Film Courage: In the filmmaking process for JOKER was there one scene (maybe the beginning
of principal photography) where you said “This is going to be great!”
And it energized you and kept you on a momentum?
Lawrence Sher, ASC: Yes.
Honestly it was like the first shot that we did.
The first shot we did shooting the movie was him [Joaquin Phoenix as Joker] at the social
worker’s scene which is like the second scene in the movie.
So when he is laughing, that big laughing spell and then she starts asking him about
the job and that whole scene which is about seven or eight pages or so…actually both
social worker scenes and then when he comes back the second time and he says “You never
listen.”
And all of that, we shot both those scenes, it was like 10 pages of work in one day, not
even a long day.
But that first take of him performing I went “This is going to be pretty great.”
I was like “This movie could be divisive because it’s darker than people expected
or maybe not as funny as they would expect from Todd [Phillips].”
I knew there would be some things in which you go “We might not get all of the Batman
and the DC [Comics] fans on board.
But what we’re going to make is going to be something that we’re really proud of
simply because I could see it from that performance and honestly I would go home and excitedly
show the dailies to my wife and just because I was so excited to show her what we were
doing.
So I was feeling pretty strong and pretty high about the movie from the beginning.
Then it was really motivating because I recognized “Oh, wait…so we can’t let off of the
gas…ever.”
As opposed to if you start slowly and you start to get up to speed and by two weeks
in you’re like “Oh now I understand the movie and you start ramping and every day
you’re trying to make it better and better.”
Here I was like “Oh shoot, Day one was great.
Day two was great, Day three also great scene.”
Now it’s like every day has to be this good.
So then it was a motivating to keep hyper-focused on making something that I thought could be
certainly the best thing Todd and I had done together.
And I wanted it to be the best thing I had ever done.
I just did.
It was definitely a thing where I wanted this to be the best work I’ve ever done.
And so I just stayed super-focused everyday to not let off of the gas.
I was feeling pretty positive about the movie right away.
Film Courage: How much of the film is improvisational?
Lawrence: I don’t know how much is improvisational?
There is a lot of improvisation in the way that we don’t rehearse and we don’t put
down marks.
We just start shooting the scene and witnessing it in real time and that way it is very improvisational.
As far as within the body of the scene, not a ton.
We did some scenes which were just ideas for things, which were just ideas for things which
were not necessarily in the script when we first started that would just become sort
of ideas that we could do like in the apartment and things like that.
And Joaquin was certainly fine to go off of the script a little bit.
Like for instance when he stood up and was playing with the and was talking to himself
like “Oh you’re a really good dancer.”
That wasn’t in the script it was just happening in real time and may have been discussions
from Todd but for me and my team it was like this is happening so let’s just photograph
it but generally speaking Todd is not one of those improv guys who goes “Now try this,
now try that.”
If we’re going to change the script he changes it with the actors and the writer and he kind
of works it out a new version of the scene and then will just carry on from there and
do that version as opposed to sort of changing it within.
The real improvisation is sort of in technique and fluidity in which me and my camera operator
we tell the story as we would shoot the scenes and the fact that we would wouldn’t rehearse
or put down marks or that sort of thing so we would just make the movie a bit improvisationaly
at times which was maybe half the time.
Film Courage: Was it in the script that you weren’t sure if scenes were in Arthur’s
mind or really happening?
Lawerence: I think that is just part of the script inherently right?
And part of the fact that the Joker (even in the lore of the comic books) is an unreliable
narrator of his own life so he will tell stories and it’s like “Was that a truthful story?”
I’m not a big comic book guy but I know from reading stuff and talking to people that
he’ll tell backstories about himself in comic books and graphic novels in which every
time he tells a story it’s something different.
I think to create this idea that is he ever being truthful?
Is any of it true?
Is none of it true?
That kind of thing.
So I think inherent to the script certainly you’re left to question and ask yourself
“Is that real?”
Obviously we do it within the body of the movie with the Sophie character [Zazie Beetz]
and that relationship to allow us to sort of see a manifestation of that idea in a relationship
that he fantasizes about and that yet we’re seeing it in a way that it looks like it’s
happening.
So I think it is meant to allow you to have an interpretation as the audience to decide
what is real and what is not.
But it’s certainly not something that we wanted to key in and tell the audience precisely
what was and what is wasn’t because I think we want the audience to have their own interpretation.
Film Courage: Right and then the talk show rehearsing for it and kind of being his best
self…and no spoilers…but going there and not knowing what was real.
Lawrence: Yes and it was one of those things that again TAXI DRIVER has been used as a
template for the movie I think obviously because it’s a disaffected guy who is doing a job
and sort of strikes out against society a little bit and has some of those correlations.
But even that final scene in TAXI DRIVER when he picks up Cybil Shepherd in the taxi cab
is up for interpretation, right?
I think when I watched it for the first time, I questioned that interpretation.
But when I watched it two weeks ago you recognized how even how potentially obvious the stylistic
aspects of some of the camera work in that scene could lead you to believe that “Oh
did Travis Bickle perish in that scene in the lair of the Jodie Foster character.
And this whole post script of him being a hero and getting the letter from Jodie Foster’s
parents and is that all just a dream or just a fantasy of his afterlife or whatever?
When I watched it when I was in film school back in college I didn’t necessarily go
to that interpretation.
But I recognize that people do.
So I think similarly I think people can do the same thing here if they choose to.