spiderwort
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@spiderwort
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Post by spiderwort on Aug 30, 2017 13:13:55 GMT
In the best films, unless they are true psychopaths, villains are just characters seeking to achieve their personal goals and meet their emotional/physical needs. That's when they're most interesting and when the audience can feel a degree of empathy with them.
In this matter I'm always reminded of a quote from the Old Testament (Proverbs): "Every way of man is right in his own eyes." Or put another way: Every character is the hero of his own life.
Too many films today are written with villains who aren't fully developed characters; rather they're just plot devices that bore or numb audiences instead of enlightening them.
One of my favorite examples that illustrates my feeling about this subject is A Streetcar Named Desire, in which Brando as Stanley is clearly the "bad guy". And yet one can empathize with his troubled, conflicted humanity because his own needs, in conflict with Blanche's, are clearly understandable, if not fully acceptable. Hence the push-pull that audiences feel under the circumstances.
Or this, a more obvious example: Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity. She could be called a villainess of the highest order, and yet the audience is consistently pulled into her emotional web, because she operates out of fully developed, understandable character needs. We feel empathetic, both love and hate her, and regret that her redemption comes so late. A consequence of great writing, acting and directing -- always the essential components in the creation of great villains in films.
Your thoughts, suggestions?
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Post by bravomailer on Aug 30, 2017 13:28:44 GMT
The cattle baron in Shane presents his side of the conflict quite well, though not entirely persuasively.
Same with the mad guru in Gunga Din. His views on imperialism are basic parts of world history courses now.
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Post by mattgarth on Aug 30, 2017 13:55:18 GMT
Charming bad guy 'Ben Wade' (Glenn Ford) in 3:10 TO YUMA
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Post by OldAussie on Aug 30, 2017 14:18:07 GMT
The cattle baron in Shane presents his side of the conflict quite well, though not entirely persuasively. Same with the mad guru in Gunga Din. His views on imperialism are basic parts of world history courses now. 2 excellent examples. Now I'll probably stay awake all night trying to come up with some others.
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Post by snsurone on Aug 30, 2017 15:06:23 GMT
Spidey, the book "Hebrews" is from the New Testament, not the Old.
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Post by Doghouse6 on Aug 30, 2017 15:33:08 GMT
This one's probably too easy, but I'm a lazy guy: in Psycho, we're led to believe in a specific (and mostly unseen) villain, only to learn at the last minute we've been sent up the garden path. Further, the one doing the deeds is unaware of them, and retains our sympathy through - and following - the revelation. There is a true villain...who just happens to be technically nonexistent.
Hitchcock was never such a trickster as he was for Psycho, but he's always made the effort to ensure that his villains were interesting, charismatic and often amusing. The activities of Claude Rains in Notorious make him a threat to the protagonists, but he not only believes in the cause behind them, he's as much a victim as anyone in the piece: of his emotions; of his duty as he sees it; of his passive-aggressively tyrannical mother. While dangerous for his politics and repellent because of the heroine's distaste for him, he wears the personal hurt his dilemmas bring about more overtly than any other character, and ultimately is the most pitiable.
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Post by taylorfirst1 on Aug 30, 2017 15:43:02 GMT
Some of the Universal horror classics come to mind. Frankenstein's monster certainly was not trying to be a villain. Also, Lawrence Talbot did not want to become a blood thirsty Wolf Man.
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Post by mattgarth on Aug 30, 2017 15:58:48 GMT
Joseph Cotten in SHADOW OF A DOUBT wasn't really bad -- as sis Patricia Collinge points out he was dropped on his head as a lad. That could turn any young man against merry widows.
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Post by koskiewicz on Aug 30, 2017 16:00:55 GMT
Colonel von Stauffenburg who attempted to assassinate Hitler (Tom Cruise)
....Harrison Ford as The Fugitive also comes to mind...
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Post by taylorfirst1 on Aug 30, 2017 16:05:58 GMT
Will Teasle in First Blood (1982)
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Post by bravomailer on Aug 30, 2017 16:07:41 GMT
The Duke intermixes hero and villain in The Searchers.
Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird.
