Arthur Fleck is afflicted with an uncontrollable urge to laugh, but it's clear he also has
a penchant for cutting a rug.
As seen in director Todd Phillips' Joker, Joaquin Phoenix's iteration of the Clown Prince
of Crime dances quite frequently, primarily as a means of self-expression.
A man who struggles with mental health issues, fails at turning his love of making other
people laugh into a legitimate career, and is often the target of attacks from strangers,
Arthur mostly keeps to himself.
But when he's alone, he's free to move his feet and wave his arms as he pleases.
So, why all the dancing in Joker?
Phillips recently spoke about how that aspect of Arthur's physicality came to fruition,
and why it's important in the film.
Chatting with Collider, Phillips explained that he and Phoenix identified a certain quality
in Arthur Fleck very early on - that being that he, quote, "had music in him," which
manifested itself through the character's dancing.
The filmmaker elaborated:
"It just existed in him.
Some people that you might know personally have that feeling, and I always thought that
about Arthur, but it was sort of kept in and trapped.
And there was something about that evolving."
Phillips also revealed that a lot of the dancing in the film wasn't planned out in the script.
Originally, the Joker script only included Arthur performing something close to a dance
while working as a sign-spinner as seen in the movie's opening sequence, and later shimmying
down the stairs in his clown makeup and Joker suit.
According to Phillips, the dancing was, quote, "something that kind of evolved" to show how
the music within Arthur was "fighting to get out."
When it does, each dance marks an important point along Arthur's narrative journey.
He dances when he feels good about himself and is totally comfortable with embracing
who he is; when he brings that out into the real world, his dancing becomes not only a
form of self-expression, but is a way for him to reaffirm his increasingly menacing
place in the world.
"For my whole life, I didn't know if I even really existed - but I do."
The director later admitted that he thinks Joker should have had even more dancing, as
he absolutely loved it in the movie.
So just how did Joaquin Phoenix prepare for all that dancing?
Well, he had a little help, of course!
Though it wouldn't take a Juilliard graduate or a professional ballerina to execute the
dance moves Arthur Fleck did in the film, Joker star Joaquin Phoenix still had to do
some prep work to get his character's movements just right.
As he revealed to Collider, his dancing prep approach was split into two parts: working
with choreographer Michael Arnold and turning to YouTube to study people's movements.
When discussing the striking scene in which Arthur struts down some steps, Phoenix told
Collider:
"I worked with this choreographer for that, but then…after working with him, Michael
Arnold was his name, I just started watching a lot of videos of people dancing, movement…"
He later shared with The Washington Post that he was particularly inspired by Ray Bolger,
an actor, dancer, and Broadway performer popular in the 1930s.
Specifically, Phoenix drew inspiration from Bolger's performance of "The Old Soft Shoe"
and the, quote, "odd arrogance" he displayed through his dancing.
Arnold had shown Phoenix that video, which was a huge part in helping the actor perfect
Arthur's unique manner of moving.
Phoenix confessed:
"Really, I completely just stole it from [Bolger].
He does this thing of turning his chin up.
This choreographer Michael Arnold showed me that and tons of videos and I zeroed in on
that one.
That was Joker, right?
There's an arrogance to him, really.
That was probably the greatest influence."
Another genre of dance that heavily influenced the dancing in Joker?
Disco, though the jury's still out on whether Phoenix ever tried to emulate John Travolta
in Saturday Night Fever while preparing for the film's dance sequences.
If you've yet to catch Joker, bunny-hop to your local theater to learn exactly why some
critics are calling it Oscar-worthy.
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