets to know that what Thomas Wayne told him was the truth because he goes to a hospital and then he sees some documents and they tell him that, "okay, Your mother abused you". And at that point, it's a very low point for our character. So as you can see at fourth sequence and fifth sequence, he is absolutely suffering, right? And to amp it up even more the creators decided to show us that his relationship with Sophie and his appearance on, and his dreams of becoming the stand-up comedian are false. Because he... in the hospital, he sees that he's made fun of by his main father figure. And then of course, he meets Sophie in her apartment. He goes into the Sophi apartment and then he practically executes Arthur, then and there. This is where Arthur symbolically dies because this guy here is at the lowest point of the story. And what I actually did with this graph, I wanted to depict where, wherre is the confidence of our main character, how it evolves by the places that I put these images and this is how it goes in the story. This is the lowest point. It's probably even lower that where he began, because here he learns that everything that happened positively, with him being in relationship with Sophie was fake, was a product of his imagination. And when he's leaving the apartment of Sophie, he's not yet in the makeup in the corridor, but he's already a Joker character because he has nothing else to lose and all his humanity is gone. So as I told you before, we're going to come back here by now, these are the 2 obstacles that we had. He liked his job, he lost this job in the first act. We have seen this. Like, he was romantically interested in Sophie. He just lost this part. And now he's going to take care of his mother in a very negative way, because at the beginning of the sixth sequence, here, he is already internally Joker, but now he's going to put on the makeup. And the first scene that we see of the sixth sequence is him killing his mother, him avenging his childhood trauma by killing his mother in the hospital with the pillow. And then afterwards he becomes the Joker by putting on makeup. Then he has this unexpected visit from his friends and he also murders them. So you can see at sixth sequence its the sequence when he's already developed as a character. And this is the second culmination. "Is he going to get away with it?" Because this is the second culmination? Is he going to be proficient as a killer. And he is. This is working great for him, as it were working great for him in the beginig, in the beginning of the third sequence, right? He's on his killing spree. The ending of the six sequence ends at the, at the train station where he uses the crowd to defend himself against the policemen. It ends with a super cocky shot of him, you know, getting away from the murder scene where the cups are just going past him, not even seeing him as a Joker. So he's above the law here completely, right? So at seven sequence now this is the ending. The character is fully developed. As we have seen in the second act. He's fully develop and now we know, what he's going to do, what he actually planned for his appearance at Murray Franklin show because he was invited there earlier on. He was invited there on fifth sequence to take part in the Murray Franklin show. And he knows that he's going to be made fun of, as he were made fun of on the show before. And he plans to kill himself on the air. This is his plan, right? But it doesn't end like this because during this appearance, he actually engages with Murray Franklin and he discovers that he doesn't hate himself, that he hates this main father figure. So he actually discovers that Murray Franklin is his absolute antagonist. And with this ending, with this false ending, because this is how Frank Daniel calls seven sequence. It's a false ending because it's more about the WANTS, the character WANTS, then it's about the character needs. And in every happy ending and a 'Joker' has a happy ending, the NEEDS of the character wins with the character WANTS. And now at that point, we know that this character wants, the Joker wants developed from, from his humanistic wants, you know, take care of his mother, you know, work, become a comedian and all of that. It developed to" "Okay, I'm going to kill myself", right? "I'm going to end this." And it developed to wanting to killing himself. But what he really wants to do is kill other people, and you know, wreak chaos and terror around and actually enjoy it, right? So at this talk show scene, we see his need becoming more powerful than what he has planned. The 8th sequence is the aftermath of the false ending. So the 8th sequence is how the world is going to react to our character. And as we know, what he did on the telly incited, more riots at the city, which was depicted as a very troubled place because what was going on in the, Arthur's head, was also manifested in what was going on in the city of Gotham at that point, because they had this huge strike of garbage man and more and more violence on the streets, which Arthur was also a victim of. The citizens of the city. welcome what Arthur did because they see it as a social justice against the rich and the privileged ones. And this is how Arthur became the Joker in this eight sequences. So, as I told you, seven turning points of the joker. This is how it's done. This is how you make a $1 billion movie. And if you see in this particular case of the 'Joker', you can see that each of these sequences is actually 15 minutes long, pretty much 15 minutes long. This kind of precision is kind of unusual, because usually you have films that take more liberty. But here, this is the optimal experience of the audience. This is the most optimal experience that you can give to the audience to hit them with a turning point every 15 minutes, which is very, very effective. Now you have all the theory you need to understand turning points in Frank Daniel sequence approach. In the upcoming lectures, we're going to dive deep into the particular turning points. So we will start with the first sequence, which is status quo. See you in the next lecture. 4. Status Quo: In this lecture, we are going to talk about the first sequence of 'Joker' and the way we're going to do that is that I'm going to recap the first sequence for you. And then we're going to focus on what specifically does the first sequence do in any movie that you can write. So let's just begin with the script. One final note, I have a first December 2008 version, which is the version that they've been working on while they were filming the 'Joker'. So, as far as I know, they ended filming 'Joker' at 3rd December, which means that this is something that they've been working on the set while they were rewriting the script that they've begin shooting in September. As far as I remember. This is the released version of the script. It's very close to what you get in the movie, but not as much because you will see that these sceens have been altered and have been changed while they were filming. And then afterwards, the order of the scenes also got some minor changes while they were editing. But still, when we go through the script, this time marks of the sequences, they fall into the timing perfectly, because this is the first sequence ends in, I don't know, 15 minutes. Then second sequence and something about half an hour in. Then the third sequence ends in 45 minutes or so, something like that. You will see how our religious, they were to keep this experience optimal for the audience. You don't have to do it that precise. Because there are many, many movies that are made without stopwatch in their hands. Like, I don't know, P. T. Anderson movies that are more than three hours and their sequences in those movies, some last longer, most of them last longer because it's three hours. And some last shorter, but it's kind of normal for art house movies because it's a different kind of audience, which is more patient than a blockbuster audience. With this movie, they knew that they want to make the maximum amount of money and make a character study movie. But also money was a thing, so that's why this sequence approach was so religiously enforced. Okay, So right off the bat, we have a preamble, which is something a little bit unusual for the script. I never done that. But I think that what they wanted to do is to cominicate to the readers, that they're not going to follow the comic book origin of the Joker. So they don't have to think about it while they're reading it, because they've been doing it for the studio executives. I've seen the April version of the script. I mean, the April version that has leaked. It's the version that they went into shooting with. It's a shooting draft and it had the same information upfront. I've never done it. You can do it. It's okay to have a little written letter to deal with the expectation of the readers. But we're not going to go through it. Right off the bat, I'm going to show you now how the movie begins. Right off the bat. We have the change of order of the scenes. The film begins with a scene that actually was written in the second sequence of the film, and this scene doesn't really work that much in the second sequence, but we'll get to that in the lesson about the second sequence. This is only about the first sequence. This is a scene where Arthur is sitting at his work and he's preparing for his act in front of a mirror. And we can actually see him having a very negative emotional response. We can see that he's disturbed. We get the point. I'm not going to play the scene right now. This scene is actually on the 25th page of the script. As, as I know that here, when I, when I was reading the script, I went back here and made a mark that this is the scene is right here. The next scene is the scene where he's on the street doing his work, right? You remember. And then the kids take his sign. He's he's running down the street. He's beaten up by the kids. And then we're at the social worker office, a psychologist. And this is where we begin the script, right? So this is here. Here he is in the, in the office. He's sitting across from overwork social worker. And whenever you're going to see the script is pretty much the same. Whenever I highlighted something in the script, you'll see that I always highlight things that really don't belong in the script, like we always read in the textbooks that you're not supposed to write, things that are not on the screan or not in the audio because it doesn't belong there. But I think you can break this rule whenever you feel like it's important. And here, it is important to let the reader know that "despite the laughter, there's a real pain in his eyes. Something's broken in him", right? This is something that you can read in the novel. No problem. But in the script, it's risky to write something like this. But here it's completely works because then the actor is reading it and he knows exactly what act. And Todd Phillips is a writer, director and he was writing it for himself. So I always break this rule because I'm also writing for myself and for my actors. This scene goes pretty much the same as in the script. They've crossed out some dialogue, but my guess is that they actually recorded it like here, and then it changed during the editing. Here is some improvise dialogue where Arthur says, when she asks him, and have you thought more about why you were locked up? He says, "Who knows", right? They changed the dialogue. Actually, it's very informative when you read the dialogues that were originally in the script because this is how you can kind of guess what they were going for in the scene. Well, this scene is to show you his problem. This scene is to show you that he's deeply disturbed, man, and this is the exact explanation. What is his problem. That he has this condition that he cannot stop laughing. There is also a snippet of his ambition as a stand-up comedian because they talk about it. You remember? And yet, this flashback from the mental hospital that you have seen a still from, It's not actually in the script. They've probably shot it when they were shooting the last seen, and they've edited it in. So we know that this is a experience for Arthur that he was locked up before. Here we are in the bus. I'm going to come back to the script once again. And here in the script, this is actually where we have this working scene. This is where these kids jumped him and beat him. And this is another, another interesting thing that it doesn't belong in the script. "Arthur's good at taking a building. That's stupid smile painted on his face." These are the little snippets of what our outer meant when he was writing the scene. As you can see, it's good to have them even though they're not allowed. Okay. Back to the city bus scene. It's pretty much the same as it was shot. And then we have the sequence of Arthur's coming back home. We see what kind of neighborhood He's living in. So we already know that he has a terrible pain inside him because of the first scene. Right. And when he was sitting in front of a mirror, then we know that he works on the street and gets beaten up by these kids, right? This is what happened in the film. I'm talking about the film. Then. We know exactly what's wrong with him that he has this condition, that he laughs when things are stressful for him. And then he has this situation in the past where he is rejected. Even when he tries to do something nice to a kid, he's rejected by the mother and ostracized by the people in the bus who look at him at the end as if he's destroying their day, right? Like, look at that. He's laughing and everybody are like: "What a guy. What a terrible guy." Why is this happening to me, right? So and now we have a sequence of him coming back home from his day at the psychologist's office. The stairs, he's going to climb the stairs many time in the movie. But he's going to come down once at the sixth sequence, which is cool. That he's climbing the stairs, the whole movie, but then at the end he's coming back. But then we'll get to that. And then we meet his mother, right? We see him check his mailbox and then we meet his mother. When you'll see the actual script, you're going to be surprised how detailed this sequence is portrayed in this script. Like... Maybe they've, they've changed something like the kids are not shouting at him. Or maybe they've cut it out during the editing. There's little changes, but then this sequence is exactly how it were in the script. And then he meets his mother, right? We see him taking his medication and serving his old mother, right? So now we have a full and complete image of the character because we can see the relationship that he's still her "little boy" and he's serving her, and she's waiting for a male, obviously, but she probably doesn't leave the apartment. That's what we understand. And they're going to watch a show together in her bed. Which is also a little bit creepy when they watching it like this. But anyway, let's go back to the script now. And during this script, "their nightly ritual", right? It's pretty much the same as it was, as it was described. And then during the show, We actually see the fantasy version of, of Arthur. During the show, which is great. Actually. Our surprise, I remember when I saw it for the first time, I was very surprised that suddenly we see Arthur in the Murray Franklin show and he is the part of the audience. And at first, I thought maybe it's recollection of something that happened. But this situation that is depicted in the script is so absurd that I at some point start to get that this is a fantasy. And here, the moment that Murray Franklin sees Arthur in the scene. The part that it's starting to be really, that I kind of start to understand that this is a fantasy. They've done kind of a different way. Then it's written in the script. I suppose there was something they've come up with on the set. It's actually hear that Arthur is screaming, that "I love you Murry". And then he, kind of, catches it and asks his light guy to put more light on the audience. They have a little conversation and then he invites Arthur to join them on the show. Like, I'm absolutely sure that this is a fantasy. I also highlighted here that it's something like little cue for an actor, I suppose. What he's supposed to act. It's another thing that really shouldn't be in the script, but works well. If you put those things in, "he talks more here and with more confidence, looks more at ease. Then we've seen him", right? Then Arthur joins Murray on a stage and they have a little conversation. This is actually very interesting because there is more in the conversation that they spoke about on the screen. Because here, Murraye Franklin says, "This was great, Arthur, Thanks. I loved hearing what you had to say, made my day." And he says, "Thanks Murray. ...You know, I grew up without a dad... ...too. He left right after I was born... ...I don't know what I ever did to him." When I was reading it, I thought, Okay, this was probably too much. They've probably recorded this dialogue, but it was too much. And then. Says to him, "Guy like that doesn't deserve you, Arthur." And then he proceeds with the dialogue that you actually see here in the movie. "You see all these lights,... ...the show, the love of the audience... ...I'd give it up in a heartbeat... ...to have a son like you." I felt when I was watching the movie, when he said it... I felt that it's, kind of, out of place and I'm not sure where did it come from, this dialog. And now when I'm reading the script, now I know exactly that they had little follow-up about Arthur's father figure problem, right? So at that point, then in the movie they hug. And then when we go back to the script, we actually see here that this little snippet of them watching the show that we see at the end that he's sitting on the bed with his mother here and she's like sleeping, right? We have it in the script earlier on. I think that the creators wanted to emphasize for the audience in the middle of the scene, that we're watching Arthur's imagination. But then during the editing, they decided that they're going to push it to the end of the scene just to make things a little bit more intact, I suppose. And this is additional confirmation that this was a fantasy, right? So this is the end of the first sequence. Now I'm going to tell you what the first sequence does. It's actually a "status quo". This is how it's called. Its "status quo". So what we learned in the first sequence is, who is the character? What is he about? What is his problem? Here, when this fantasy sequence ends, we know exactly what our problem is. So, the dramatic question is: "Is he going to find a father figure?" Is he going to find a father in himself? In a way. This is the dramatic question that we have about Arthur. Now, let's recap what we know about Arthur just from watching the scenes in the movie, right? Because now I'm going to emphasize that this is 15 minutes mark, right? As I told you before, this film is very symmetrical. This is a very optimized watching experience. Here. You learn that he has a pain inside him in the scene, in front of a mirror. Then on the street, you see that he's jumped by kids. That he's basically a push over clown and that he's good at taking a beating. It's actually line from the script. I'm quoting here. Then you get to know what is his problem, right? But he has, this condition. He is not crazy. He's thinking is a normal thinking. But he has this condition that he laughs in situations of stress and terror, and that he wants to be a stand-up comedian. This is also from the scene with a social worker, right? Then we get to see his way from the social worker to home, right. So we see the city and the situation that he lives in. We see him in front of the world, right? That he doesn't fit in. Then we see his surrounding and then we see how he lives, that he lives with his mother. And this is a confirmation that this guy practically has no social life. And he's desperately looking for a father figure that he's even fantasizing. And even if He's fantasizing, he still fantasizing like a little boy. Fantasy like this. You have them. when you're like 12, 13? You don't indulge thoughts like this when you're a grownup person. It's slightly narcissistic and cringy when he imagines Murray Franklin, his hero, the host of the night show, that he would give up everything for a kid like Arthur, this is absolutely cringy. So this is the status quo of the main character. So we see... we actually see that he hit rock bottom, right? That there is probably no hope for this guy, right? We can see it clearly in those scenes. And then in the second sequence, the journey begins in a way that the Herald is going to come and offer our character a way out of his situation. And the character is going to take it, or not. Usually, the character doesn't take it. In. Joker, he embarks on his journey. It will be very much about what is the movie, about? The underlying thought there is hidden behind the movie. And it's going to be highlighted in the second sequence. But this is something that we're going to talk about in next lesson. So thank you for listening. 