Freud believed that all human behaviors originated from two instincts: the instinct of love and the instinct of death. The instinct of love urges people to survive, reproduce and create; Death instinct urges people to destroy and destroy. Death instinct can be both internal and external. Internally, it shows self-abuse, suicide, etc., while externally, it shows violence and killing.
At the beginning of the film The Clown, the audience was told that Arthur was a mental patient and had a strong impulse to die through the scene of Arthur's communication with the counselor. The sentence written in Arthur's notes that runs through the film: I hope my death is more valuable than my life. At the same time, we can also see that this death impulse is still an internal state. At this time, Arthur was just one of thousands of losers struggling at the bottom of society.
However, in the deteriorating Gotham, Arthur, who has a strong impulse to die, is destined to stand out and become the destroyer of order, the creator of chaos and the destroyer of civilization, which is what people call the devil. And this demon was created by people.
Randall, a colleague of Arthur's, is a burly man. At least it seems that way. One day, Arthur dressed as a clown to promote a business, and a group of hooligans robbed him of his billboard. After Arthur caught up, instead of getting the billboard back, he was beaten up. When Randall learned about it, he gave Arthur a pistol to defend himself and said, "You are my brother." Arthur didn't want it, but he couldn't bear to refuse Randall's kindness, so he took the gun.
Later, Arthur accidentally dropped his gun while performing a program for sick children. But Arthur tactfully covered it up with an impromptu performance. However, the boss knew about the pistol, because Randall took the initiative to tell the boss that Arthur had bought a gun from him. Arthur lost his job because of this.
When he went home by subway, he met three drunken Wall Street white-collar workers and bullied a single woman. The woman turned to Arthur for help with her eyes, but Arthur, who was timid by nature, didn't have the courage to stand up, but the pressure caused him to have a seizure and laugh. The three white-collar workers were surprised first, then curious, and finally found that Arthur didn't have the courage to resist, so they punched and kicked him. Arthur finally couldn't bear it, and shot and killed three people.
This was Arthur's first murder, and he didn't show any guilt afterwards. Not only that, he even felt complacent when he saw the relevant reports and found himself imitated and worshipped by the protesters. What he did attracted attention for the first time, and his value was recognized in a deformed way. Through this incident, Arthur experienced the pleasure of destruction for the first time, which led to the death impulse in his heart, which gradually turned outward, but it has not yet fully pointed to the outside world. Because there are people in this world who deserve his protection, one is his girlfriend who just met him soon, but he is very congenial, and the other is his mother who lives alone with him.
Before Arthur's mother Penny retired, she was an employee of Wayne Group. Because the mother and son were living in poverty, Penny wrote several letters to Thomas Wayne, hoping to get each other's help, but she never got a response. On this day, Arthur secretly opened the letter his mother asked him to send, and was surprised to learn that his father was actually Thomas Wayne. Arthur found Thomas, hoping to recognize himself to him, but he learned from the other side that his mother Penny was delusional. All this was her fantasy.
Arthur went to the mental hospital where his mother had stayed before, and the results confirmed Thomas' statement. Not only that, Arthur also learned that he was an orphan adopted by his mother. In his childhood, his mother Penny once lived with a violent man. The man could not help but abuse Penny and Arthur. When Arthur was abused, Penny never protected Arthur. Arthur's mental illness and the illness that would make him laugh when he was under pressure were left behind at that time.
The closest person in the world is the culprit of his tragic situation today. Arthur is in great pain. He seeks comfort from his girlfriend, only to find that the other person hardly knows himself. It turns out that this so-called congenial girlfriend is just Arthur's own fantasy. It turns out that there is no one worth guarding in this world. Everything is a lie and an illusion.
Lu Xun said: If you don't break out in silence, you will die in silence. If Arthur had not experienced the pleasure of killing before, nine times out of ten he would choose to die after losing his mother and girlfriend. Arthur like that is just another hopeless and insignificant loser abandoned by society. However, fate, rather Gotham's society, provided Arthur with another way out: to explode himself and create death.
Arthur's killing his mother is a scene with great sensory impact and symbolic significance. He killed not his mother, but the last trace of humanity left in his heart. From now on, Arthur died, and the clown was born with blood; A man died in Gotham, but a demon was born.
as a demon, the greatest value is killing and destroying. So, when Randall came to the door, Arthur killed him without hesitation. Before, Arthur accepted Franklin's invitation to make fun of him, but in order to realize his dream of becoming a talk show actor. But at this moment, Arthur wants to fight back in his own way, and at the same time show the people of Gotham through Franklin's program: Look, this is the devil you created.
On the program, in front of Gotham TV viewers, Arthur openly admitted that he shot three white-collar workers on Wall Street, took off Franklin's hypocritical mask, and finally shot him without hesitation. Afterwards, Arthur was taken away by the police. Outside the car, there was a riot caused by clowns.
looking at his masterpiece, the clown showed a smug smile. Subsequently, the rioters rescued the clown and worshipped him, and the clown also realized the value of being alive. What people worship and admire should be heroes, but in this fallen Gotham, it is the demon who kills people without blinking an eye.
At the end of the film, there is a scene where Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Wayne are killed. Young Bruce Wayne, the future Batman, stands at a loss. This scene foreshadows the birth of Batman, and through the relationship between them and Thomas Wayne, it implies that Batman and clown, hero and devil are two diametrically opposed products born in the same environment. At the same time, it also brought a little light and hope to this film, which was shrouded in darkness from beginning to end.
On the surface, this film tells how a person degenerates into a demon step by step, but in fact it criticizes the indifference and meanness in human nature. If people in the street can help Arthur when he is bullied by a rogue, nothing will happen afterwards; If those street hooligans, Randall, Wall Street white-collar workers, Thomas Wayne and Franklin were not so mean, Arthur would not be pushed into the abyss step by step; If everyone were less cold and mean and more kind and tolerant, Gotham would not have fallen into such darkness and chaos.