Character ambivalence + conflict

So here I am again with another Bogart example.

The classic Bogie character (which, as an actor, he makes different and fresh each time) is the loner who only looks out for himself (“I stick my neck out for nobody”), but by the end he is totally committed to the Good Side. His change of character is what drives the resolutions of the movies. This transformation was first seen fully formed in “Casablanca” even though there may have been elements of it earlier. We also see it in “To Have And Have Not,” “Key Largo,” “The African Queen” (in a more light-hearted vein), “Chain Lighting,” and “The Harder They Fall.”

Llewyn Davis – victim of bad luck or just a prick?

TE Lawrence – believer in the Arab cause or egomaniac who deems them barbaric?

Great thread, spiderwort, and close to my heart. I posted in another thread that my favorite movies are those where the protagonist has to make a difficult moral choice, which is related to what you are writing about. I will probably need to come back to this thread (again and again).



One of my favorite films of the new millennium is Margaret (2011 dir: Kenneth Lonergan). I do not know of any film that better illustrates the web we can weave, not by practicing to deceive (as the old saying has it) but by trying to do the right thing. It is kind of backwards to the examples already given. The protagonist is very clear what she wants at the start, to right a wrong. But by the end of the movie she is totally baffled as to which is the morally right course.

The same actress, Anna Paquin, plays a rather similar character in Spike Lee's 25th Hour (2002) but here she is just a supporting character and it is Edward Norton who has the moral dilemma to resolve. Should he report to the police and serve a long jail term or do a runner?



In Cambridge Spies (2003 UK TV mini-series) they all have to weigh their desire to fight fascism, against their family lives, their careers, and reputations. They all make the right choice, and to a greater or lesser extent sacrifice their lives, but the series also shows that their motivations were not solely noble. Snobbery, jealousy, bloody-mindedness, resentment at social censure because gay, etc, all played a part. 

The real story is more surprising and complex than any film could be, but this is a good attempt despite the small TV budget which partly undermines things The Spanish episodes are embarrassingly poverty-stricken and it is a shame they were not written out. If you are American, interested in spy stories, and can play Region 2 DVDs, invest seven dollars in it. 




Elmer Gantry (1960 dir: Richard Brooks) starts off by trying to rip off the travelling crusade of Sister Sharon Falconer. Then he falls in love with her (who wouldn't?) and does his level best to help her succeed. When things falls apart (literally) we hope that he is a sadder and more ethical man. Unsubtle Hollywood hokum, but one of my favorite movies.




In my all-time favorite movie in the universe, Wild Strawberries (1957) dir: Ingmar Bergman, Dr Isaak Borg (played by the great silent director Victor Sjöström) has shut out all warm feelings to concentrate on his medical career. At the end of his life, during a trip to receive a high academic honor, a succession of dreams and random meetings with strangers, make the old blockhead realize he has got the balance wrong, and he makes some clumsy attempts to start putting things right. In Casablanca I am only in tears when she sings La Marseillaise, but this one is apt to start me off at any point. The film shows why he became a loner (missing out on Bibi Andersson in her prime could do that to any male) but the garage stop (with Max von Sydow) suggests he maybe made the right life choice.

I am the Coens' biggest fan but I too felt uncomfortable watching this. Took three attempts to get through it. Your post has made me realize that it was because I did not know what I was expected to think of this character. I have enough confidence in the Coens to watch it again at some future time and be further enlightened. (Another reason is that I have little patience with the sort of music of which he was supposed to be a master, so when his tracks are played I do not know if the Coens are presenting it as great examples of a dying art-form or are demonstrating why he was a second-rate commercial failure).



One thing I love is how one of the seminal moments of post-WWII popular music, Dylan's switch to electric guitar, is subtly and anonymously presented in the background. Do you know the painting by Brueghel the Elder "The Fall of Icarus?" In the foreground, boldly, a peasant is ploughing, In the background is a sumptious landscape and a galleon in full sail. Only belatedly do we notice a leg sticking out of the water (poor old Icarus). Same idea in Llewyn Davis.

Yes, great example of confused aims.

I think his further objective was to raise the morale of his suffering men by giving them something to concentrate on as a team.

The film is a travesty of the novel. But that is OK because the novel is a travesty of real events. With such a good film, who cares, we judge it on its own merits. The great pity is that the William Holden part had to be written in for the American market. It is as if he has wandered in from another film. In fact he is not that different from the smart-aleck wheeler-dealer he played in Stalag 17.

How about AMADEUS?
On one hand Salieri hates Mozart for his talent, and yet the whole movie is really about his love for Mozart's talent.
In the end the conflict drives him mad.

"Your merciful God. He destroyed His own beloved, rather than let a mediocrity share in the smallest part of His glory. He killed Mozart and kept me alive to torture! 32 years of torture! 32 years of slowly watching myself become extinct."

In Samuel Fuller's  excellent cold war thriller/noir Pick Up On South Street (1953) the main protagonist is a conflicted character. Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark) is an ambiguous anti-hero, a street smart petty thief who unwittingly becomes  a threat to national security. Skip's ambivalence holds the film together,  McCoy's world weariness his cynical nature is unpatriotic, he is willing to sell out his country for a price. When picked up at his South Street shack and brought in by the feds, he refuses to get the "kink" out of his mouth and will not cooperate. Famously stating...

"Are you waving the flag at me?"  "Is there a law now that I gotta listen to lectures?" .  The feds try and appeal to his patriotism. "Do you know what treason means?",  Skip the jaded anti hero defiantly replies "Who cares?" , patriotism and the flag have little relevance in the back alleys in the underworld of NY city streets...

                     

Initially Michael wants no part of the family business. He looks forward to marriage with a Protestant girl and a career suitable for a Cornell lad. The attempted killing of his father angers him and makes him want vengeance, which puts him into the family business. But even then he tells himself and his brother that it's not personal, just business. Vito separated business and personal life – with the latter being genuinely warm. Michael was unable to do that.