5. Point of Attack: Hi and welcome. In this lecture we're going to focus on the second sequence, which I call point of attack. Let's go. Okay, so first, I'm going to recap the first sequence so we know where we are. I will now just skim through the scene so you remember what exactly happened. First sequence is a 'status quo' sequence. So, it's about the main state of affair of the main character, which is always some kind of misery of his, where we, kind of, see his problems. In this scene, the mirror scene at the beginning, where we see him putting on a makeup, He's unhappy, Right? You remember this expression and tear in his eye. So so this scene is about him being unhappy. Okay. This scene is about him being a victim where the kids take his sign and beat him up with the sign and kick him while he's lying. "He's good at taking a beating." If I remember correctly from the script, which is a quote, of course. And then we get to see what his real psychological problem is. It's not actually a neurological problem that he laughs wherever he is under pressure. So he's also mentally sick. And we also learned that the city is under big problem, which is the violence is rising and its "getting crazier out". There is another quote. So you know that the garbage is piling up. So the problem of our main character is actually a manifestation of what's going on in a city. Here we see him in the bus with the people where we can see that he's unable to fit in the society. And then we see the whole sequence of him coming back home. And this is where we actually see how bad the situation with the garbage is in the city and how really "goth" Gotham is, right? You see the stairs, you see the apartment that he's living in, and you see the mother, that he's not really independent. And then at the end of the first sequence, you actually see him fantasizing about the Murray Franklin who is late night show host. And you actually see that he is immature in his fantasies. So this is the setup, right? This is the status quo. This is who we are dealing with, right? We have this character. And now in this scene, he's going to be faced with a point of attack. This is how it's called. The ending of the first sequence and a beginning of the second sequence is point of attack. Which in this case is going to be a pistol that he's going to get from his friend. So as a recap of the scene, and I hope you have seen the movie. His colleague from the clown company is giving him a pistol. This is Randall, right? He heard that Arthur took a beating from some kids, and now he's giving him this bag with a pistol inside. And Arthur is actually very reluctant to take the pistol. But he, he takes it anyway because he shouldn't have a pistol because he's mentally ill. Right. But he takes it anyway. And then he's invited to Hoyt's office, who is the company owner. And then they have a little conversation. They've made some changes in the script. But it looks to me that it's been done on the editing part, where they just removed the dialogue that isn't really essential. So I'm not going to talk about it because it's, the second sequence is basically very similar in the script that wha you are, actually watching during the movie. So, this is him in Hoyts office, who is the company owner, right? And then he's here. We see him again when he releases his anger between the dumpsters. They actually wrote that we don't see what is he beating here, as you can see. But when I was watching it, I was absolutely sure that he's just kicking some garbage that is left out there, you know, like I I didn't had that that kind of thought that it might be "a cardboard box or a homeless person or a cat" or something like that. I never thought that it's somebody or an animal, you know, but it doesn't matter. Then, as you can see here, they've actually simplified the sequence of him coming back. You don't see as much as you have seen before when he was coming back from the pharmacy in the first sequence because we've already seen that you don't have that. So, what is important about the second sequence that we establish the subplots, right? So subplots are plots that give you a relief from the main tension. The main tension is him looking for a father figure, you know, his main problem. And the second here, the subplot is actually his relationship with Sophie. And this is what we're starting here, right? When he comes back home, he meets. Sophie, right. Like she catches an elevator with her daughter. They have a little conversation which is awkward. You remember the taxi driver gesture of blowing their brains out, as a joke. Which is super cringy when it's done by Arthur, right? Because it's out of paste and she was already leaving. So, here I marked something with a green marker. I mark things that don't belong to the script that shouldn't be written. But you actually do write them on the occasions to give your actors and the reader of your script a better understanding what is going on with the character. So here they wrote "He's a romantic at heart", right? When he stops Sophie. So this is how this subplot is established, right? They give you an understanding that Arthur has also other aspiration. And this ties in also to his dream of being a stand-up comedian. So he wants the girl, he wants to kiss the girl, and he wants to attack the world in a way that he's accepted, right? Because doing comedy is, is being accepted and being laughed at, but in a more positive way. The comedy stuff is reminded to you when he's talking with his mother, When he's helping his mother to take a bath, and it's actually a bitter scene because she doesn't think that he's funny. And this is how we get to the revolver. Again. After him giving a bath to his mother, we see a scene of him where he is alone and he's just relaxing, right? And this is the first time that we actually see him having inclinations to violence, which is super important because this is the main arc of the character, right? I think that the hidden message behind the Joker is that violence sets you free. And what they have done is actually they made a case of a society that produced a character like that. And when you see Arthur been absolute victim, you actually want him to get ahead. You actually want him to fight back because this is what he should do. You know, like, in your heart, you want the victim to stand up to the oppressors. But every time Arthur does it, he is out of line. He punishes people too much. He does it because he has no conscience. But this is the hidden meaning of the movie. The violence sets you free and it's not very positive. It's actually very negative and nihilistic. But it is what it is. This is what they were after and this is what they did. I mean, Todd Phillips and the other screenwriter of the script. Here we come back to the, to the gun situation. And he actually fires this gun. While he's dancing to the movie, he's actually having fun with a gun. And this is the first time that he actually feels this power. And now we are getting to the scene that was, that was omitted. But it's very in line with the main message of the movie. In Frank Daniel's approach, you always have the WANT and the NEED of the character, right? There is something that he consciously, WANTS. And there is always something that he unconsciously NEEDS. And here we know that he's going to be this Joker character. So we understand that he's going to embrace violence, that the violence sets him free and the violence is something that he NEEDS. This is how he's going to become himself, right? But then in many scripts, and most of the time, it's actually that what the character consciously WANTS is against what he NEEDS. And this is, kind of, the case here because in this scene, he's writing in his journal. While he's writing, trying to write a joke or something like this. He writes that he should, "I should kill myself." So we already know that he has a gun. He has a mind that kind of makes him want to kill himself, right? That this is the route or path, that he's heading. And they deleted the scene. I'm sure that they've shot it. I'm sure. But then during the editing, they've deleted the scene. And why is it? Because it's super negative. I mean, like: Are you going to like a character that wants to kill himself? I don't think so. That's what they did. And then we have this sequence of Arthur following Sophie. And it's also a little bit shorter, a little bit more simplified. They've shot more. So he follows her. So we know that he's following her. By the way, as a director's note, a little bit. When you have wide shot like that. Always cool to use color to emphasize what you want to emphasize. When you're beginning. She's very small character in this group. She's part of the wide shot. Therefore, they gave her this red dress and they've pushed it up during the post-production. So the red looks a little more saturated. And therefore, your eyes... in this shot, your eyes immediately find Sophie here, right? And because our friend Arthur here, Here's a very much more in the palette of what you see. A color palette of what you see is kind of It's bluish, but it's also this yellowish, brownish wall, right? Like he's hidden in the city, in this jacket of his. That's why they've changed the focus towards his character as you can see now. Okay, so we see the Sophie, we see that even though that it's a wide shot, you have no problem of finding her and seeing him, And then the third game is the situation. They thought, okay, we have this many stunts and we have this wide shot. How can we bumpe that up that even if somebody is not going to notice her, how can we put a little bit more attention to her? Okay. We're going to run with a taxi honking the horn and her rushing towards the sidewalk. So this is just a little tangent note on the side. It doesn't really matter for the script. Anyway, after Arthur following her, we actually see him in the comedy club listening to some jokes and it's cringy because we're absolutely sure that he's not following the jokes because he's laughing at absolutely wrong moments. And then you also see the cringy notes that he has about the body language that he's using, about the slick hair that he has, right? Something that you're going to see when he will be becoming the Joker later on in the second culmination. So, yeah, that's a little buildup for this. Here. It just a little scene, right? With no detail like this, like they've added it. That he's laughing in a wrong moments and the, the notes that probably Joaquin Phoenix wrote it. In the effort to go into the character, right? And they probably on the set, I thought that okay, we're going to make a close up on it, right? Okay. Now we're going to dive back into the mom's apartment when he's sitting at the desk at the kitchen and he's writing his jokes and then Sophie arrives, right? And this is the imaginary part. At this point. We don't even know that this is imaginary, you know, like we know that he's kind of a pain. And then it's he's coming back to, you know, jokes about him killing himself a little bit because then he's "his death and sense" and all that. You know, we don't we understand that his jokes are kind of a way of him releasing some steam. And then Sophie arrives. And we don't know that he imagined this situation. We, before. We know that he has tendency to fantasizing. This situation is presented for us in the way that you're not supposed to think that this is imaginary, right? Because it's a regular dialogue. He's a little bit more cocky In this situation here. He has a little bit more better body language and he's not cringy. And now we have the the hospital scene. But before the hospital scene, you actually have the scene where he is preparing in front of the mirror. This is the scene which is opening the movie. Now, why would they move this scene to the beginning? And he's so unhappy, right? By what happened. Why would you have a scene where he's super unhappy just before he had a really nice conversation with a girl that he's romantically interested in. It's upbeat moment for this character because he finally met his love interest on the same terms. She actually said that" "Okay, whenever you're ready with your stand-up comedy, I'm keen to go and see it." So this is why you don't really need a scene where he's crying in front of a mirror basically, right? When he's a misfit. I think that they thought that it's going to be cool to show him suffering in front of a mirror just before going to the hospital to dance in front of a kid, maybe it would be a little bit more painful to watch him while he's dancing. But it's really not necessary, and it's not necessary here as well. In the second sequence. Because we already, we're already invested in, in his story, right? So what happens here is he, he loses the gun in front of the kids. The kids see him having this this pistol on him and everybody around also see the pistol. You can see the negative faces of the adults. And so we know that he didn't do himself a favor, right? And going back to the script, the next scene is where we see him talking to Hoyte. And this scene, I would like to feature the scene and we're going to see it in a moment. I'm going to show you some cool stuff that is going on in the scene. Even though it was written very similarly to what they've have shot on a set. They've edited out some of the dialogue. What they did is they removed the first: "Hoyt, please. I love this job." They've moved it to the beginning of the scene. And it was done during the editing. Anyway I'm going to show you now the scene. "Hoyt please, I love this job." Okay. So this is the, this is the line that they took from the ending of the scene and put it in here. And now he's listening. And then you're going to see a wider shot with the scene from outside. "Why you brought a gun to a hospital?" -"It's a part of my act now." -"Thats Bullshit..." This is how it's supposed to begin. Besides Randall told me that you tried to buy a 38 of him last week. You can hear how displeased he is. "Randall told you that?" and this is how it was written in the script, Arthur is taken aback that Randall would do that to him, right? So this is the, this is how he was betrayed and this is, "Youre a liar." And that's why he comes back here, right from this shot. He comes back to the right ending of the scene. "You're fired", right? And then here in the script, it gets much more humiliating for Arthur. Hoyt then tells him that he wants to, you know, him to repeat what he just said, which is super violating for Arthur. And I think that they thought that maybe they went too far with it and that they don't want to make him such a victim. That's why they made a little step back, Which is something that you can do if you have seen shot like that because here we have two shots. We have a wide shot and we have a close up on the character. So, every time you have a wide shot like this its actually a good opportunity to saturate your audience with what is going on in the city. Because the city is one of the characters. The apocalyptic version of the city. Every wide shot is an opportunity to show you how bad things have gone. You have the garbage, what you hear in the news so you know that there are the garbage people on strike. You have the prostitutes here, right? You have the graffiti. Why not? Right. It's a new graffiti, but okay. And then where is it? Yeah. Here you have the super-rat. You have the huge rat here. Like this is CG. Come on. There was no rat wrangler there. You know, this is just the detail that they thought that is amazing. And yes, we are going to pay a few thousand dollars for somebody to add it to design a rat and to put a rat in here, right? Because we want our audience to see how bad things have gone in, Gotham right. And it was actually a painstaking job too, because the camera is moving, right? You see, you see, you see that the camera is moving. So it's not cheap because they had to model in 3D what is going on here right in the shot, so they can, so they have the rat properly stabilized. This is the directors way of properly taking care of the details. I know that I'm going off road a little bit out here, but I'm also a director. So you may as you can see, the camera is moving here, right? See that. This is something that I don't really like because this shot actually would work the same way if the camera wasn't moving. Why they do it is because it looks cooler, but there is no message behind it. I mean, like it's a pointless movement, right? And it's just done to make it look cool. And that's it. So I personally don't do it. I also don't do it because my budgets are lower, much, much, much lower than Todd Phillips. And it's also It's always more hassle to set up the tracks for a dolly. So, so that's why. But I also don't like when other filmmakers do it just to please my eye because I want every movement of the camera and every cut tell the story. And I don't think this does it. I would like to look at what time we are here, This is 29 minutes. So this is the end of the second sequence. Our main character just hit rock bottom. He's being fired from his job for bringing a gun. And now the first act is just going to end. Now in the next scene, he's going to encounter the guys from the Wall Street in the subway. And this is the second sequence. So as you can see, this film is very symmetrical because as I told you before, the sequence approach, right? It's like you have, if this is a movie and it's a linear thing, right? Then you have this eight sequences, right? And, and where we are now is we're here. We're ending the first act. This is a, we know the character, we know his problems, we know all the subplots. I mean, Sophie, Now, we know that what he wants, that he's probably want to find a father figure or resolve the problem with a father figure with the violence. This is what this is what he NEEDS. It's actually what he needs, but he's, what he wants is Sophie and being a stand-up comedian. So, but he's also a victim, right? And this is everything that's going on here, right at the beginning of the second sequence is him acquiring a gun. What I would say that another idea for point of attack in this situation, which is more in line with his story. I suppose, which is discovering violence as a great tool to manage your anger and solve your problems, right? The other way that they could have done it would be, for example, is Randall would actually approach him. And if he would say, "Listen, I have I know who did this to you. I mean, like, I know which kids actually attacked you and I know where they live. We should beat the, beat them, you should avenge yourself." And in this situation, our main character, Arthur would say, "No, thank you." "No, I'm not ready", you know, and this is how it's usually done. Because this is the Herald approaching our character. What you wanna do when you're switching from the first sequence to the second sequence is you want the stakes to be higher. That's why Harald approaches our main character and says, "Listen, let, let's do it. Let's go. Let's, let's face your problems head on." And the character is not yet ready because he haven't reached rock bottom, right? And this is what happens here in the second sequence. So what happens, instead of what I just imagined could, they could have wrote is that they wrote that he accepted the gun like he has the gun now. You know, he doesn't yet know what it means, but he has the gun. And now this consequences of him having the gun make him lose his job and actually hit rock bottom. And now after 30 minutes, right. You can see the the the the mark, right. Like they knew what they were doing. Like after 30 minutes, we need to change or our audience is going to feel that we have dragging things. So therefore, they've started his transformation. Now he's going to meet this Wall Street guys and use violence for the first time. And it's going to go great for him. So this is it. This is all the subplots in the second sequence. All the sub-bullets are now established. There is not going to be another subplots because we already know that he has a romantic interest in Sophie. We, we know that he is an aspiring comedian that hasn't had a debute, that he has a father problem. There is two fathers there. Of course, the most important father, which is Murray, because he has been in their life with the mother every week or I don't know how many times they watch the show. Then there is the other father figure, which is Mr. Wayne. But our character doesn't really know about it, that it's going to be a father figure for him. And then there is the hidden father which actually did him the harm, which is, you know, traumatize him. So he now has the laughing problem and he doesn't also feel regret or remorse after doing wrong to other people. So we are ready now for our character to step behind the curtain and change something in his life. And this is what we are going to be analyzing in the third sequence, which is going to be a big set piece. Usually, usually it's a big set piece, but then explain it there. Thanks for watching my lecture on second sequence, point of attack. See you in the lecture about the third sequence. Thanks. 