Sympathy for Mr. Evil – Four Charismatic Antagonists in Film History

In most cases, antagonists in film don’t arouse feelings of sympathy or compassion. Why should they? As opponents of the hero their only function is to get the plot going, challenging the “good guy” and in doing so, giving him the possibility to prove his worth and “goodness”.

Observing this battle of good versus evil it’s only natural that the audience identifies with the (sometimes ambivalent but generally likeable) protagonist.
Anyways, there are a few films that make it not that easy for you to side with the supposed good guy. On the contrary, those films provide their antagonists with a certain charisma that lets you secretly sympathize with them.

Due to my early shaped disposition, I consider myself very easily attracted to oddly likeable antagonists. In the following I present to you my personal top four extraordinary charismatic villains in film.

Nota bene: This list is not about antiheroes like Tom Ripley (The talented Mr. Ripley) or Patrick Bateman (American Psycho) – as these dubious guys are the protagonists from the very start of the movie, it’s only consequent to feel for them. Instead, this list focuses on evil opponents who are capable of upstaging the protagonists!

Anton Chigurh (No Country for Old Men)

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Just as his haircut, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) appears profoundly alien. Equipped with a captive bolt pistol, this psychopathic killer murders without remorse. Although working as hitman, cold-blooded Chigurh is definitely his own master. When Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) arouses his hunter instinct, tracking his rival becomes to him a matter of heart and he’s not willing to surrender.

Nervous Accountant: Are you going to shoot me?
Chigurh: That depends. Do you see me?

Understanding Anton Chigurgh is impossible – he lives in his own insane world and according to his own mysterious rules and principles (cf. the coin toss). However, you can’t help but recognize his killer genius. Just look at Chigurh’s highly concentrated face when he’s lying on the floor, busy with strangling the policeman with the chain of his handcuffs!

Favorite scene:

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Max Cady (Cape Fear)

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Can you feel sympathy for a brutal and sadistic rapist? In case of Max Cady (Robert De Niro) you definitely can – at least during some parts of Martin Scorsese’s thriller remake. Maybe it’s Cady’s determination, his uncompromising will to destroy that man’s life who destroyed his own, that makes him so intriguing.

Released from prison, Cady has only one thing in his mind: revenge. While imprisoned, he taught himself reading and studied law, understanding that his lawyer Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte) betrayed him, not defending him properly.
Cady tracks Bowden and begins to terrorize him and his family. However, the protagonist’s family is just about to fall apart already at the beginning of the film: You learn that Bowden and his rather frustrated wife don’t really get along anymore and that the lawyer appears to have an affair with his colleague. Bowden’s mediocrity helps you sympathize with extremely intelligent but equally psychopathic Cady.

In fact, only Max Cady’s appearance can “safe” this family, giving Bowden, his wife and teenage daughter a chance to grow together again.

Favorite quote:
›I am like God, and God like me. I am as large as God, He is as small as I. He cannot above me, nor I beneath Him be.‹ Silesius, 17th Century. (Sounds better in German, tough.)

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Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of the Lambs)

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Former psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) is a man of great intelligence and (sometimes) perfect manners. His degree of sophistication can’t be but mesmerizing. When detective Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) enters his high-security cell, Lecter is even capable of identifying her perfume!

It’s this strange mixture of intelligence and insanity, this combination of nobility and evil, his being perfectly accomplished and totally abalienated at the same time that makes Hannibal Lecter particularly fascinating to me.

Favorite quote:
If I help you, Clarice, it will be turns with us, too. Quid pro quo. I tell you things, you tell me things. Not about this case, though. About yourself. Quid pro quo. Yes or no?

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Frank Booth (Blue Velvet)

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Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper) seems to have sprung from a nightmare: He’s a cruel gangster and violent lunatic, full of rage and malice and unpredictable in his actions. When college student Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) spies on nightclub singer Dorothy, he discovers her to be Frank’s sex slave and is determined to stop this crazy sociopath whose indeed “bizarre sexual proclivities” and sadomasochistic tendencies prove an extremely deranged personality.

I believe Frank to be a product of the protagonist’s own subconscious representing a condensation of Jeffrey’s drives and desires. Frank is Jeffrey and Jeffrey needs to fight Frank in order to overcome his issues and to establish a proper symbolic order.

