The Story Behind The Shot: The celebratory stairway sequence in Todd Phillips’ ‘Joker’

Whether you’re a fan of superhero cinema or of the damp, smoggy impression of Martin Scorsese’s New York, Todd Phillips’ 2019 movie Joker seemed to break the boundaries of taste, providing a riveting film that was compelling to all. Taking the super-villain in an entirely new direction from previous cinematic depictions, Joaquin Phoenix’s take on the character was a vulnerable, skeletal man in the midst of a mental health crisis, proving the be the perfect vehicle for the director’s eerie tale of vulnerability and exploitation.

With the weight of addiction and mental anguish on his back, Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck is a frail figure who works as a street clown by day and a quiet citizen by night, heading home to care for his elderly mother. Stuck in a spiral of depression that has been brought on by the neurological disorder that causes him to laugh at inappropriate times, Fleck tries to access some kind of positive reality through his stand-up comedy routine.

Shedding 24 kg in preparation for the role, Phoenix was always the preferred actor to take on the titular role. Phillips chose him for his impressive acting credentials, having previously collaborated with the likes of Lynne Ramsay, Paul Thomas Anderson, Ridley Scott, Spike Jonze and Gus Van Sant. Speaking about his acquisition, Phillips told TotalFilm: “The goal was never to introduce Joaquin Phoenix into the comic book movie universe. The goal was to introduce comic book movies into the Joaquin Phoenix universe”.

It was Phoenix’s Oscar-winning turn as the character that helped the movie achieve such greatness, with the actor perfectly toeing the line of the character, delivering an unhinged comic-book performance that also felt disturbingly genuine. Such can be perfectly demonstrated in the film’s iconic ‘Stairway sequence’, which depicts Fleck celebrating his newfound identity, donning facepaint and a fitted red suit to transform himself into the Joker.

After symbolically transforming himself into somebody who embraces his own flaws and strives for strength, power and fortitude, Fleck takes time out to celebrate his newfound self on the very steps that used to exhaust him on his daily commute. Dancing on its surface as if he’s conquered a mountain, Fleck feels like he’s found himself with his new persona, yet the aggression of his stiff moves point toward the rage that is still yet to come.

While speaking about how he framed the scene to reflect Fleck’s frame of mind, Joker cinematographer Lawrence Sher told Variety: “He’s not just going down the stairs which are symbolic of him going down into the darker part of himself, he’s celebrating himself…It’s a dance scene and it’s not done in the same brooding fashion as the beginning of the movie…It’s truly him at his most joyful sense”.

Juxtaposing the moment with the scene in which he walks up the stairs at the beginning of the film, Sher adds: “The main thing here is that the early shots of him walking up the stairs are slow. The camera work at the beginning of the movie is methodically slow, and so is his walk. The shot at the top of the stairs is static, and there’s no camera movement…In the end, we put a crane so we could move back and forth with him”.

A pivotal moment in Phillips’ two-time Oscar-winning movie, Fleck’s stairway celebration is one of the character’s final moments of relative clarity before his identity swells, and he becomes a figure of violence, rage and revolution. Sure, even though, by this point, we’d already seen Joker murder a handful of victims, there is a strange joy in seeing him somewhat mentally liberated, despite his newfound persona being far more damaging than his last.

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