6. First Attempt: Hi again. In this lecture we are going to focus on the third sequence, which is the beginning of the second act. I call it 'first attempt'. First, I'm going to recap the first two sequences that we spoke about in the previous videos. You remember the first sequence 'status quo' sequence, which is where we learn about Arthur's condition and that he is a sad person that he is struggling in life. We know that he's also a victim. You remember the scene where he got beat up by some kids. We know about his condition from he's meeting with the social worker. And we also know that he's a striving comedian that wants to perform stand-up comedy. We also know that he has problems with blending in the society. That he's condition is stopping him from enjoying his life. We also know that he is taking care of his mother, that he grew up without a father, and that he sees a father figure in the late night show host, Murray Franklin, who is played by Robert De Niro. So, yes. This is our setup. This is what we begin with. Then at the first point of attack, which is a technical term for something is changing in the script, and the second sequence is beginning. He gets a little present from a colleague from work, Randall, this is Randall. He gives him a gun because he heard that he got beat up by some kids and he actually gives him a pistol, so Arthur can defend himself. Here in the scene with his boss we learned that he's struggling at work as well, that he's not really liked by his colleagues and his boss doesn't want to fire him, but he's giving him a little bit of warning, right? Also as a part of the second sequence, we learn about his affection towards Sophie, about his love interest. And then we get to see him follow Sophie, see other comedians performance. We get to see him meet Sophie. Where they set up a meeting, kind of a date, whenever our Arthur is going to perform. And then he accidentally drops a gun at the hospital where it's seen by the kids and the staff of the hospital. And this finalizes the second sequence. So this is where we meet Arthur now at the subway, taking a train going home. This is how the third sequence begins. Now, I'm going to go over what does the third sequence do in most of the films. So, the third sequence is the sequence where for the first time the character takes a different approach toward his problems. Which means that he actually does something differently. In this case, Arthur for the first time, uses violence as a tool. In most of the films the character is taking a different approach to his problems and he fails miserably. But in this film, in particular, he actually wins by using violence because this film is about Arthur losing his humanity, Therefore, he's going to gain a lot of positive things in his life because he used violence. And this is how this third sequence is going to differ from many other movies. So, this is the function of the third sequence in Joker, what we're about to see is how great violence is in overcoming life obstacles and becoming yourself for Arthur. Okay, So let's dive in into the first set piece. Set piece is actually a couple of scenes. I don't want to use a 'sequence' word because we are using it as these eight chapters of the script. So, I don't want to say that it's a sequence of a scene. So let's just say that it's just a couple of scenes grouped together as one progression where we actually see the character handling his problem. So, the first set piece. The 'Joker' movie is the subway killing seen. So here in the subway, this scene has more than three acts because at first, Arthur is just sitting in a subway trying to connect. He actually sees a lady, right? He sees the large lady here. And he's making eye contact and he's being ignored. Like you can see here. This is the first part of the scene, right? Then he sees the situation that happens on the other side of the cart, which is a violent situations of these three rich guys, who are being rude to the lady reading a book. And he does nothing. So this is his reaction towards it. So, these three guys are throwing French fries towards the lady because she's not giving them the attention that they want, because they're drunk and clearly after a party, right? What Arthur does is he burst into his obsessive laughter. So, as we know, the laughter is his problem and this laughter is part of his sickness. But these guys who are on the cart don't know that. And they think that he's a freak or he's being funny, or it's funny for him, right? So, they shift their attention towards him, even though he doesn't want it. He wants to stop the laughter, right? See that? He doesn't want the attention from these guys. And this actually does something positive because this lady has a moment to leave. This is where we actually would see her looking to Arthur, to do something. Here we see her leaving. These guys attention is already drawn towards Arthur and they're going to approach Arthur. Now, The song, right? We have the song, one of them starts the song by, I think it was Billy Short. "Send in the clowns", right? His, having fun with it, right? And it's also like this in the script. The script is super accurate, about this scene. This set piece has been planned in a lot of detail, right? He sings the song, which is a part of the scene. Whenever the violence bursts, they stop. They stop singing the song. And you remember the same way. They beat him up before he grabs his card about his condition. They actually attacked him and beat him up throwing him down on the floor of the subway cart. And yes, we have seen this scene before, right? We have seen him getting a beating from the kids. So, here it's a little buildup. Look at this, look at this shot. It's actually the only shot that is a foreshadow of the outburst of violence that's going to happen in the moment, right? Right? They are kicking him. And now suddenly, boom. The other, the other one gets shot. So this turning point was made by a surprise. This is a difference between suspense and surprise. And this is example how you can use a surprise in a scene. Because Todd Phillips, the director, decided that he doesn't want to remind you about the gun that Arthur has in his pocket, probably right. At no point he showed you taking out the gun from the pocket. Arthur wasn't sitting on the cart and reaching out for the gun, you know, like the gun wasn't showed to you as a option of the situation, you know, like something that Arthur is thinking of using it. The only foreshadow of this was actually this frown on his face that you can see that he's getting more and more angry. And this is the difference between the suspense and surprise. And I think that in this situation is kind of elegant to use surprise. I also did this in one of my short movies, and it worked like a charm. So, what Arthur does is he kills two guys on a cart and wounds the third guy. And I'm going to go back to the script and show you one thing that they did differently, which is they've planned on continuing the song as Arthur starts shooting at the guys. The rich guys, the wall street guys, they wanted to transition from the guy who is singing the song to the original score. Which means, you know, to play the song as a, I don't know, voice-over? "When Bobby Short is singing and he picks, picks up. Whenever the violent Wall Street guy ended singing the song. They've resigned in, they haven't done that. They actually used a original score that you can actually hear here, right? The very dramatic one, I think it happened because the music in a movie should reflect emotions. In the actual scene on the screen that they shot. They went for the emotions of Arthur, right? This music that is in there, it's very dramatic, is very intense and it's actually gives you a little bit of insight how Arthur feels, He feels dread, like he doesn't know what just happened. It's a profound moment for him, right? And if they would put Bobby Short singing this, kind of nice and steady and pleasing song about the clowns, then it would make a huge contrast with what you see on the screen, right? Because what you see is dramatic. I would say that it would show you, if you assume that this music is showing Arthur's internal life, I would assume that this music is already selling him as a complete psychopath, right? Because like nobody normal would be, you know, having this kind of a song while they're killing someone, right? So in this regard, I think that they've made a wise decision in this moment, because Arthur is not there yet. He's not a complete psychopath. What he actually did is frightening for him. This scene is actually a set, piece here. We have seen the change in the scene because he just murdered these three guys and wounded the third guy in the leg. And the third guy is running away. And now he has this little confused moment, right? Let's just see this little confused moment where he doesn't know what to do. "Maybe I'm going to shoot myself." And then he hears the guy again and decides: "No, I have to I have to hunt him down because now it's me or him", right? And this is very subtle. I think that Joaquin Phoenix did this very beautifully. And now, whenever he decided, Joker decided that he's going to hunt the guy down. Now this guy is a victim and he's the predator. The scene is not done yet. And we've already seen three changes in the character because first he was a victim, then he reacted, then he was confused at now he decided, "I'm going to be the predator and I'm going to hunt the third guy down." Okay. So, as we know, he because you've seen the movie, right? Like I hope you're not watching this, not seeing the movie because it's going to spoil it for you. So, you've seen the movie and you know that he's going to hunt him down on train station and unload a full magazine to his back and effectively kill him. And then he's going to run off into safety. And then in the public restaurant, we see him dancing, right? This is the last change in the, in the character in this particular set piece. Look how rich this is. Because second ago he was absolutely afraid. And now we see him transferring into a little dance with this camera move first. So, this is him becoming the Joker for the first time. This is him feeling good because he just defended himself. He's not a victim anymore. So we see this little dance which was improvised. This scene, the way it was written in the script that I have here that they've written during the shooting period, It's the dance was probably improvised, but the situations that they've begin with working with, because I also have this script from April, which was written before the shooting period. Arthur would run into this public restroom and he would throw up. He would be still afraid. And then at the end of the scene, he would actually transition into feeling a little bit better, but nothing like this, because he, he actually relishes the violence that he had done, his, enjoying himself, recreating it in his own memory in this little dance. scene. Now, we're going to talk about the aftermath of the set piece. So we already know that during the set piece, he changed something in his behavior completely. For the first time, he was violent against his attackers. What the director did for the character: He builded a scene where this outburst of violence seemed like response, which is kind of warranted even though he overdid it. Because like, I don't think that these three guys deserve to die. We know that, but we know Arthur as well. And we know that he's... what kind of condition that he's in, right? So now we're going to talk about the aftermath of this, of this change in Arthur, right? And as I said before, the aftermath is going to be amazing for him. The first thing we see is like his him meeting Sophie. Yeah. Right. You remember he just comes into the building that he lives in and she just opened the door and she's already waiting for him to kiss her, right? She was waiting. Okay. Then we see a scene where Arthur just came back to pack his stuff. This scene is pretty accurate to what we have seen before, the script. Because there are some changes, but not very much. But the outcome is different because they're in the script. He just walks out and he or she, he actually punches out. Here, he actually destroys the clock thing that measures the time that they, they've been working. he punches the thing and destroys it, with his fist, right? So as we know, Arthur is already more powerful and now he leaves this place. Yeah, This wasn't in the script, so they probably shot at, during the shooting period. That was somebody's idea to do something like this. And now we go into the scene that has been shot, has been written obviously before it was shot, but has been deleted. And you haven't seen. I encourage you to read the scene. It's a confrontation with Randall. So, what happens is that after leaving this doors, Arthur comes on the street and then Randall catches up with him. Randall is the guy that gave him the gun. And Randall has his suspicions about Arthur killing those three guys on the subway. And what happens is that Arthur basically confesses to Randall that he did it. He does it in an ambiguous way, but he is super cocky while doing it, right? And they've deleted the scene. What I'm going to do is I'm going to show you how the scene was made. It's aPaparazzi material from the set that I found on YouTube. It says deleted scenes. The video name is deleted scenes. You can see it here, you can find it. No problem. So look at this art or is leaving. He's spitting on thedoors. Then he walks sideways. Great scenography, right? Beautiful set. This has been painted by the way and textured. So you see Randall talking to him. He has some reservation if he has problems with the gun and he's afraid that Arthur might have committed these crimes. And what we see is that Arthur is super cocky about, to Randall. And he's not yet ready to be as cocky as he is in this scene. Like you can see how he's reacting. We don't hear the dialogue in this because they were far away and they've been shooting this using zoom lenses. Right? Okay. That and at the end of the scene, he grabs his nose. And Randall is grabbing the nodes, but the nose is actually here. If you pay attention, he stomped on it with his shoe. For the nose, he stomped on his nose. And then the actor is pursuing the nose further away. It's something that you actually do for the camera. You know, it looks, it looks really bad from this angle because this actor, he have seen where the nose went and he pursued the nose elsewhere where, as if he would see the nose running away from him or something like that. So it looks very bad from this angle, but it looks really good for the camera. I'm sure. It's actually very normal, that actors play for the camera, not for the people that stand... not for the crew. I would say, you know, this is like they're trusting the editor, they're trusting the director. And I'm sure that Todd Phillips had their trust. So they decided like, Okay, I'm going to throw the nose on the sidewalk and I'm going to, you know, move pass it and pretend that it's somewhere else. So I encourage you to see the scene and we can now move forward for the other gains that Arthur got from, from the outburst of violence. So, then we have the Penny scene where he and watches the Repercushions for the city of his crimes. So, he knows he knows that his crime, I guess went viral, that people are actually seeing this as a positive thing. Thomas Wayne, what he does is he uses this unfortunate term and he says that the people who are applauding the murderer are clowns. The pore of the Gotham are clowns. So in this way, the people start to identify what the Joker, and he actually starts a movement. So, It's actually Thomas Wayne who starts the Joker movement in Gotham, with his unfortunate sentence on the telly. Later on, we see him at the social workers office, but it's a completely different scene. Then we've seen before. Before he was a victim. Here, here's a little bit more cocky. He even says that people start, to notice him, which is good for the character, which is bad for his morality, because he has done something super immoral because he murdered 3 guys, right? And he's feeling good about it. What we get out of this scene as well, is that he's not going to be meeting this social worker, because they are shutting down these this operation. And she actually says that the city doesn't care about people like him or her. So, he learns that he's not going to be going to the psychologist's office anymore. And why they did it? Because they didn't need this thread anymore, right? Like you don't need a psychologist anymore in this movie. What we see next is him performing live, right? Another good stuff that's is going to happen to him. Yeah, the comedy club. And "he's always climbing uphill", right? You remember as like when he was going in from the backstage, he's always using the stairs because as I told you before, when we were talking about the first sequence, he's actually very cool that he's walking uphill all the time. Apart from the last time that we see him on this huge stairs and he's going down dancing. So, he performs in front of the comedy club, which is super cringe. His jokes are off. Not funny. He's laughing while he's doing this, while being seen by his love interest. So this is, and this is very embarrassing. And the scene ends in a very weird manner because we, we see and hear people laughing from his horrible jokes. And the music starts to swell. And we can actually see that his act worked. And it's kind of surprising. But we don't see the actual evidence because we don't really see people laughing. It's something like, I believe, that we can imagine that this Laughter of people who are in there, he could hear them laughing in his own head. And because Sophie is also imagined in that scene, therefore, they probably decided that they can actually show her because that is not going to interfere with the logic of the scene. And we see them on the street talking about about the murders on the subway. You remember the, you remember the, when they see the headlines of the killer clown. And Arthur is actually seeing person wearing a mask in the cab. So the earlier version of the