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Lady Gaga on the meaning of the last song

Posted on by Vanessa
Lady Gaga on the meaning of the last song

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Spoiler alert! We discuss the ending of Joker: Folie à Deux (now in cinemas). Stop reading if you don't want to know!

The dancing stopped for Joker (Joaquin Phoenix) and Harley Quinn (Lady Gaga) in “Joker: Folie à Deux.”

Gaga conceived a fantasy waltz sequence for the 2019 sequel to Joker starring two lovestruck Arkham State Hospital inmates: Lee Quinzel (who becomes Harley Quinn) and Phoenix's Arthur Fleck (who transforms back into Joker) . But the illusion would always be broken, just like the two people dancing.

“It’s this shared fantasy that they have,” Phoenix says.

DC Comics' unconventional villain story features eerily magical singing and dancing. But “Folie à Deux” ends in a “tragedy,” as director and co-writer Todd Phillips calls it.

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Lee rejects Arthur after explaining to the jury that he is not the Joker

Through Lee's love and her urging, the broken prisoner Arthur becomes the Joker again in “Folie à Deux”. In his “Trial of the Century” in Gotham City, he even madly defends himself in full Joker mask and garb for the murders he committed in the original.

However, the emotional court testimony of murder eyewitness Gary (Leigh Gill), the only one who considers Arthur a friend, hits hard. Arthur tells the jury that he is not the Joker, he is Arthur, and he wishes he hadn't killed those people. After this confession, Lee leaves the courtroom. The love affair is over.

“That’s because (Lee) wasn’t in love with Arthur,” Phillips says. “She was in love with Joker, and he’s not Joker. He's just Arthur, and he can only wear that Joker mask for so long. The film is about identity, and is he Arthur or Joker? He's really just not a joker.”

The jury returns with guilty verdicts on all murder counts. But a car bomb explosion (staged by zealous Joker supporters) brings utter destruction, killing or seriously injuring those gathered, such as District Attorney Harvey Dent (Harry Lawtey). Arthur survives relatively unscathed and escapes through the destroyed courthouse to Gotham.

But his only interest is tracking down Lee and finding her on the famous staircase the two had talked about, where Arthur had danced so madly for the first time as the Joker. Lee wants nothing to do with him.

“She never says the word 'Arthur' throughout the entire film. She calls him Joker throughout the entire movie. Until the end, on the stairs,” says Phillips. “And then she says, 'Goodbye, Arthur.' Because that’s not who she signed up to be.”

Arthur is fatally stabbed by another inmate, who may be the real Joker

Arthur is immediately arrested and taken back to Arkham State Hospital. Later, a smiling inmate comes up to him and says, “Hey, Arthur, can I tell you a joke?”

The joke is about a “psychopath” who “walks into a bar and sees this famous clown sitting there all alone and completely drunk. He's pathetic.” The psychopath in the joke tells the loser clown, “I can't believe you're here. What a disappointment. I used to see you on TV.”

It becomes clear that Arthur is the disappointing loser clown and the joke teller is the psychopath (and possibly “real” Joker). After the punchline, the inmate stabs Arthur in the stomach. As Arthur falls to the ground dying, the assassin can be heard laughing creepily and we even see him cutting his face with the knife, presumably to make the Joker smile.

“Maybe the idea is that (Arthur) was never the Joker,” Phillips says. “Maybe Arthur was always just the inspiration for the Joker, for something to come.”

Arthur even had his death and the end of his relationship announced in a disturbing fantasy sequence in which Harley Quinn shoots Joker in the stomach, the exact spot where he later stabs him. “Maybe he had a feeling this was coming,” Phillips says.

It's over when Lady Gaga sings “That's Life.”

During “Joker: Folie à Deux”, Harley Quinn talks about building a mountain with Joker and sings “Gonna Build a Mountain” about the relationship. The song's lyrics are: “Going to build a mountain/ Going to build it high/ I don't know how I'm gonna do it all/ I know I'm gonna try.”

“But this is the shared fantasy where they are actors at the height of their romance,” says Gaga. The ending shows that Lee/Harley Quinn now sees it as just an illusion. The realization leads to a triumphant version of “That's Life,” which features Gaga off-camera. The Oscar-winning singer/actress had held back from going full throttle to sing as Lee. But in “That’s Life,” Gaga lets loose for the first time.

“It’s an interesting contrast to the rest of the film,” says Gaga. “This song had to be full of heart, strength and brawn and have a determination that only those who are not weak-minded have. It’s like a different character in a different place.”

Singing as Lee/Harley after accepting the harsh reality required relentless attempts before the perfectionist learned the truth.

“I must have sung that literally hundreds of times,” Gaga says. “I tried to find Harley's version and help create a sense of triumph, but also something very disturbing.”

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