I can’t say anything. It’s gritty and dark. I mean, I haven’t seen a cut or anything. Gotham. [laughs] The script was great, we rewrote the whole thing while we were shooting it. Literally, we would go into [director/co-writer Todd Phillips’] trailer and write the scene for the night and then do it. … During hair and makeup we’d memorize those lines and then do them, and then we’d reshoot that three weeks later. We had to do everything then because Joaquin [Phoenix] had lost so much weight. We couldn’t do reshoots later on, so we were figuring it out.

Vu comment il se prend beigne sur beigne dans le trailer ça fait penser à ce genre de film ou les 3/4 du film on assiste à la longue, longue déchéance d'un être humain jusqu'à son nerveux "break-down" et après c'est en roue libre sans retour possible.

"There's a connection, obviously, with the whole thing," said De Niro. "But it's not as a direct connection as the character I'm playing being Rupert many years later as a host. If they would've proposed that to me, I would've said, 'That's interesting, maybe we'll try to do that.' But by making this type of film, it is connected in a way, as you'll see."

Of course, The King of Comedy isn't the only Robert De Niro-starred Martin Scorsese film that Joker is evoking memories of, as the upcoming character study of the Clown Prince of Crime has apparently also taken its cues from such classics as 1976's Taxi Driver and 1980's Raging Bull. That's no accident either, as Scorsese himself is attached to Joker as an executive producer.

“We didn’t follow anything from the comic-books, which people are gonna be mad about. We just wrote our own version of where a guy like Joker might come from. That’s what was interesting to me. We’re not even doing Joker, but the story of becoming Joker. It’s about this man.”

“It took me a while [to commit],” Phoenix tells. “Now, when I look back, I don’t understand why.”

“There was a lot of fear, yeah,” he admits. “But I always say there’s motivating fear and debilitating fear. There’s the fear where you cannot make a fucking step, and there’s the kind where it’s like, ‘OK, what do we do? That’s not good enough.’ And you’re digging deeper and deeper. I love that kind of fear. It guides us, makes us work harder.”

“I think oftentimes, in these movies, we have these simplified, reductive archetypes, and that allows for the audience to be distant from the character, just like we would do in real life, where it’s easy to label somebody as evil, and therefore say, ‘Well, I’m not that,’” he explains.

“And yet we all are guilty. We all have sinned. And I thought that here was this film, and these characters, where it wouldn’t be easy for you as an audience. There are times where you’re going to feel yourself connected to him, and rooting for him, and times when you should be repulsed by him. And I like that idea of challenging the audience, and challenging myself to explore a character like that. It’s rare to explore characters like that in any movies, but specifically in the superhero genre.”

Joker received an eight-minute standing ovation at its Venice Film Festival premiere Saturday night.

According to Variety, stars Joaquin Phoenix and Zazie Beetz were in attendance, as well as director Todd Phillips.

Joker began receiving Oscar buzz. Now that the film has made its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, Alberto Barbera -- the event's director -- also seems sure Joker will be in the running for an Academy Award.

"I think they made a good choice. The right choice. The film deserves the reception it is getting, It goes beyond the boundaries of the genre," Barbera told Deadline while discussing Warner Bros.' decision to debut the film at the festival. "Joaquin Phoenix’s performance is outstanding and Todd Phillips did a great job."

Joaquin Phoenix s'est confié à ce sujet lors de la conférence de presse :

"A propos du Joker de Heath Ledger ? Il est inaccessible, il n'y a pas d'égal pour moi et j'ai fait de mon mieux pour honorer la mémoire de Heath lors du tournage comme s'il était à côté de moi. Je t'aime Heath, mon ami et mon frère. Tu me manques."