script actually had this Sophie stand on the killings because she's very pro killing, I suppose, because she was fired from her bank job. There was more scenes there when Arthur followed her to the bank in the first script, what he actually did is he actually went into the to the, to the bank and spoke with Sophie there, and he saw her manager who kind of hearing on her while she was working. She was obviously not interested. What we actually learn in the next scene, one, while they're sitting and eating, that she was laid off from her work. She was fired just like Arthur. So this actual stands on the killing by Sophie, what she's saying, that the "guy who did this as a hero", "three less pricks in Gotham City, yahoo only a million more to go" is actually explained by her being laid off from her bank job and not liking the bank people anymore. So, after this scene, we see them dining here. She would tell Arthur about being laid off from her work. It was actually a bigger scene than this because here it's a little snippet of her laughing and diggling at him. It was more cringy. This scene was actually much more cringy in the original script because Arthur couldn't really hold the conversation. And he would burst to his laughter. And she would have to wait until he would finish to laugh. And you would see that this date isn't working. By the way. Another great moment of the Gotham City because you see the garbage piled up and you see the 1980s car moving by. Then you see the water on the glass, which makes glass seem more visible and there is more texture to it. It's something that we, filmmakers do to make our frames more interesting. It's a very common thing to spray some water onto a glass. But this, but let's not digress anymore. We see Sophie and Arthur hanging out and being social and, and nice to each other. And this is how this sequence ends. Because here in another scene he's going to get to know that he's actually, Thomas Wanes some from a letter from his mother. So this is going to be the beginning of the fourth sequence. And I'm going to show you here the script and the end of the third sequence is actually at 46 and 22 seconds. So it's very symmetric because another sequence that lasted 15 minutes, right? So they knew what they were doing. They've timed it. They just timed it, right? What is another cool thing that they actually have written the sentence that tells us, where are we really in the... They've summed up, the whole sequence because Arthur stares at her when they were dyning. "This may be the best night of his entire life", right? So I would suppose I would suppose that this is this shot. This is the Joaquin Phoenix interpretation of this sentence, right? This is him in love. And as well you can see it's in the green because it belongs in the novel, not in the script, but, you know, break the script... break the rules, break the rules in a creative way. So discovered the amazing gains of being violent for Arthur. So to recap, I'm just going to tell you that this character made a very violent decision to shoot the guys on the, on the subway cart. And this actually propelled him to be more happy, to be more in-control, right? To be more Himself. Because we don't know this yet, because he feels no remorse, because he's a psychopath, right? His humanity was thought to him by other people. And it doesn't apply to him because he's this, you know, dancing guy. He doesn't have moral compass like we do, right? And this outburst of violence actually gave him the satisfaction of taking control of his own life. And this is actually what is original to the Joker movie that this character is descending... He's descending away from humanity. He's becoming more because he's becoming himself a little bit like a "coming of age" movie because he's coming becoming himself. But what is he becoming is actually very negative. And as I told you before, this movie is that "violence sets you free", right? Violence makes you more powerful. And to make that point, in the third sequence, where usually the character tries his best, tries a new approach and fails miserably, because he's trying to become a better person, more complete, more powerful. He wants to do good things. In this particular example, the Joker who wants to free himself from his humanism, is becoming more powerful by doing the wrong things. That's why the third sequence is a series of positive outcomes for the Joker. Thank you for watching this lesson about the third sequence. See you later in the lesson about the fourth sequence, which is a first culmination, also known as a midpoint. See you there. 7. First Culmination: Welcome again. In this lecture, I'm going to tell you about 4th sequence, which is also known as a 'midpoint'. First, let me give you a quick recap of the first three sequences that we've talked about during the previous lessons. Today we're going to start when he's reading the letter where he discovers that he's Thomas Wayne sun. But before that, we meet Arthur as a victim. He has mental problems. He's on the treatment. He has an ambition to become a stand-up comedian, but he doesn't blend into the society really well. He also lives with his mother and he has daddy issues because he's still looking to find an identity. He sees this father figure in a late night show host, Murray Franklin, who is played by Robert De Niro. And He's fantasizing about it as well. So you can see in this particular scene that I'm showing you right now where he's hugging his father. We will be talking about the father thing here a lot. That's why I am expanding right now about the father problem of our character. So then in the second sequence here, receives a gun. He receives a pistol, right? From his friend, this, this guy, Randall, and he's reluctant on taking it, but he takes it. Afterwards we learn that he's, has also some ambitions in his love life because he is romantically interested in one of his neighbors who is a single mom. Sophie is her name and you can see it in this scene, but he doesn't know how to spark her interest. And there is also the latter thing. Because his mom wants him to deliver the letter to Thomas Wayne, who is major politician and a wealthy guy in Gotham City. He's planning on running to become a mayor of Gotham. What's happening in the second sequence is that he drops the gun that he received before from Randall in children's hospital. And therefore, he loses his job, which he actually really likes. Then he murders three reach guys in the subway. Which is the turning point that begins the third sequence. Because for the first time he's not a victim in this movie. For the first time he discovers violence as a way of dealing with his problems. He doesn't feel any remorse, which is depicted in the scene when he's dancing in the bathroom. And then afterwards, good things start to happen for our character because he now is more confident. That's, that's why he is now able to kiss the girl, I suppose. And he's also more cocky during the confrontation in his workplace. This is him destroying, the clock. He is punching out. And this is Thomas Wayne. And here we see him understanding that there are people who are actually identifying with him. And this is the situation where Thomas Wayne is calling people who applaud the murderer of the rich guys in the subway, clowns. And this actually begins a movement in Gotham city. Because the city is already in the decay. The system is in a decay. This is he's meeting with his psychologists who says that they're not going to see each other anymore because the city is shutting down the programme of help for people like Arthur, who are troubled with their psychological issues and psychiatry issues, I suppose. And then afterwards he, he performs in comedy club, which begins very poorly, and then at the end goes really well. And he has his great, great date afterwards where Sophie basically falls in love with him and he is super happy. So, this is how we end up the third sequence. If you would look at the script, they actually made this little line here that "this may be the best night of his entire life." It's the Arthur's life, right? And this is the end of the third sequence. So what's going to happen now is the fourth Sequence, which is going to change everything. Because now the world will start to crumble for Arthur and the world is going to catch up with him. It's not going to be as beautiful as it happened in the third sequence. So, what happens in the fourth sequence In most of the movies. The function of the sequence is: Our character has to have a first culmination. So, the first full on confrontation with the antagonist. And in this case, as we talked before, what our character WANT is, to find his father, to find his identity, and to kill himself. Which is the two WANTS that he has. It's actually, it feels like it's all over the place. But it's actually not, because in seven'th sequence they, kind of, wrap these things together, which I'll get to in the seventh sequence. So, it's actually really elegant that they made him want two things at the same time. In this sequence usually what happens is that our character is confronted with the antagonist, but it's not the main antagonist. It's usually the right-hand man. This is what happens in those films, action movies, right? The Joker, there is no, there is no antagonist actually in this movie. Therefore, he's going to face two of his most conscious, WANTS, which is killing himself and finding the figure. This fourth sequence of the Joker is actually about finding the father figure and the right-hand men In this plot, in this story, is the Thomas Wayne character. Because what he's about to learn is that his father figure is Thomas Wayne. His supposed father figure is Thomas Wayne. And this is what happens here in the scene where he comes back after the date with Sophie, comes back home, he sees his mother sleeping and he wakes her up. They have a little dance, and then she goes to sleep and then she tells him, "Listen, there is this letter I wanted you to give to Mr. Wayne or send it to Mr. Wayne. The other thing was in the script before, and it was actually shot extensively during the shooting period. And I know about it because I've seen the additional materials, paparazzi materials, that we're going to dive into. Now, I'm going to pull it up for you. So, and it's a YouTube video that I found. This is Arthur. At the end of the first sequence. This was the original intended end of the first sequence ,where we meet him. He's trying to deliver this letter. And it was like set piece, because there was a sequence of scenes where he would go to the office of Mr. Wayne and then he would speak with the receptionist, and then the receptionist would tell him that Mr. Wayne is busy and he's not here. And just and just throw him out of the building. So, this was in the script, the April version of the script. Anyway, They probably shot an extent of the scene in the office where Arthur would actually wait outside for Mr. Wayne. And yeah, I'm going to just show you this. That he's waiting for Mr. Wayne to show up and leave the building. By the way, this is a tape that you use when you're shooting outside and you're shooting in the city, you just close the shooting place. So, people which are not in the costumes are not going to interfere with your shoot. This is a little digress. Anyway. He's desperate in trying to deliver the letter. So you see here, when he's running, he's running and falling onto this mat. Again, it's probably looked super well from this angle. Angle. Probably heart it. His ankle here. It probably looked very good for the camera. So, as you know, they've intended a lot more for the letter, but they've decided that if he's trying to mail it, it's actually enough for him to try to read it, at some point of the movie. So, here you can see the scene that he's looking into the letter and that he could see this, you know, "your son and I need your help". And then he finally understands that Mr. Wayne is actually is father. Yes. And... then they have a really big fight where she has to escape to the bathroom. And now our character is ready for his first culmination. He's ready to find Mr. Wayne, and that's what he does. The next thing we do is we seem on the train looking at the newspaper, with Mr. Wayne, right? He's getting to the suburbs. And by the way, look at the newspapers here. "Vigilante clown", "kill the rich". This is how they smuggle some of the, what is going on in the city into the scene, because this particular scene has a few different things to do, right? And every time you make a wide shot, you want to saturate your audience with the mood. So, you have this guy's. You have this businessman who are traveling to suburbia after they finish their work, right? And you also have these newspapers that you can actually show your audience. Not only tell them in the TV that our characters are watching, but you can actually show them that this is what this city is going through right now, right? So what he does is he removes the picture of Mr. Wayne and little Bruce and then we see the scene, the cringy scene of him touching little Bruce. And he is confronted by Alfred, who doesn't want to hang out and tells him about... They actually speak about the mother. Alfred remembers her working in the mantion. I think she was a housekeeper. But he doesn't reveal yet the official story. Right? He doesn't reveal that Arthur was adopted. He just says, No, your mother is crazy, go away and never come back. So our character knows... Arthur knows that he has no business coming to his house because he's not going to be invited in. And he also gets a little bit violent in the scene. Then, as I told you before, the world will be crumbling for our character, right, in this fourth sequence. Because the third one was, he was super happy with the outcome of the violence. This is what we're getting at. And the fourth sequence is the world catching up with him. So, you can see now that his mother is taken to a hospital, right? And in the hospital he is confronted by two cops, right? To police men that are looking for, for the murderer of the three rich guys in a, in a subway. This is another negative element. And then he's being made fun of on the very show that he loves so much. So the clip from his performance is being broadcasted there. And he's being shown as a terrible comedian. So Murray Franklin, his, you know, his main Daddy... I suppose his main antagonist. If you look at the function of him in the script, is his a main antagonist makes fun of him. So, this is the low point of the character, right? Like we see him looking at Thomas Wayne here as his father, right? You can see you can see this because he believes his mother, that he's actually a son of a rich guy, of this rich guy. And this is what he wants to do. He wants to confront his father right now. So he goes to through this rally. In this scene where and when he's going to find the first father, the right-hand man of the antagonists. Which is in this case Thomas Wayne. And this is also a set piece. This is the first culmination. For the first time the character goes out and tries to find his real father. So he actually gets into the building where they have a rally in front. And it's written, you know, the situation in the lavatory, which are we getting at, right? Which is the midpoint, which is the first culmination. And it's also a big set piece because he sees, here, he sees Charlie Chaplin movie. He sees how rich people enjoy the Charlie Chaplin movie. And then he finds his, supposed it father in a lavatory and they have a little confrontation. And the father character here, Thomas Wayne, is super rude to him. He's being portrayed as an absolute asswhole. And when we see this guy, he was supposed to be played by Alec Baldwin. So, I guess they went with a similar actor as Alec Baldwin. So you can see in this situation, what is revealed to Arthur Is that is that he's probably crazy. His mother is super crazy and that he was adopted. Our main character receives a lot more information about what happened to him. And he's treated very badly by this guy, After this situation, we are actually very certain that this guy thinks that he's something better, that other people. This is Arthur cracking up during the situation. And then Arthur receives a punch from Thomas Wayne. He doesn't breake his nose. He just punches him in the face and threatens him, that if you're going to come to my house, I'm going to kill you, or something like that. So this is the midpoint. This is the first struggle of Arthur of finding his father. So, that's that. There is also another concept that I want to talk about at the end of this. Because we went through the movie. We didn't go through the script because the script is pretty much accurate in this sequence. Well, they've, deleted some stuff, but it could have been also deleted during the editing process to, you know, to make things more quicker and more punchy. They may be deleted the stuff that I felt is a little too much or maybe wasn't as subtle as they wanted it to be. You know, or maybe it didn't work. Maybe it didn't work with the actors. This is something also that you do if you can. When you help the performance of the actor by cutting out the stuff that they didn't play as well as you wanted them to play. If it's not crucial, then you cut it out. So, what I want to talk about now is, when are the turning points happen in the scenes. In any script actually, you have this line we are hear now, right? This is the midpoint. This is the first culmination. This is where Arthur is now, right? So this is, this is the point. Here, he received the gun, a pistol. Here, he killed these guys in the subway. He killed again, right? The first time, right? You get the point. And here he discovered the letter, right? So you understand that these turning points, they happen inside the scenes. So it doesn't really matter that much if you decide that, okay, this, this scene ends here. So, and you say, "okay, this is the first sequence, right? This is the other sequence," the second sequence, right? It doesn't matter that much because like with the latter scene. It's actually a good example, because he comes in and he dances with his mother and he's telling her about the date that he had and she's saying, "Oh, yeah, deliver this letter to Thomas." And then at the end of the scene, he actually discovers the letter, which begins the midpoint. So it doesn't really matter that much where do you draw the land? Because what I'm saying is that you can begin the sequence with a turning point or end the sequence with a turning point. Like today. I've done this right? Today. We've talked about this. So we covered two turning points in one sequence. And that's that. As you can see, it's mostly about what the character WANTS. We're going to talk about what character needs during the third act, which is going to be the resolve of what the character WANTS and what the character NEEDS. And usually, if the character gets what he wants and doesn't get what he needs, which is his unconscious need, then is a tragedy. It always depends on, if the character gets what he needs, what he wants is really not very much important for the result of the movie. If it's a happy ending or it's a tragedy. In this movie, It's a happy ending. Even, though it's a very negative happy ending. And that's why it's such a great example to talk about and to teach you about the sequences as well. Thank you very much for watching this lecture on fourth sequence. See you later in the lecture about fifth sequence. Take care. 8. Romance: In this lecture, we are going to discuss the fifth sequence, which is also known as the Romans. Let's get into it. Okay, So this is what we're going to do today. First, I'm going to remind you what happened in the previous four sequences of the 'Joker'. Then I'm going to talk about the fifth sequence in general, what it does in most films. Then I'm going to specifically target 'Joker' and talk about what it does in the 'Joker' movie. Then, I'm also going to feature as seen, which is a montage scene of Arthur admitting to himself that his relationship with Sophie wasn't real and I'm going to break