The Art of Subtle Story Telling in Cinema: The Joker and the Slow Road to Insanity

Every great story starts with introducing a character and ends with that character achieving something or reaching a certain goal. Now in simple terms a film consists of the character’s journey there. That’s where the art of storytelling comes in. How can you make the climax more anticipated and worth listening to? It depends on how much you build up to it and how you maintain interest for the big Joker style punch line (it’s not always funny).

What I love about cinema, is how and when a provocative situation is met by subtle suggestive storytelling, where the scenes, dialogues and shot composition are implicit in nature. For example, let us take a well-known film: Arrival.

Arrival’s main story gist is that aliens invade the earth. A common subject that has been tackled several times by mainstream media, especially those with a big budget and CGI fanatic. However, Arrival took this main story line, a rousing story line, and played it out in an unexpected and more accurately, a patient manner. An attempt to create an emotional and philosophical connection with the audience as compared to inciting explosions of adrenaline. Both incite goosebumps nonetheless.

Cinema’s Golden Rule: show don’t tell. We find ourselves in a crux considering the current issue of obvious story telling. Just like how a person feels happier when he solves a problem on his own than when someone solves it for him, the subtlety of storytelling allows for the audience to work out the plot/be prepared for it, in context of the story at large. This is when the storyteller understands the audience is not stupid to figure it out on their own. It lets go of the handholding approach of storytelling and allows for the viewer to explore a more realistic viewing experience when the obvious story lines are not thrown in our face or spoon fed to us.

The audience is more prepared for what is to come, though they don’t know what it is yet. Element of surprise is maintained and the scene conveys its message, however it doesn’t seem unrealistic and abrupt. A narratively patient form of storytelling is by far the more preferred style of narration. Done correctly, it can leave the audience thinking about the film for a few extra days.

Subtlety in cinema can involve a wide range of storytelling approaches. It could be a disguised character who appears at the opening of the film, only to have been the driving factor to the climax. It could be a moment in the film which unknowingly has an effect on the entire storyline, shifts in plot, or the driving force that changes everything. It could also be as simple as dialogue, that hints at a coming plot point.

In the Joker, a phenomenal piece of work that takes origin stories to new heights, with a huge focus on the overall emotional trauma that a seemingly normal (given the circumstances) law abiding, street clown, who lives with his mother, goes through to become cinema’s most diabolical villain (with regards to only storytelling, and not the performance) subtle story telling plays a major role. It takes into account mental health, social inequality at the grass root level, family issues, poverty, unemployment, oppression all directed at our to be antagonist- protagonist.

Arthur Fleck, a.k.a. the Joker mentions his family issues, or issues with his dad a few times in the film, before the big reveal. This acts as a hint that Arthur’s adult life continues to be affected by his father’s absence. The audience is aware of what this news will do to him and may be expecting this to be a significant plot point and at large a cause of Arthur Flecks downfall or the Jokers rise. And once this information is revealed to us, we infer all the other clues and nudges that led us to this point, only to be fascinated by the foreshadowing.

This can also be seen in the scene where the Joker takes out the gun from his pants and shoots the three guys at the subway. If this had happened without the scene at the children’s hospital, then the viewer would definitely think this is some secret agent s**t, and that there’s no way that’s plausible. The scene at the hospital lets us know the location of the gun and that he doesn’t carry it in his bag, but on him. The hospital scene has two major effects in the story: he gets fired as a result and he keeping his gun on him and not in his bag leads to him shooting the three people dead. Almost every small decision has a bigger impact.

Now when the audience finds out the truth about the Joker’s origins, it is known that we are discovering this at the same time protagonist, Arthur Fleck is. However, what really makes us different from him, is the way he takes the news. This revelation just adds to his insanity and he acts on it, whereas the audience lives vicariously through him. We can’t act out, so we watch someone who can.

A movie that is largely about a man and his journey to insanity – about mental illness and its place in an oppressive society – a patient approach was ideal to understand the rupture of Arthur Fleck’s sanity. This movie is full of such examples, and cinema is full of such examples. It is a not-so-subtle, subtle form of storytelling.