Grammy-winning music artist and actor Lady Gaga is portraying Harley Quinn in Joker: Folie à Deux, the sequel to 2019's Joker featuring Joaquin Phoenix in the titular role.
The 38-year-old "Bad Romance" singer's description of the new musical psychological thriller during a press conference for the movie at the Venice Film Festival left the internet scratching their heads.
The sequel is a "character story" project loosely based on DC Comics characters like its predecessor and has no ties to any previous Batman movie.
Unlike Joker, the trailers for Folie à Deux featured the two leads singing and dancing in several short production number clips, indicating it was musical.
However, Lady Gaga insisted that it was anything but a song-and-dance film, and described the movie as if it was a musical.
She told reporters:
“I think the way that we approach music in this film was very special and extremely nuanced."
She continued:
"I wouldn’t necessarily say that this is actually a musical; in a lot of ways, it’s very different.”
Gaga, who was nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award and won the Oscar for Best Original Song in the 2018 remake of A Star is Born, continued explaining how music was used in Folie å Deux.
“The way that music is used is to really give the characters a way to express what they mean to say because the scene and just the dialogue is not enough.”
Her contradictory statement went viral, leaving social media users revisiting their understanding of what constitutes a musical.
Regardless, fans are excited to go to the theaters.
Last month, the film's director, Todd Phillips, made a similar comment in an interview with Variety.
He said:
"Most of the music in the movie is really just dialogue. It’s just Arthur not having the words to say what he wants to say, so he sings them instead.”
Phillips referred to Lin-Manuel Miranda's 2021 film adaptation of his musical In the Heights as an example of what he wishes to avoid with Folie à Deux.
"I just don’t want people to think that it’s like In the Heights, where the lady in the bodega starts to sing and they take it out onto the street, and the police are dancing," said Phillips, adding, "No disrespect, because I loved In the Heights.”
This led to a discussion on social media about the Hollywood stigma facing the musical genre on the big screen.
While details of the musical sequences in the new sequel are scant, Phillips said the film leaned more towards being “mostly a jukebox musical."
The term jukebox musical refers to a stage or film musical featuring pre-existing popular songs instead of original music. Moulin Rouge, Rock of Ages, and Mamma Mia! are examples of the genre.
Phillips told the entertainment outlet there will be 15 covers of “very well-known” songs in Joker: Folie à Deux, including, “That’s Entertainment” from the 1953 musical film The Band Wagon, starring Judy Garland.
Joker composer Hildur Guðnadóttir is returning for the sequel to score the musical cues.
Joker: Folie à Deux is scheduled for an October 2, 2024, U.S. release.
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