it down as director. So, that's that. Yeah, let's dive into the script right now. Yes. So this is where we finished, right? You remember our character? He got a punch from Thomas Wayne when he confronted him in the lavatory, right? This is where we are. We're at the midpoint, which is the first culmination. And there were four sequences before. So, these are the turning points that are the moments in which the film shifts from one sequence to another. This first one is where Arthur got the gun. So first, in this first sequence, we meet him as a character. We know what his problems are, that he's practically and nobody, that he's living with his mother and that he has psychological issues. And that he works as a clown and he's a victim, right? Here, he receives a pistol. Then in the second sequence, he still haven't changed anything. But more subplots are established. So, in this sequence, we meet Sophie, He's romantic interests, the Afro-American woman that lives in his apartment building. We know that he doesn't know what to do to the point that he actually follows her on her way to work. The Arthur's journey into becoming a Joker begins where he kills these three guys in the subway, because beforehand he loses his job because of the pistol. And in his very low point... he'll get a lower point in the story. But in his low point, he kills this three guys in the subway and releases his anger towards them and gets a very positive result, which is the third sequence. The first thing that he does is he kisses Sophie. He walks to her apartment and he kisses her. They already have a date set up before where he said that he's going to show her he's stand up. It happened here in the second sequence. But then they have this date and it goes amazing, you know. So, at the end of the sequence, he comes back home to see his mother. They have this little dance and she says, Okay, this letter, I want you to get these other letter to Mr. Thomas Wayne. And this is where here he discovers that Thomas Wayne, according to his mother, is his real biological father. Hear, he learns about what his possible father is. I'm saying possible because there is another father figure in this film. It's Murray Franklin, the Late Night Show host. And here he embarks on a journey to meet his father. And also other stuff happens, but this is the main thing that happens in the fourth sequence. Here, at the midpoint, he actually meets his father, Thomas Wayne, and he is punched in the face. Well, it doesn't go well, or as he planned before. This was the recap. Now, very consciously, I was speaking a lot about the subplot, which is this, this thread of him meeting Sophie, because the fifth sequence is usually very heavy on the subplots. So what it does is after the first culmination, our character needs a little break from the main tension of the movie, which is connected to his want, what he actually wants. So Arthur wants to grow up. He wants to become a man. He wants to find who he is. Usually in the fifth sequence, he finds an ally that is going to help him find a new way of tackling the problem, the protagonist problem, and therefore prepare him for the second combination, which going to happen in the sixth sequence. So why it's called 'Romans'? Because in these sequences, usually the character falls in love. This is your go-to when you are writing a script and you don't know what to do. So, in this particular story it's not going to be very positive. But because in the Joker, the hidden meaning of the movie, which is that our character is shifting towards his violent behaviors. And because this resolution is not very positive than the first sequence, is not going to be positive as well for our character, right? But after the midpoint... because it's always a story about the change the character. So, ...after the midpoint, the character is always shifting towards his true self, He is always shifting towards his true self, which in this particular movie is The Joker. So, in this fifth sequence, you're going to see him incorporating new patterns of behavior into the situations that he will be facing. And without further ado, let's get into the script and see how they did it. The script is very much what you actually watch in the movie. That's why we're going to spend more time here seeing the film. So I'm just going to skip through the scenes. There's not a lot of it. Here is the scene which I haven't found in the script, where he goes into the refrigerator and in the background we hear the two detectives. They're investigating the murders in the subway. They are calling him. They're trying to catch up with him. And it's just for you to remember this thread. So when they come up in the resolution of the six sequence, which is the second culmination, you or not going to be surprised, "who are these guys", right? I think that they've done it in the post-production. They've added this sentences from off, of these guys recording themselves on his answering machine. But this is my call. It's not in the script. So they must have come up with an idea for this during the shooting. And then he's invited to the Murray Franklin show. Then he goes into the hospital to get to know, that what Thomas Wayne told him was actually the truth. That he's real father, biological father is unknown, and that he was adopted. And that the problem that he's facing, the laughter and his lack of empathy is actually on his mother. Because she led her boyfriend hurt Arthur when he was a child, and he doesn't remember it. So, this is what he discovers in these materials that he steals from the worker of the mental hospital that he was in. This is a flashback of the session of his younger mother that he is in. By the way, this flashback is written into the script. So, they were planning on shooting this, right? And this is his reaction. Now remember what I told you about the character shifting to his new self. And I'm going to remind you how he acts in this scene when he's talking to the mental facility worker and trying to get the paperwork about his mother and about him. Right. Look how cocky here is here. See. He's bragging about his lack of empathy. Actually, you know, you, you can see that he's smiling here. And this guy is really taken aback. Like he's, he's,... It begins, very politely. Like when this social worker comes back, he's like, look how friendly he is at the beginning. Sorry my man. All records 10 years older are in the basement, and your talking about some 30 years ago. So... Yeah. And then Arthur makes some crazy points and I mean, I don't know how to describe it, but he's violent in the way that he's describing this stuff, that he done some violent things and it's really, really ambiguous, but this is a very good acting. So then they have this little fight. And this is what the Arthur that we would know, the victim Arthur, would never do this fight about the document that he he takes this documents, right. You see You see that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. See taht. The Arthur that we know would never do such a thing, right? But this is the second part of the movie. He's becoming a joker more and more, right? That's why now he's able to do that. Okay. So he realized here that what Thomas Wayne told him, that he was adopted. That he is not his son is actually true. And now I think that this is the lowest point of Arthur, it's coming right now. And this is going to be the resolution of the fifth sequence, the Romance sequence. And you can see that the rain is pouring. This is what we do in the movies. You know, there is no better way of expressing what is going on in the character's emotions in the character is heart. Then pouring rain or, you know, setting him up in infernal like a fire is everywhere when he's angry, or stuff like that. Kurosawa used to do this extensively. Or wind is also a great amping up device because it amps up the emotion that we already know from the context of the situation. We know what the character feels. And this is the materialization of what is the character feeling. This is the aesthetic materialization. I suppose. So, okay, now we're ready for the resolution of his romance with Sophie. So, we see him entering her place. By the way, this looks pretty much like his place because this is the same apartment building, but this is a different apartment. So, what they've done is they've shown us some toys and little kids drawings. This is a toy. Just to let us know that he's in a different apartment. And then she walks up and she's scared. She's scared because she sees a person sitting on her couch. And then they have this little conversation. And when you're watching it for the first time, it should be weard for you because she's talking to him as if she barely knows him, right? She's saying all those things like, "oh, you're you're Arthur." "You're this guy who lives in this apartment downstairs, righT?" And it's all an it's exactly like it's written, hear them in the script. It's exactly the same. This is exactly what we are watching. You can see that I haven't crossed out anything because it's exactly how they've written it. So she's surprised that she sees him. And then we see the actual editing. And now I'm going to feature this montage. There is not in the script because now we're going to see the flashbacks of their dates. Let's see. Let's see. Come on. First situation. Second situation. The third situation, three situations. Three situations where Sophie actually vanishes, right? The first situation where she confronted him about "Where you following me?" when it's in the second sequence. Then second situation, which is in third sequence, where they actually had a date after his stand-up setup. And then the third situation where he is sitting in front of his mother and he's alone. Now, what I guess is that this three situations were salvaged from the footage that was shot during this scenes, that they actually haven't intended to do these flashbacks when they were shooting it. They've decided it during the editing to make it absolutely clear that this relationship with Sophie was imagined. Now, how do I know that? Because I've seen these shots in the sequence... You don't have an original new shot, which is an camera angle. You don't have a original new camera angle that will show you a new perspective on the situation. You see the shots that you have seen before in those scenes. They're just repeated. Which is very effective because since you've seen them, they feel familiar to you. But then if you plan it beforehand, you're going to shoot this scenes a little bit different to prepare your audience, to come back to those scenes before. You're going to find another clever angle that is going to show, that she hasn't been there. That's why I think that this was salvaged. You may argue that this shot haven't been before in the movie, but this camera position was actually in the movie from this angle, we see them in a close-up, so they just changed the lens, and this is the lens on the camera, right? They've used in this scene, which you see in the third sequence, you actually see the longer lens. I'm actually going to look for it. This is the shot, right? It's just... they've changed the lens. And yeah. And she left him for a moment. So we can see those headlines. Say that if he's alone for a moment. So yes, it may be the footage from the scene which wasn't shot separately to put it into this montage. These kind of montages of the flashbacks are done for two purposes. The first purpose, it's the actual flashback? And you have seen it in Penny scene in this sequence when Arthur is going through the materials and he sees the session from the psychiatrist that he had never seen. And what I mean by that, if you plan a flashback in advance in the script, you're going to find a way, the original way, to show the audience that the character is re-imagining it. And the example for the Penny scene is that the Arthur is in the shot. He's actually in the flashback, right? He's watching from here, right? As an adult, men, years later, he's watching this session that he just read about. So, this is what I mean by prepared flashback. And that's why these flashbacks... I don't think they're prepared. But anyway, the second most usual way of using this kind of montages are in the sports movies. Like, I don't know, 'Karate kid' or something like this. All time classic. Where you actually would see our protagonist working out and getting better. So there is always metrics of him getting better. Maybe at first he has done one push up and then at the end of the montage he's doing like 50 push-ups, no problem and stuff like that. And they usually are putting up music because the music is, is a very effective way of gluing things together. And it's going to come in. Now, the music is coming in. And it begins very softly. And now, before you start cutting your film is good too... Okay? Yeah. We already have the rhythm. Yes. Yeah, it's super easy to stitch a film up, when you have a score like that. And it was composed specifically for this for this scene because this, this is an original score that you record afterwards when you're editing is done. So they've measured very precisely, "Okay, this score is going to start here and is going to rise up. And it's going to be like a little crescendo at the end. And it's going to end at the exact point where the montage ends." So here you just you just pop up back. Yes. Yes. So it's stitched to another next scene, which is going to be him home alone and laughing hysterically. But at this point, we know exactly what this laughing means. It's not a pleasurable laughing, right? And this scene where he's laughing is an aftermath. The actual end of the fifth sequence was here when he watched the montage that reveals that his relationship with Sophie imaginary and this, like this. Two scenes of him on the hallway and him at his apartment laughing is actually the aftermath. And I've decided to consider it as the fifth sequence because of this sentence that they used, it's, it doesn't belong in a script, but it works like a charm. "He just continues to laugh, rolling onto his side from the joke that his life seems to be", right. And this particular moment is the lowest point of Arthur in this, in this movie. Afterwards, he's going to become Joker and we're going to see him at his mother's hospital. So, practically speaking, this is the last that we see from Arthur, with the scene on the couch with Sophie. This is actually Arthur just dying here. See that? He's dying here. He's gone. Got this, you know, like This guy is Joker, right? Okay, so let's get back to the script. We're now at the point 1 hour, 20 minutes. Each sequence lasts about 15 minutes, but it's usual that the beginning titles last a little bit longer. And this film is actually, it just hits you in the moment that should hit you. So they are very fateful to Frank Daniels sequence approach. And this is very convenient way of watching the movie for the audience, because the story is being told to you in a very exciting way, I suppose, because it's like it hits you every 15 minutes and new chapter of the character hits you. And this is a matter of your workshop. Can you write good sequence that is going to take your character from 1 point to another. The next turning point is him killing his mother, I suppose. And he's full on Joker there, you know. He doesn't have the makeup but internally, internally on this hallway this is a joker already, you know. Then we're going to see him walking there during the broad daylight and with the makeup on. But this is a Joker or without a makeup. So this was the fifth sequence. So just to recap, the fifth sequence. The fifth sequence is the first sequence that we actually see the character have changed. I mean, he's not like fully changed, but he's shifting towards his new self. And it's going to rely heavily on the subplots. Some subplots are going to finish. We're not going to have Sophie anymore in the movie. Sophie is done for this particular part of the movie. In the script There is a little bit more of the Sophie thread and I'm going to cover this in the sequence. We actually finish with a little bit of the ending of the Sophie sequence, which they've written into the script. I think they've shot it, but they haven't used it. They've decided that they're going to finish the Sophie part right here. Thank you very much for watching this lecture on fifth sequence. See you later when we will be discussing the second culmination. See you there. 9. Second Culmination: In this lecture, we will be focusing on the sixth sequence, which is the second culmination. First I'm going to recap first five sequences. Then we are going to talk about sixth sequence in general, what it does in most of the movies. And then we're going to talk about the six sequence in the 'Joker'. And then we're going to talk about the specific things that I found interesting in the script. And then at the end, we're going to recap everything. So, lots of cool stuff and I hope you'll enjoy. Okay, so we start here. We're already one hour and 20 minutes in the movie. This is the first sequence, so we're here, right? We are already here. In this first sequence, we meet Arthur as he is, a troubled man living with his mother, unable to fit into the society. This is the first sequence status quo. Here he receives a gun, a pistol from his colleague at work. Then here we learn about his romantic interest. Sophie in the second sequence where the sub-plots are established. And then we see what happens with with the gun, which brings a new quality into his life. Because remember, in this film Arthur is losing his humanity, right? Arthur stops trying to be empathetic. He's finding himself, right? So, the gun is the first foreshadow of his transformation. So, here he loses his job because of a gun. Like he loses his stability in the society because of his gun, but he finds something more important. He's self-realization because here in a second turning point and the beginning of the third sequence, he kills this three guys in the subway station, I mean, in the subway cart. And then he guns one of them down on the subway station. From now on, the second act begins, because the character did something different. And, of course, because Arthur is losing his humanity. Now everything starts to fall into place. He meets Sophie, the single mother-girl that lives in his apartment building and they go on a date. He performs his stand-up comedy in the clubs. So he's realizing his dream of becoming the comedian. And then he is pumped... his ego is pumped by the society, who actually liked the fact that these three rich Wall Street guys were murdered. So, this is the third sequence. And then at the beginning of the fourth sequence Arthur learns that his father might be Thomas Wayne. He actually reads it in his mother's letter to Mr. Wayne. An ultra rich guy and the father of Batman, of course. So here in the midpoint, in the mid part of our story, he confronts Thomas Wayne and learns that he was actually adopted and that Thomas Wayne is not his father. So, in the fifth sequence, we have the aftermath of this information. Because here he goes to the hospital where the records of his mother's are hidden in the archives and learn that Thomas Wayne was right about him being adopted. And then he has this realization that his relationship with Sophie was not real. So at that point, at end of the fifth sequence, Arthur is at the lowest point of this particular story, right? As I told you in the last lesson, that there is no Arthur anymore, right? We've lost Arthur on the couch at Sophie's apartment where he, you know, is shooting himself with his own fingers, as you remember from the previous lesson. So now, at that point here, the fifth sequence is finished, and now we're starting the sixth sequence, which is the second culmination, and the end of the second act. Because here, in this particular part that we're going to take a look at today, we're going to focus on Arthur becoming the Joker. And that we know because internally, we know that he, he just loses himself. But who is the Joker right? Here he's going to acquire his makeup. Here he's going to solidify his