Whatever your feelings about the oddball, glossy-grimy stand-alone Joker -- and people had very strong feelings about either the quality, the nihilism, or the emptiness of Todd Phillips' quasi-remake of Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy as a comic-book origin story -- the film had a very strong commitment to visual design.
One of my favourite designers, Bryan Lenning, aimed to, in his own words "capture the confidence that Arthur Flek exudes the moment be comes the Joker," where, "nothing can hurt him anymore. From this point on, Joker will hold court in Gotham."
What makes this such a good piece of 'two years after the fact' key art, is that it is a single image, a single clean photograph, which captures that moment. The 1970s back-stage detritus, the orange-yellow-blue colours in the mirror, offset the orange-pink-teal outfit. Or, the light at the top, dark at the bottom, framing. Also: Give an actor a cigarette as a prop, and they will work wonders. The poise in this moment has killer vibes.
Again and again, I will say that character collage key art, or the increasing number of kaleidoscope posters which busy themselves with busy-ness, fail to capture the weight of a well-framed image in one-sheet format.