Even tough Frank Booth is the spawn of the very evil, you can’t deny his humor and rejoice his entertaining qualities. Unfortunately Hopper (who plays Frank inhaling an unidentified gas with a mask) refused to inhale helium. Try to imagine Frank speaking with an infantile voice – that surely would have made this freaky figure even more perfect!

Favorite scene:

Nostalgia

I remember that crucial day when I accompanied my father to the local supermarket where we bought our first television. I was excited. I knew there was something “huge” going on.

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From the moment on the box stood in the corner of our living room, my “second socialization” (as I call it) begun. I became acquainted with a whole new world – a world principally constituted by Nickelodeon.

The series I watched definitely shaped my personality, in a good way (as I hope).
I was totally mad about The Ren & Stimpy Show, Hey Arnold!, Rocko’s Modern Life, Aaahh!!! Real Monsters and … of course … The Adventures of Pete & Pete.

Honestly, I think there was (and still is) no better series than the one about Pete and Pete, the two red haired Wrigley brothers.

The episodes were made with heart and mind, the stories were funny, intelligent, even poetic.

And sometimes I think back and smile, because I remember Endless Mike giving Older Pete precious dating advice (Time Tunnel) or Little Pete staying home from school with Lincoln stuck in his nose (Sick Day). I recall Older Pete’s disturbing field trip (Yellow Fever) or how Little Pete sold the house (35 Hours). Also unforgettable: the fat kid that’s hearing the ice man’s bell and runs so fast across the meadow that a butterfly sticks to his glasses (Splashdown!) …

Oh, that definitely is the sound of nostalgia!
Long live television!

Yet Another Example of the Porousness of Certain Borders III

The cat is on the mat hat.

Selfish System: School

I’m currently reading Peter Sloterdijk’s inspiring essay “Du musst dein Leben ändern” (“You Must Change Your Life”, referring to a poem of Rainer Maria Rilke with the same title) on the meaning and importance of ‘social immunization’ and exercise in human history.

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At one point of his investigation he goes into the (German) school system – and as he hits the nail on the head, I don’t want to keep Sloterdijk’s appropriate criticism of school from you:

“As the school during the last decades no longer came up with its since the 17th century persistently proved courage for dysfunctionality, it transmuted into a ‘selfish system’ that orientates itself solely to norms of the own establishment. The school produces teachers that only remind of teachers, subjects that only remind of subjects, pupils that only remind of pupils. In doing so the school becomes in inferior way ‘anti-authoritarian’, without ceasing to formally exercise authority. As the law of learning by imitation is not to be suspended, the school risks – from its unwillingness to represent exemplarity – to make the example that is repeated in the next generation. The consequence is that in the second, third generation almost exclusively teachers will appear that only celebrate the self-referentiality of education. Self-referential is education that takes place because it is the nature of the system making it take place. With the differentiation of the school system, a state is reached in which the school knows one single major subject that is called ‘school’. This corresponds to the single external teaching goal: the graduation. Who’s going of such schools has, up to thirteen years long, learned not to take the teachers as role models.”
– Peter Sloterdijk: Du mußt dein Leben ändern

Yet Another Example of the Porousness of Certain Borders II

If I lose my right arm …

If I lose my right arm, could I continue studying architecture?

– Student, today in the University canteen

Dennis

Yet another great piece of art from Denmark: Dennis, a very unpretentious but powerful short film written and directed by Mads Matthiesen in 2007.

“When Dennis (Kim Kold), an introvert bodybuilder, invites a local girl out on a date his mother is hurt and disappointed. Despite the pressure she puts on him to cancel the date, Dennis ventures into a night that he will never forget.”

Due to the great success of the short movie they recently released the feature film  Teddy Bear (2012) telling the story of Dennis’s seek for true love – despite all maternal obstacles.

I Left My Mind Long Ago

 

All the Movements from the Inside World

Those Danes are freaking amazing … The music video for catchy track “Inside World” by electro indie dance rock band WhoMadeWho is pure genius!

Also worth watching/listening: their “Pitfalls of Modern Man” video trilogy Every Minute Alone and Running Man & The Sun!

On Deconstruction

D’ya wanna know the creed’a
Jacques Derrida?
Dere ain’t no reada
Dere ain’t no wrider
Eider.

– Peter Mullen: Deconstruction