plan. Right? Then this part, the third act. The last two sequences are the aftermath of Arthur becoming a Joker. What is the outcome of him becoming this ruthless individual that has no conscious and actually enjoys the fact that he has no conscious. So yeah, let's dive into the story. And right off the bat, we meet Arthur at the hospital, right? This is the first scene of the second culmination. So we meet him at the hospital and he makes amends with his mother. His mother his mother is in the hospital. She is gaining her consciousness back. Right? We know that because she's mumbling something in this, in this scene while Arthur is talking, right? And we notice the difference immediately in the way he talks, in the way that he behaves. Here, he's more confident, he has nothing to lose. And then in the first scene of the second culmination, he actually kills sher by suffocating her with a pillow. And now... but we don't really know what he's going to do. I mean, like I'm showing you the script. They've removed some dialogue, but this was probably made during the editing. And then we meet Arthur as he is preparing for his appearance in Murray Franklin show. And this scene begins super cringy because he is trying to imitate another guy's movement who is super confident to become better at his appearance during Murray Franklin show. And here I'm going to show you a little detail that I discovered that they've actually taped these episodes of Murray Franklin. They've never missed one episode actually. So so you can see that they have VHS tapes on the telly with with specific episodes. So, they were recording it, Arthur with his mother. It's a little detail that is something interesting that scenography people thought it's going to add to the story. Nothing much. There is no focus on it really, you know. Okay, and this scene is super cringy until we realize what is Arthur's real plan. because then afterwards, he's planning to make a joke about "who's there, Knock, knock, Who's there." And then afterwards, he's planning to shoot himself with a gun. "Knock, knock." And he's super happy about what he just planned, right? It's one of the characters Wants that I told you before, because... quick recap, the character has conscious wasn't something that he's striving for and unconscious need. And this is one of the things that Arthur wanted. Arthur wanted to find his father. I mean, in the sense that he wanted to become somebody and find his identity. And the crucial part of it is finding a father figure. Which his main father figure is Murray Franklin, the Late Night Show host. And he's secondary father figure was Thomas Wayne, which emerge in the, in the second act as the potential father figure. And the other Want that he, actually had was to kill himself, which was depicted in the script. In one of the scenes that they removed. When he's writing in his notebook. But anyway, we already know that he's ruthless because he killed his mother. We already know what his plan is. That he's going to grow on the show and kill himself at the show. So this is what we know. And now we have a little montage of him preparing himself as a Joker, right? And this is super satisfying. After watching Arthur failing the whole film, he was failing. Now you see him happy light this, you know, like You can take a look at the colors here. This is his mother's bedroom and he's dancing. The camera is low so he feels like more monumental. So, after his being super low in the story, in the fifth sequence, right? When he realized that he was adopted and that his brain is actually damaged, because of the abuse he had from his mother and her boyfriend. And now he just found this new way of expressing himself, which is violence. And this actually feels good. So this is one of the most pleasurable situations in the movie and it's enhanced by the music. Right? This music is super cheerful and it's actually disturbingly pleasing. This sequence. And this was what it's supposed to do to you. Now, I want to, I want to talk about this little detail that I found in the script. Because when he's painting his face, right? He's doing it at his mother's bedroom, as you can see, using her makeup. And he discovers the photograph of his mother. And it was depicted in the script with much detail. This is the scene of him preparing :Knock, knock. Who's there." And yes, here. And it's actually important because this is a hint that Thomas Wayne was actually his father. And in the script it's being interrupted. This thread, they've just come in, right? Is interrupted like... He discovers the photograph of the mother. I'm going to show it to you, right? He finds the photograph of the mother. He looks at the back of the photograph, and finds "love your smile. T W", "T W " is of course Thomas Wayne. It's shown to you by the director that it's a detail that you can, you know, you can probably not noticed that much because, you know, the music is there and he's looking at his mother. There is no close up on the "TW" stuff, right. Like they did in the documents seen when he's looking at the documents at the hospital. And how they did it when he's looking at the letter of the mother where they wanted you to see and read, let "me and your son need your help" and stuff like this. Here, It's wider shot and he's looking at the picture and you don't have to decipher Thomas Wayne in the scene, because it's not crucial at that point. You know, because he's already done with Thomas Wayne in his mind. He already is preparing himself to the confrontation with his most important father, which is Murray Franklin, Robert De Niro character, Late Night Show host. That's why they haven't made it a close-up. And then the detail on this. See that? He's looking at it. He's looking at it. He's squashing the picture. He's thinking about it. And then we hear and then their friends are going to come, right? So as you can see, something that was super important in the fourth sequence, and something that was super important in the fifth sequence. Now in the sixth sequence, not so much. It's a detail that, you know, only some crazy fans and guy like me, who read the script are going to notice. Yep, let's move it forward. When Arthur receives his friends because he is interrupted here. He's interrupted. He hears the doorbell. Nobody ever comes to their place, so, so Arthur is super surprised, but he expects that probably because he murdered his mother, that it may be police or something like that. So, he takes the scissors that he finds in the drawer for self-protection, I suppose, right? And then he discovers that this is his colleagues from work, from the clown place where he used to work. And then you have Randall, the guy that gave him the gun. And not really a friend of Arthur's. Because as we know, he, he actually took part in firing him because he told Hoyt. The man, who is the owner of the clown place, that they were working at, that Arthur was trying to buy a gun from him. Which is obviously not truth. What he actually did was gave him the gun himself. Apart from that, you have the little man who was always nice to Arthur. So you have these two guys here. You have Randall who, who Arthur actually probably hates at that point. And you have the Gary who is this little man. Theyve always liked each other and Randall has his mission here because he's worried, because the cops, police people, spoke to him about the gun. And he has his suspicions that Arthur actually killed those three guys on a subway. And he wants to get to know what Arthur told him or if he told them about his involvement. Which means giving him the gun. Right. And as you probably know from previous lessons, I told you about the scene that they've deleted where the Arther actually admitted to Randall in a very ambiguous way that he was involved in the killing of these three men in the subway. But as the scene goes on, Arthur, without any warning, kills Randall with the scissors in front of Gary, right? And we're going to skim through it because I don't like violence, which is so explicit. So okay. So this is this is the brutal murder of Randall in front of Gary. Gary is here. So yes, this is what he does. This is what he does. He kills him. He puts him on the ground, and then we see the Joker. And how different this murder is from the murder that took place in the subway, right? Because in the subway at first he was terrified. And here, He acts like nothing happened. And he's actually relieved that he have done it, right. And then Gary, of course, is absolutely terrified and Arthur wants to let him go. Gary is not sure if he's safe or not. And a little bit that they've made here at the end that Gary is unable to open the doors for himself and he has to ask Arthur to to open the door for him to actually leave. But Arthur is not going to do anything bad to Gary when he has no morals. I mean, he has no empathy, but he has his own twisted value system. And this ending of the scene is improvised. It's not in the script. This part where he closes the door and history. He was the only one who was nice to him like this kiss on the forehead of Gary wasn't in the script. I suppose that they've improvised it on the set because it wasn't clear enough. Letting him go wasn't clear enough that Joker has his own value system in his head. And this is actually a very good example of showing who this guy is. Because in a super violent scene like this, he also did something which is, kind of, positive. Which makes him a more interesting character and which makes him less crazy. Because crazy is when the character is making crazy thing, which is illogical. We understand why Arthur kill the other guy. We, as people, we wouldn't kill this guy, right? Like... any normal person wouldn't avenge something like a minor offense that this guy Randall did to him, right? Like we meet people like that in our lives. And we get rid of the people like Randall from our lives, but we don't kill them, right? So this is how we understand what the true Joker is. What Todd Phillips we're after, is that he wanted us to understand this guy emotionally. Right? Why he's doing the things that he's doing. Because it has to have causality behind it. And it's super important for your audience to empathize with the character. Okay, so let's get on with the movie. Yes. The dancing scene. But before the dancing scene. Yeah. We have the scene where he's already put on the makeup and he's walking towards the elevator in his apartment place. So, what I'm going to show you is the scene that they've deleted. It's the last part of the Sophie thread that I'm going to talk about. Because here what Arthur does, is he takes some money from, from Randles wallet and he puts it into the envelope. And while he's going away here in this scene... while he's leaving. And we hear the music, of course, right? While he's leaving, we don't see him. He drops the envelope to Sophie's apartment and he leaves her these fake flowers that you've seen in little Bruce Wayne scene. Like his fake plastic flowers, as well as a gift for goodbye. And they've decided to get rid of this scene. It was the reveal of the Joker, right? But they've decided to get rid of the scene because in the script, we would know that she lost her job at the bank. That she hates bankers because she knows this environment of work. We would know that this gesture of giving her money from Randalls wallet will actually help her. But since we know now that the date, everything that happened with Sophie was probably Arthur's fantasy. Now it doesn't make that much of a sense to give her anything, right? Because we would be confused if it's imaginary or not. If she even needs money. Or, Arthur's love, which is symbolized by the flowers. By the way, my guess is that they've got rid of it during the editing. I think that it's like that because I'm going to pull up a teaser of the 'Joker', which is going to show you this particular scene. And we can, we can actually see that here. In this scene. He has the flowers and he has the envelope, right? And they've deleted this particular shot from the film itself. This is the teaser trailer that they've released. So during the teaser trailer, you're not going to think, "Okay, why is this envelope and this flowers are in his hand". So so they've used the shot, they salvaged some shots that were, you know, that they haven't used in a film for the trailer, which you sometimes do. Anyway, let's get on with the script. So I'm going to show you now the scene at the stairs, which is also interesting from the directing perspective. So this stairs scene begins with the same music that we heard before, right? This "rock and roll". And it was supposed to last very long time. I mean, the music was supposed to be there at the end of the sequence where he's running through the city. But then they've, they've switched the music right? To make the scene a little bit longer. I'm not going to play it all along, but I'm going to show you the elements. So you see here that he's dancing for the first time in the movie. He's going downstairs. He was always climbing the stairs, but this time, because he really found himself and became the Joker, he is finally going downstairs. Now we're going to switch the music into the profound music. Now. Okay, they made it longer, right? ...the scene. And as well, and profound ... and slow motion. And then we, we might see the characters of this to police people in the background, but we as well-mey not because he's moving and he's in front of the frame. And slow motion.... and more. And then they've salvage some material from the beginning of the scene, because he dropped the cigarette at the beginning. So, he wasn't smoking during the dance, It was doing warming up for the dance. And this is the original score which was written especially for this movie. So, then we see the policeman and then the chase begins, right? And then we have another score written especially for the chase scene. And now, in the script, they actually wrote which song is going to be played during this couple of scenes when the Joker is escaping from the police to the train station. And it's Gary Glitters, Rock'n Roll Part 2. Now, it was supposed to last till the time when Joker enters the train filled up with his followers. Now, they have decided not to do it like that. I have a pretty good understanding why they have decided not to do it. It's because it would be funny. It would be funny in a way that you don't want it to be funny. Let me just show you this by editing this clip from Joker. Quick disclaimer before I'm going to show it to you. I'm not making this to make fun of the creators of Joker. I just want to show you the scene, how it was written in the script. Okay, Now you get the point. Instead of being funny or instead of being action-packed, this scene would be a slapstick kind of funny. And they didn't want that. It's one of those things that you cannot really plan entirely. Some things you have to see with your editor and make decisions as you go. So this was a good save. The rest of the sequence is Arthur running away from the cups, from the policemen and being able to, to get to the Murray Franklin show. And as we know, these policemen were caught up in the train. And because they were trying to find Arthur and catch him, they were violent themselves and attacked one of the people that were going for a protest. Other people that were on the plane train, other citizens, attacked them because they've shot one of the guys. And as we learn later on in the film, they're both in critical condition. That is what we are going to learn later on when Arthur is going to be at Murray Franklin show. But anyway, this sequence of Arthur running away shows what his actual transformation made him become, right? What is his new skill set? Because here he is able to, you know, he steals the mask from another guy. He uses the commotion that were the effect of, of Arthur stealing the mask from the guy because the guy attacked another, another guy on the train and the fight broke out. And then we see this shot, which is the ending of the sequence. We see that our Arthurs character, the Joker is fully developed here, right? Because he's now not only has become this ruthless individual, but here I would say that he is unstoppable. The cops, the cops are running there. And he made full of them all because he is now unstoppable as The Joker. They don't see him as the guy who was even involved in what happened in the cart. And that's the end of the sixth sequence. So as you can see, now, our character is fully-developed. And yes, and we're at the point in the movie which is one hour and 35 minutes, which is exactly what you would expect, because the sixth sequence should add and at about one hour and 30 minutes, because each sequence is about 15 minutes, as I told you before. So, that's that. And then at the seventh, eighth sequence, which is false ending and the true ending, we're going to see the outcome of Arthur becoming the Joker. What he is going to do? And if he's going to be successful in his suicide attempt at the television. And what's going to happen next. There is going to be a hint of the future of our character in 8th sequence. Thank you very much for watching this lecture about six sequence, which is also known as second culmination. See you later at the lecture about the seventh sequence. 