decompensate
[ dee-kom-puh n-seyt ]SHOW IPA
verb (used without object), de·com·pen·sat·ed, de·com·pen·sat·ing.
Psychology. to lose the ability to maintain normal or appropriate psychological defenses, sometimes resulting in depression, anxiety, or delusions.
My first take on Joker having just seen it in November 2019: https://itshourcomeatlast.wordpress.com/2019/11/21/joker/
I don’t recall having written about You Were Never Really here, but in some ways they tell the same story.
What does it mean to Decompensate?
To decompensate means to lose the ability to maintain one’s state of mental health, typically due to some kind of stress. The word decompensate is most often applied to someone who is having a breakdown in their mental health mechanisms, especially someone who has an existing mental illness or psychological condition. ~ From Dictionary.com
Both films, right?
What causes decompensation?
Decompensation may occur due to fatigue, stress, illness, or old age. When a system is “compensated”, it is able to function despite stressors or defects. Decompensation describes an inability to compensate for these deficiencies. It is a general term commonly used in medicine to describe a variety of situations. ~ From Dictionary.com
Both Joe in YWNRH, and Arthur Fleck in Joker – both men or either already damaged and suffering and placed in extraordinary circumstances. What could go wrong?
Unless of course we’re talking about the systems themselves, or society as a living entity, decompensating? Or maybe both? Either man as one cell of an organism that’s malfunctioning and sick and unsustainable. That’s probably closer to the mark in either film.
I’m covering a lot of ground here very quickly. Too quickly really, but there’s a reason that these movies, released about a year apart, have been at the top of my favorites list. It would take a lot to knock them down. You will see in the link above that I thought Joker should have swept the Academy Awards for 2019 films. YWNRH should have grabbed at least a few for 2018 also. It’s a crime that it was barely mentioned. Joaquin Phoenix could have easily taken Best Actor for both films, but it’s not necessary. He’d won before Joker and Joe and Arthur are so closely connected that the Joker win was almost a twofer. They’re so connected and he played both so well that you have to ask, what makes him so good at this? One might surmise that his own systems have been compromised and that he’s “been there.” That might be stretching it though. It’s not for me to say.
I need to pause and say here that I’ve not really been writing reviews, at least in no conventional sense. It’s observations and commentary which I hope will draw a roadmap of sorts. There’s a reason that certain themes are so common in films, corruption of convention, for example, or a battle between animal instinct and conventional morality. The regular appearance of these themes in art, I believe, reflects both individual and group struggles that any one of us may or may not recognize within us or around us. Anyway, these are not reviews. Maybe it’s just me sorting shit out that everybody else isn’t concerned with. I’m okay with that.
Anyway, both these films stand out from many because there are no heroes in any conventional sense. There are no good guys vs. bad guys settings. There is no good vs. evil. You just have to watch discussions of crime or social issues on the news to know that we’re not a society/people that deals well with moral ambiguity. The reason that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has resonated with us for over two centuries now is that we know, more or less, that the creature is not a monster. Quite the opposite, he is human, or at least built of human parts. We’ve 200 years since of film and literature populated with Frankenstein monsters. Joe and Arthur Fleck are both monsters. Many films about aliens from space portray monsters and they’re called evil monsters because they have as little regard for the sanctity of our lives and way of life as we have for many of our neighbors. All lives matter? Really? There are monsters in our news. We are all about monsters and evil but outside of film and literature we do very little to ask where the monsters come from. This is why many people were so uncomfortable with Joker. They went to the theater looking for distraction and instead were stood in front of a mirror. Nope. Nobody likes moral ambiguity. If it’s not good prevailing over evil then it just might be dangerous. And there are people in both YWNRH and Joker that consider the monsters the heroes. Both films were a tad difficult in that sense. You’re not going to get the illusion of moral clarity. You’re not going to get the chance to judge, unless of course you’ve got the courage to look into a mirror and have a shot at yourself.
Watching these films back to back as a double feature might be an awful lot of Joaquin Phoenix, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s going to depend on what you’re looking for. I’ve been meaning to do it since seeing Joker late last year. Joker is, by the way, my favorite movie of any of the comic book adaptations and not just the Batman stories. And overall I’d take any of the Marvel flicks if I were merely looking for distraction. The Batman franchise has, at points though, taken a stab at being more than that. Bruce Wayne/Batman has been more 3-dimensional than many of the Marvel heroes. Both DC and Marvel do tend to do better along those lines with the villains. Magneto, for one, has been better written than Professor X or Wolverine. His struggles, dare I say, are more human and relatable. None from either side come closer to human though than Joker. He is, as played by Phoenix, more human and relatable than a huge number of characters populating any genre of movie. I think that’s what got politicians and cops and prosecutors fired up. They don’t want us looking at criminals with even the smallest amount of compassion or empathy. That takes away their ability to lead through fear and faux-moral absolutes.
Anyhoo… this is still a draft. And I reserve the right to change my mind as necessary to get this shit straight.
What rough beast 