10. False Ending: Hi and welcome. Today we will be discussing the seventh sequence. This is the false ending. Let's do it. First I'm going to recap the movie. Then I'm going to talk about the seventh sequence in general. Seventh sequence is the resolution of what the character WANTS. And then I'm going to talk about the seventh sequence in 'Joker', specifically. Afterwards we're going to take a look at the biggest scene of the, seventh sequence, which is the scene at the show at Murray Franklin's. And we are going to see it from two different perspectives. The first one will be the film that they've shot and other one is going to be behind the scenes footage that I found on the internet of Joaquin Phoenix entering the stage at the Murray Franklin show. And then we're going to take a look at the script and see what they have deleted because it has been extensively simplified, this scene. And why they did it, because I have a pretty good idea. And all of this is coming up shortly. But let's just begin with the script and the recap, of course. So we are now at this point we are beginning the third act. So at first we meet Arthur as a loser, troubled guy who has mental disease and lives with his mother. And by the way, I'm going to focus specifically on the threads that are important for us to understand the seventh sequence that we are going to talk about today. This is the seventh sequence. This is where we're going to be working today. We know that Arthur, has a romantic interests towards his neighbor, who was a single mother that is living in his apartment building. And here he receives a gun from his colleague because he has been beaten by some kids on the street. He loses his job. And at his very low point where it is coming back from losing his job, he is attacked by 3 rich Wall Street guys who mock him at first and then they tried to beat him up, just like kids at the first sequence did. But this time, our character, the Joker, is trying for the first time not to be a victim. He shoots the guy and then he hunts one of them down at the, at the train station and escapes. And this is the first situation where we see a glimpse of the character change, because here he just received the gun. At second sequence, he was... we would see that he has this weird interest in the gun because we have seen him, you know, dancing with the gun in his apartment late at night. You know. We can see that he's seeing this gun as something that makes him powerful. So this is the first time that he actually uses the gun. And it works like a charm. It works perfectly, because he has no remorse. And now after taking these three guys lives, he actually felt that he made a difference, that he's done something good. In this sequence, the third sequence, he actually has more courage and he goes to, sets up a date with Sophie - with the girl that he was romantically interested in, but didn't know how to approach her. And other stuff happens, which is good for Arthur. And at this point he gets to know that Thomas Wayne, the father of Batman and our local rich guy, is presumably as father. And he learns it from a letter of his mother, right? This is a very crucial moment for his WANT, because beforehand, we know that he's looking for a father figure. Because we see his fantasy about Murray Franklin in the first sequence, which is a late night host. Which is, I would say, more important father figure for him, in this narration. In this film. This is where he learns about his secondary father. And this is where his WANT is very precisely defined. I would say. Because here during this sequence, he is approaching this WANT. And of course, at the same time, we know that Arthur is also fantasizing about killing himself, because he's writing it in his journal. And we get to know about it very early on in the story. And this is something that recurs in the, in the script as the meat to learn about his father because it's part of his identity. And then at midpoint here, he learns that he, the Thomas Wayne, is presumably not his father. That his father is unknown. At this point, he learns that his relationship with Sophie was imaginary all along, which is ending of the fifth sequence. So at that point, Joker has nothing else to lose. He lost his secondary father. He lost his girlfriend. And now he just begins being himself, because he already discovered who he is. He already discovered that violence makes him powerful, that violence is the answer for his problems, right? Which is also symbolized by the theme of the gun, right? He still has the same revolver that he received from his friend Randall, and he just starts killing people. Now, in the sixth sequence, which is the ending of the second act. And it's also called the second culmination. This is where he gets his makeup and this is where he starts to settle that the old debts that has. He kills his mother for the abuse. He kills his friend Randall from work. I mean, not really his friend... his colleague who gave him the gun. He kills him. It's very gruesome scene that I've shot. And then he makes his makeup, he forms himself as The Joker. And he's ready to go on the Murray Franklin show, because he's invited there as a special guest. But before he gets there, he meets this police... two police guys who suspects him about the murders in the subway. And then at that point he has escape from the police. He actually defeats the police because he, he escapes into the crowd and he passively makes the crowd turn into the burst of violence, which for our character is pleasing as we know at that point. So, now we have this two themes of what the character WANTS established. because we already know that he has been fantasizing about killing himself before. We have seen this in his journal. We have seen this in his fantasy or prep when he was preparing for his appearance at Murray Franklin show. So, we know that he's serious about the suicide. We also know that he wants to resolve the problem with his father. The resolution, which was the midpoint, which was Thomas Wayne, wasn't good enough for him because he would learn that Thomas Wayne was not his real father and he believed it, right? This time he's going to meet his I would say, more important father. And it's going to result in tying this two WANTS together, because he wants to kill himself and he wants to know who he really is. Which means to confront himself with his father. And this is what's going to happen during the Murray Franklin show. Now I'm going to tell you briefly about what this seven sequence do in most of the movies. The seventh sequence is usually called false ending, because it's heavily dependent on what the character WANTS, not what the character NEEDS. He's not aware of his NEEDS. Therefore, we are going to resolve what the character WANTS. Now with the 'Joker', we know that he wants to fit in to the society. But we also know that this dream of him finding his true identity, his father, and becoming a stand-up comedian is an impossible task for this particular character. Because he knows that he's unable to fit into the society. That's why he wants to kill himself - end his life. And at the same time, he wants to confront his own father, right? And the seventh sequence is a moment in film in which you deal with what the character WANTS. What I'm going to say now is going to sound weird, but, it doesn't matter if he gets it or not. Let me repeat. It doesn't matter if the character is going to get what he wants or not. Because in many situations, the character never gets what he wants. And it's still a happy ending because he get what he needed. You have all these iconic examples, like for example, in 'Rocky 1', the guy never won at the ring. He wanted to win with Apollo Creed, right? But he never won, but he got what he needs because its ends when these people are hugging each other and telling themselves that they love each other. So he got what he needed. That's why the Rocky movie is a happy ending, even though that the character didn't get what you want. So this is the funny thing about the 'false ending'. And that's why it's called the 'false ending'. Because it doesn't matter. This is how you resolve this superficial want of the character, which is the conscious want. The unconscious NEED, is far more crucial to whether your film is a tragedy, or is it a happy ending? In the 'Joker'his need is to be the Joker, which is this ruthless criminal who doesn't feel remorse and uses violence whenever he wants to. And that's why the 'Joker' movie is a happy ending. Now, it's a very bitter happy ending. It's a very nihilistic happy ending. But if you look at this structurally, it's a happy ending. And this is how it's shown to you at the end by the director who's showing you the Joker and keys plane all this cheerful music, while joker's doing this crazy acts of violence and feeling absolutely great about it. So this is the Joker. Now let's get on with the script. The script begins at the point where we're at the Murray Franklin show. There is a little scene here where Murray Franklin is talking with his producer about, the guest that they're going to have, as you can see here. And they've deleted it, because these guys from here, they look misogynistic towards women. There's just this toxic masculinity in the way that they're talking about a current wife of Murray Franklin. And I guess they've decided to get rid of it Because, it doesn't really build a positive image of those characters. And because -spoiler alert- Murray Franklin is going to be executed in the scene, you want to feel a little bit sorry for him, even if they show him a little bit As an a*whole. You want to feel moved by his death. Anyway. So, this is the scene that is missing. And then there is this conversation that they have, which is pretty accurate to what you see in the film, right? I'm going to scroll through it that they're talking about the appearance of Arthur. They're warning him, "listen with this makeup. Are you going to really appear like that", right? Arthur is saying "No, I don't care about the politics", right? So they have this conversation and Murray is actually a really nice guy here, right? Because the producer is hostile towards Arthur. And he just doesn't want him on the show really, because it can start riots and the tensions in the city are rising. And Murray is "okay, let's have this... Let's have him as he has no, No big deal, no hassle." So he is actually quite positive. And here is a scene that is not in the script. This is how Todd Phillips, the director, once to remind you what Arthur it's going to do. What is his plan, right? And why is he reminding you all that? Because during this chase scene where our character Arthur was running away from cups, there's like a lot of things happen. And with this little like an ending of a scene of the conversation, he's just reminding you like, "okay, this guy is going to shoot himself during..., on the air." And it's not in the script, as I told you. Now, we're going to go over the scene where they have a show. And this is huge scene. And it's even more complicated in the script. But here let's just focus on what we see on the screen. As I told you before, I'm going to feature now the materials that I found on this scene. And I'm going to show you some different variants of Joker coming out. Let's watch his body language and let's watch how he is coming out in the film. And I'm going to make my point in a moment. Yes. So, as you can see, he has a very strong presence, right? Very like... he's super cocky and he has this super strong presence. He kisses this woman. And it wasn't plant like that. I'm going to show you this in the script. I think it was 91st page. Yes, it's completely different. "Joker walks across the stage forgetting to wave like he practiced. He trips over the riser surrounding the set when he goes to shake Murey's hand. Almost falls on him. Marrey tries not to crack up. The audience laughs thinks it's a part of Joker act", right? As you can see, is completely different. And now I'm going to show you this clip. You can see it if you want. And they've actually shot many different ways of him going out. They've shot the script version. This is a take one by the way. So, okay. So you can see there they've used many ways of him doing that, right? But what is funny is that he's cocky, but in a different ways. And he's here, he's super insecure. This is Todd Phillips talking about this in this clip. This is from additional materials from the movie. I cannot encourage you enough to do this and to watch these additional materials is very interesting for me, anyway. I'm, I'm just showing you that making a movie is not always following the script like completely, right? But the point that I wanted to make about him coming out, right? Because we already talked about this structure, and what is really important that in the third act, in the seventh, eighth sequence, the character is already formed. What's going to happen to him is your interpretation. How is the world going to react? We don't know, but he's already... he has already changed. That's why his confidence and the way that he's absolutely different from the Arthur that we know, which is absolutely unable to do an entrance like this, is really on point. And I think that what they've done when they were working with the actor, they've just refind the script. It feels like an error in the script because at this point there should be no Arthur in the Joker character. He's already this villain at that point. Now I'm going to show you how different this scene really is. There is some additional dialogue, but that's not the point. Additional Dialogue is not the point here, as you see here, Murray Franklin is telling some stuff, that wasn't used. I suppose it wasn't used in the editing. They've cut it out in the editing because of... I don't know, time or maybe it watered down the scene and you want to keep the tempo. But what I want to show you is that the part where they bounce between the directors booth. You see that. There is scene in the directors booth. So you actually see what is happening behind the scenes in the backroom, in the green room, what is happening? Directors booth, why are they still airing it? And it shows you the reality of the TV. And they also bounce to Sophie's apartment. So why did they, they've cut out live television thing. Because it doesn't support the theme of the film. Now, why was that even there in the first place? I can tell you something additional that the origin of the film, the original story, is very much similar to the film that was made in the 80's by Martin Scorsese, which title is 'The King of Comedy'. In 'The King of Comedy' this world of television is super important, but it's carried out from the beginning. You would see the scenes in which people who are working in the TV are actually good people. But this TV machine, this industry is actually killing their humanity. Because it's a industry. And it's an industry that is focused on the emotions and creating emotions. And there is no place for empathy in this kind of work. But as I just mentioned, it's a part of the story of 'The King of Comedy'. And here, there are some similarities in the movie 'Joker'. Actually they are pretty many similarities in the 'Joker' to 'The King of Comedy'. But there are some similarities in the script. And this director booth didn't make it into the cut. Because when the film is already made, you can see much clearer what supports your story and what doesn't. And this film is focused on jokers transformation from Arthur's to the Jroker. And that's why this background of the studio and why are they still airing it is not very important. Because we need to be with Arthur right now. Then the second thing that was cut out from this sequence was the ending of the Sophie thread, in the script that I found, which was the script where they were beginning to work during the shooting. The Sophie part is much more complex. And the Sophie part is also real. Their telationship is not imaginary. She went for a date with Arthur out of pity. But this date really happened, right? And he thought that she is his girlfriend for real, for a moment. Therefore, as I told you before in the lesson on the fifth sequence, he's leaving her his fake plastic flowers and an envelope with money and a note that he's going to be on the Murray Franklin show tonight. So watch that. And why is he living for money? Because we also know from the date that they had that Sophie was fired from the bank that she worked at. So, we know what her problem is. So that's why they cut to Sophie apartment while she is watching the show. And because of the changes on the set, because during the shooting, they've decided that, "okay, this particular part is going to be, this particular thread of Sophie is going to be imagined." Therefore, they're going to cut it out. And this thread at the fifth sequence. So, yeah. That's why this scene is focused at the Arthurs Murray Franklin show appearance. So what's happens in the scene? So we begin knowing that Arthur is going to take his own life on the camera, right? And this goes exactly like in the script. They've removed some dialogue, but then it just goes one-to-one. He's reading the joke here at that part when he's reading the joke, we know what he's going to do. But Murray Franklin is still talking. He's talking all the time making fun of Arthur and confronting Arthur in this way. So in the script, they've written Murray Franklin's motivation for this, because they've written that he wants to get an Emmy Award for this or Peabody Award for the journalist. He thinks that it's a great opportunity for him to do some great television, because Arthur just admitted that he killed those three guys in the subway, right? When I was watching the film, I haven't thought about it at all, that he's doing it out of ambition. I thought that what was presented by the actor was that he just disagrees with Arthur, which is a lot better point to be at, when you want to build a connection between the audience and the character. And especially that the character that you want to be executed in a moment. That these are the two viewpoints that are clashing. This is the guy who has lost everything, he lost his humanity. And this is the Murray Franklin. Here's the privileged one, and he's defending his class, I suppose. And he is being truthful about it. He's like 100% himself when he's talking about, "okay, why do you think that killing those three guys was a good thing, Arthur?" and his challenging Arthur. I suppose that this was a better way to go about this particular thing with the actor. This is better than the ambition. Snd now there will be... So, the ending is the execution, right? And the execution is actually something that just comes out of Arthur. It's really hard to pinpoint a moment of the decision. I'm not going to kill myself. I'm going to kill Murray Franklin. And with this performance, with this particular performance. They haven't made like a beat for this particular emotion that we understand that our character changed his mind. Because usually what you do in the script, you're going to write something like a "beat". You, as you can see, beat, a word "beat", which is also a pause. It's something that you actually... here you can see "beat", right? It's for the actors who are reading the script. So the actor knows that at this point he's going to change the strategy. He has to pause for a moment and change the, the way he's behaving. So, they haven't made a clear beat in this performance. They haven't made a clear beat where the character is making his mind. "Okay, I'm not going to kill myself. I'm going to kill Murray, instead." It just flows from him. We see this guy. He's, he's in front of the television and at some point he is angry. At some points he's laughing. He is joyful, he's laughing, but he has no remorse. And here is not ashamed by his laughter anymore, like you can... He's not making excuses for himself. And this confrontation, which is also, you know, intensified a little bit by this close ups, as you can see here. It's like it's getting more intensive also because of the way the scene is shot. We got closer and closer on the Joker and Murray, right? You can see. And now the execution part comes out of nowhere. It just happens naturally. It's absolutely believable and it's a shock to us whenever we're watching this. And I'm sure that it's also shockto Arthur. If there is any Arthur left, right. But then the Joker comes out. And then he have his little laugh. He shoots Marie another time. Then he makes this little dance, which is also super cool and it wasn't in the script that he's making a dance. I think it's one of these things discovered or Joaquin actually incorporated into the role because there is very little dancing in the script. He's only dancing when he's working as a clown. Not even in the bathroom scene after killing these three guys in the subway. Well, we're going to see. yes. Just two moves now. Okay. Good night. And I'll always remember. That's... Okay. This is where he would say "... that's life", because this is Murray Franklin's slogan, "Goodnight and always remember. That's life." And this is the end of the seventh sequence. Because now at that point, we know what happened with our character. How he dealt with the WANTS that he had at the point where he shot Murray Franklin. Eight sequence, just begin because he now has solidified himself by being the Joker and getting away with what you have done. And now at the eight sequence, we're going to see the outcome of him becoming the Joker. And what is the... how the world is going to react for the character becoming himself. And now we're at the sequence, we're going to see if he's going to get what he needs, or not. And we're going to have a little glimpse of what's going to happen in the future. Thank you very much for watching this lecture about the seventh sequence. See you later at the lecture about the eighth sequence, which is a 'true ending'. 11. True Ending: In this lecture, we will be talking about the eight and the last sequence of 'Joker'. And this is obviously the true ending and resolution of protagonist need. So, the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to recap the movie from the perspective of the eight sequence. So, we're going to focus on the main theme of the movie, which in this particular case is violence. How the violence sets you free or sets free our main protagonist. We're going to learn about the moral. Then I'm going to tell you about eight sequence in general. What is the need of the main character? What is his unconscious need? I would add. And then I'm going to talk specifically about how is it tackled in 'Joker'. And then we're going to look into the script, into the, this ambiguous ending that they had in the script, that didn't make it into the cut. And then I'm going to recap everything. So, this is where we ended. This is Arthur's journey when he just have shot Murray Franklin. But beforehand, his journey began when he received the gun from his friend. He received the gun from Randall. This is where we begin. So, at first we meet Arthur. The first point of attack, which is the first turning point, is when he received the pistol from Randall and he's very reluctant to get it, but he takes it. The second turning point, which begins the second act. Actually it is where the character done something different, is where Arthur, so far, a victim, is not a victim anymore because here he stands up for himself and kills three guys in a subway, right? So he uses the gun and becomes a predator for this time. But he's he's not done yet with his change or that particular part. It was a one night thing. The only situation where he would act like that. Right. But it works like a charm. So like for him, it's a life-changing event because now he has more confidence. He took his own life in his hands, which is positive for him. Well, he took it way too far with this executions. But since he has no remorse, as we will discover later why he has no remorse because he's a neurologically damaged. It feels really good to him. So you probably know where this is going. It's the story of a violence which is symbolized by the pistol. Now, our character will discover that his probable father is Thomas Wayne. But where this is going to get him, is that he's going to find out that he is neurologically damaged because of the abuse he had from his mother's boyfriend. Which is a very negative experience for him. But it also gives you an insight to his superpower, which is lack of empathy, which from the perspective of the ending, which is the execution of Murray Franklin and becoming this nihilistic supervillain is a positive thing because he's becoming himself. So, now at fifth sequence, he lost his humanism completely because his relationship with Sophie is not real. And now the only thing that he has, is the gun. The only thing that he has that gave him good feelings was violence. So at that point, what he what he does is he goes to the hospital. Here, at the beginning of the sixth sequence. He goes to the hospital, kills the mother. I suppose it's a vengeance. When he is invited to appear in Murray Franklin show, he plans to kill himself on the air. Randall, the guy who gave him the gun comes. And because Randall was the reason why he was fired from work, because Randall told that he was trying to buy the gun from him to his boss. That's why Arthur kills Randall as well. So we have this killing spree at 6sixth sequence. He's already behaving as the Joker, and feeling no remorse. Then he is chased by the policemen, where another of his qualities as a psychopath are revealed. And at that point he's at the studio at Murray Franklin show. And we know exactly that he's planning to kill himself during the show, right? He's going to use the gun on himself. This is the plan. But it doesn't go like that. Murrey provokes him to the point where Arthur plans to kill himself. He turns a gun on Murrey and kills Murrey. Which is at the same time his main father figure. So, he executes his main father figure that he was looking up to the whole time, when he was watching his shows on the television and that he was fantasizing about. That we see in the first sequence. Here, we see his fantasy that Murray Franklin behaves towards him like he was his father and here he executes his own father, right? To give you a bit broader perspective on the father theme in Coming of Age movies, I just want to add that our father is a very important figure in those kinds of movies. Because it depends on whether the father is positive or negative, that the character is going to separate himself from the father who is toxic, of course. Or the character is going to save the Father from the belly of the whale, like they did in Pinocchio, for example. In the Joker, the father figure is a toxic figure. That's why I anticipated that Arthur is going to separate himself from the father figure. In this movie. Todd Phillips, the director and the screenwriters of 'Joker', went even further. And they've actually executed the father figure. But let's get back to, to the story, because now at the point where Arthur is executing his father figure, the character of Joker is fully developed. So we are at that point, we began here as, you know, this Arthur loser guy. And then we end up here as this sociopath. And now, what is this story about? So, I would argue that the story is about violence and that it sets you free, you know. Of course, in a hateful society which is broken down by problems, it sets you free. I don't necessarily agree. But in this train of thinking here, this makes sense, especially if you have no remorse, just like Arthur does. So, what we have here is a dangerous, so sociopath who doesn't care about himself, because we know that he executed amend on live TV, right? So therefore, now in the eighth sequence, we're going to see how it's going to turn up for our character. And this is what the sequence is really about, is how its going to end for our character? Is it going to be a tragedy or is it going to be a happy ending for our character, right? How the world is going to react on this particular change that we've just watched throughout the movie. So, okay, let's just go through the scenes. So as you remember, the Joker came to this camera and said. "And always remember, that's..." they've cut it out, that he wanted to repeat the slogan of Murray Franklin, which shows how much of a psycho he is. Because he's giving you now this cheerful slogan that Murrray always does at the end of his shows, "that's life", right? And then we're going to see the aftermath of what happens. So we see how Joker now goes viral in the 1980s way I suppose. he goes viral on television. And it's depicted in the script like this, Right? There is a one page of writing of what's going to happen, right? There is like a lot of writing, but not so much happening on the screens, like just one shot, but it took them so much to write. Using this shot, we see how this story that happened in the studio spreads into the whole city, right? And this is the aftermath of what just happened. So, for me, it was still a seventh sequence, but I guess you can think of it as the eight sequences as well. I put a division here. We are at one hour 46 time of the screening. So look how religiously they cover the turning points of Frank Daniels sequence approach. Like, every 15 minutes you have a turning point. This is how you make a $1 billion movie. By the way, you know. You just feed the audience. Emotion. Every beat comes in, every 15 minutes. So this is the end of the cell and sequence and we begin with, with eight sequence. So you have to understand that in eight sequence there is not much going on with the character. The character doesn't change. The character has already been developed. And the eight sequence, the theme of the eight sequence, is to see how the world is reacting to the change of our character. And whether he's going to be happy with what happened to him or not. So in the 'Joker', you see how the murder he committed on Murray Franklin have spread to the streets and begun riots. And at the same time, while he's being driven by policemen in the police car, you can see that our character is very happy with what he did and then the accident happens. But it's a supposed accident. It's actually a kidnapping where the followers of Joker release him from custody for a brief moment, so we can really see him triumphant. And you cannot see it as a turning point, because it's not what he have done. I mean, the character haven't done anything to produce this change in the history. It has been done to him. And this is typical for the eighth sequence. You won't see a turning point in the sequence, just the information, how the world reacts to our character's transformation. So, we see the crash and it's almost exactly like it's in the script. By the way, this is also a hint that the film is ending, right? By the way it's shot with the music, with how long the scene is, you kind of get a sense that this film is ending. And now this crash that happens is kind of like a bonus for you. So, the Joker is being rescued for a moment by these guys. And they've put it up, put them out on the hood. And other people gather around him. Now we see a little glimpse at a nice part of town where we see Bruce Wayne. We see also the Father, Thomas Wayne and his wife. And we see this, how they go into the alley next to a movie, and how, Thomas Wayne and his wife are murdered by one of the Joker followers. And then our main character wakes up and does his little dance on the hood of the car. And of course there was no dance in the script. They've developed it when they were shooting. And also, as I told you before, I've read two scripts of the Joker. And in the first script that they went to shoot the movie with, there was the idea that the Joker is, has scars on his face, just like Heath Ledger Joker had the scars and in the comic book. He had little scars there from his childhood and it was actually made to him by the boyfriend of the mother. It seems to me that pretty quickly they've decided that they're not going to do that or maybe Joaquin said "Okay, let's do this character completely different. We don't need the scars." Anyway in this situation here, at the end, the first script that they've begin shooting. He would take a piece of glass from the car and he would widen his smile on his cheeks even more. So, it wasn't just the blood as we can see here, right? Scarred himself even more, he became the Joker even more. So, yeah. And this is how we go to the ending. This is where we end up. This is his narcissistic needs being fulfilled, right? This, this particular shot shows it to you. That he has been loved for the violence he committed to other people. So now I'm going to feature a scene of Joker in the mental hospital. This is the ending that you don't see in the movie. This is the ending idea that they've decided not to use. The scene has been written slightly different than what you see on the screen. That's why I encourage you to read the scene in the script for yourself. So, to talk about this scene, I'm going to give you a recap of what happened in the scene, what you see on the screen. Then I'm going to tell you what was the effect that they were after when they were writing the script? A example of a different movie that uses the same idea which works in that movie. And finally, I'll tell you why it wouldn't work here in the joker. But before we begin, I'll have to warn you about the spoiler. The film that we are going to talk about is 1995 movie titled "Usual Suspects". If you haven't seen it, I encourage you to see it first because by explaining what was the effect that they were after, I'm going to spoil you the main attraction of the movie. So, in the closing scene of Joker, he sits in front of a medical specialist in Arkham Asylum and he has no remorse. We know what happened because we've seen the riots and we know that he's being examined after he has been caught and he's just laughing. He accepted his condition, which is laughing uncontrollably in weird situations. And also he has accepted that he has no remorse. And afterwards we see him walking down the aisle and he has a blood on his shoes and it's because he probably have murdered the medical expert that has been examining him in the Arkham Asylum. So that's the end of the 'Joker'. We hear the cheering melody, and therefore we feel that this is a happy ending for our character, even though what he have done is horrifying. So this was the scene, this was the film. This is how the film ends. And now I'm going to go to the script and show you that they've thought of a additional quality to the scene. They wanted to mix this scene with two different scenes that we have seen before. One of these scenes is, of course the flashback from the hearing of Penny Fleck, where he's in the room watching his mother admitting that she took part in a Abuse of her son, who was Arthur. We've seen that when he went to Arkham to find the paperwork about his case. And the other scene which is referenced in the script is his meeting in this social workers office. The actress which was chosen was supposed to be very similar to the actress who played social worker in the first sequence, first act. And the office was supposed to be similar. When you read it in the script, you kind of see the similarities. But when you're watching a movie, you don't see the similarities because they've resigned. They decided not to go in this direction. But we are going to talk about this in a moment. And there is also another thing that the dialogue that you see in this scene is heavily reduced. You would read the dialogue from the script you would see that the dialogue practically matches one-to-one the first conversation that are there had in this film with the social worker. Its very similar. And when you read it, you think, why would they want to build this connection in your brain to these two completely different situations? And my answer is, because they wanted you to think that everything that you've watched in this film was a fabrication of a crazy mind. That maybe somehow Arthur imagined everything all along, just how he did with Sophie. Maybe from the beginning of the movie, he was locked up in the Arkham Asylum and none of it was real. So, this is the effect that they were going for in the script. And I think that because there are these similarities in an actress in the room that they're sitting in, i think that they were still thinking about this during the shooting period. But then decided not to use this idea during the editing. I told you before that I'm going to give you an example of the movie in which this kind of resolution works. And it's the "Usual suspects". So the premise of 'Usual Suspects' is that if you keep watching the film, you're going to know who is this supervillain? Which one of these five suspects is this Keyser Söze character, this super villain. And one of these suspects is a narrator who's telling the story on the police station. And at the end of the film, spoiler alert, you learn that the guy who is played by Kevin Spacey, who is a cripple, made the story up from the beginning. And he himself is the Keyser Söze Söze, the super villain. But this movie was made from the beginning with this effect in mind. With the Joker, it would be very, very, very unsatisfying experience to learn that everything you've seen in the film is a fabrication of a crazy mind of Arthur. Therefore, they've decided not to use it in the end. So your mind when you're watching this scene, never wonder if any of these situations in a movie were real. And now we're getting at the end of the film, you see the aftermath of the Bruce Wayne situation here. You see the Mr. and Mrs. Wayne that in the alley, you see the little Bruce Wayne who has no emotional reaction to it. It's just probably how the kid was acting, what he was capable of and what they've decided is good enough, I suppose. Because, you know, it's kind of weird that he's not reacting at all, and he hasn't been reacting before as well. But, you know, you never know with kids on the set. Im going to shoe you rats. in this scene here. You have to, you have to appreciate that the CG people that has been working on this film. Because they even took time to computer really generate CG rats behind little Bruce Wayne. I'm sure it was made also because of the movement, It gives you more focus on the character. So if something is running even behind the character, you're going to focus more on what is in front of you. Super rats went there and they even made a little rat sound. So you have a little more focused on the rats. Anyway, I think that the rats are super cool, but I'm not going to talk about rats anymore. Let's get back to the ending of 'Joker' and let's see the last scene. We want to tell it to me. It was about the joke. She was asking about the joke that he thought of, right? And in the script, the joke that he taught off was the whole film, it was the whole story. "You didn't get it", right? Yeah. And it's obvious that she wouldn't get it because it's the violence set him free, right? "You wouldn't get it". This is how it ends. So, yeah, look at how ambiguous descending is. By the way, they've incorporated this old school music into the script. You wouldn't be bothered with the score. But Todd Phillips was writing with a guy for himself so he could direct as much as he wanted on the page if you wanted to. Because it was for him. So you wouldn't normally write a music score into the script. But anyway, he has blood on his boots. He's going towards the sunset, right? And he's dancing, he's feeling super happy. The music is in his head. Actually, we know the Frank Sinatra song. And we see him being super happy about what he has just done, which is killing the doctor, right? And then we see him running away from someone, and the cheerful topography of "the end", right? So this is an obvious happy ending, right? So, violence really set him free. I think that this blood that is on the on the floor right here is CG, like this is how they do it in Hollywood, it's really easier to master the blood, I suppose, by doing this CG. and this shot is really easy to track. So I would suppose that they've shot the script which had no blood there. When the Joker is going away to the sunset and then the lite. But then they've additionally added the guide that are running after him because it's normal in Hollywood that you would do the blood. Cg. This shot is super easy to track because of the geometry for the CG guys. And they may have already put on some markers here to prepare it. But even if they didn't, you know, it has so many key points that they could easily added afterwards. And this blood, of course, give you the suggestions that he murdered this Lady. Which confirms that what we have seen in the film is true. That he is not some nutcase that imagined everything while being incarcerated in the hospital. The guys that are running after him, they've added during the production. So at some point they had to decide. "Okay. We're going to go with the with the killing and confirm what happened was real." So, kudos for that. And by the way, we're ending the film 155. This last sequence was 10 minutes, but it's usual. Because there will be no big turning points. You don't have to make it really long. You can just and you have still, you know, six minutes for the credits, right? So this is how you do it. When you want to make a $1 billion movie. You just stick to the sequence approach. You feed your audience turning point when they expect them to be, right. You are super conscious about your audience needs. And what I mean by that is that you don't give them this water down ending. That gives them another twist. Because it's, it is another to twist. Like, "Oh my God, everything was in his head. Oh my God." But actually it will be annoying for most people. It's like, "you have been fooled by the storytellers. And none of this really happened." So, they've got rid of it because of that. Thank you very much for watching this series of lectures about the sequences. 12. Class Project: So, you have watched my analysis of 'Joker'. You know, what are the sequences for. Now it's time to put your skills to the test. The class project for this course is number one: Pick one of your favorite movies, or just the film you like. Number 2: Try to divide it into eight sequences. It will be easier for you if you choose a film which duration is exactly two hours, since the sequences are roughly 15 minutes. So you have an approximate time of the transition between one sequence to another. Now, you can use a template that I prepared for you. It's in the form of a PDF file in the resources, in this course. Good luck. 13. Closing Remarks: Congratulations on finishing the course. Please consider leaving a review, or if you have any ideas for me to improve this course, please send it as a private message. Now, Joker is a character-driven film. If you want to learn how to write plot driven films, then you can watch another course of mine where I analyze "Arrival" by Denis Villeneuve. Thank you so much for your participation.