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Post by Nalkarj on Aug 30, 2017 16:08:21 GMT
Spidey, the book "Hebrews" is from the New Testament, not the Old. Sorry about that, snsurone; I do know the difference. I'll correct my OP. Thanks. Apologies if I'm correcting the correction--oy!--but I just looked it up, and the verse is not in Hebrews (New Testament) at all but rather Proverbs (Old Testament/Tanakh). The King James Version has it this way: Again, apologies about that, but it's something that interests me--though it gets us off-track from the topic!
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Post by deembastille on Aug 30, 2017 16:11:29 GMT
The hand that rocks the cradle... Peyton... I know she became unhinged and I am not saying what Dr Q {I couldn't resist} did was right or legal and him hanging himself was his admittance of guilt, but I felt for her. And then she loses the baby she is carrying and hemorrhages so badly she needs a hysterectomy, making it impossible for her to ever have a child of her own. and, the mother was more than a little bitchy to begin with. you just had another kid, and you want to continue your "pre-kid life"? I can understand if she HAD to work to make ends meet, but if she did sell any of the plants she grew that revenue would not be seen for some time. Nuh-uh! Even Siskel commented on how easily Peyton was hired to be the nanny, stating it was unrealistic and a little 'convenient'! Then they are working with Winston {again, I couldn't resist} and the better way/day/whatever society. and then when he gets a little too snoopy for Peyton, she involves little Emma. and what does Mom do? ask Emma some questions and when Emma says that Solomon never did anything, she dismisses her own child's words. BITCH! Watching a lifetime movie right now, Best Friends. The lady next door to the main people is always 'there' to help out in a pinch, whether it is picking the son up from school or sending culinary reinforcements to them to help with a party that the Host [the family next door] had burnt or whatever. Then you have the mother being not only a diabetic but a 'recovering' alcoholic as well. sucks to be her. then we have the father who kind of is an asshole and absolutely hates the fact that he has to take care of his niece who, lets be honest, isn't THAT bad. Like, she is a little wild but not causing havoc. and of course, as we all know, the lady next door is responsible for most of the drama that happens. But the way her husband was, I'd have tried killing him for insurance, too. Kind of want her to win. She is smart and she knows what she wants and kind of how to get it. Mitch from Teen Wolf. Why? did Michael j fox? join the basketball team? to begin with? why??? Keifer Sutherland's character in Stand by me. Yeah, he's an asshole to his younger brother and yb's friends but who didn't have at least one asshole sibling growing up? anyway, yb overhears him talking about the disappearance of a neighborhood kid, and yb and his friends go on a jaunt to see if they can find his body [to do what with, idk]. instead of telling adults of what he overheard, yb and friends go a wandering! WHAT??? you deserve to be run over by that freaking train!!!! Iceman from Top Gun. obeyed the rules, identified all the faults Mavrick was guilty of, was a very skilled flyer, didn't do any stunts to get his partner [or anyone else for that matter] killed, didn't sleep with the teacher. yeah, not a villain.
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Post by politicidal on Aug 30, 2017 17:06:15 GMT
Claude Rains in Notorious (1946). He's initially motivated by affection but then it becomes self-preservation. He's surrounded by Nazis, I'd be scared too.
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Post by teleadm on Aug 30, 2017 17:26:40 GMT
I don't know why I came to think of these persons for some reason or another. In older movies Jesse James and Billy the Kid are depicted as heroes, or victims of circumstances, and they are the answers to fight against authority and big business. Jesse James actions is because of ruthless railway barons for example.
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Post by politicidal on Aug 30, 2017 18:10:29 GMT
I don't know why I came to think of these persons for some reason or another. In older movies Jesse James and Billy the Kid are depicted as heroes, or victims of circumstances, and they are the answers to fight against authority and big business. Jesse James actions is because of ruthless railway barons for example. You're not wrong. It's a continuation of the stock outlaw characters of old like Robin Hood. They did the same thing for Bonnie&Clyde and John Dillinger.
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Post by bravomailer on Aug 30, 2017 18:25:28 GMT
In Shane, Chris (Ben Johnson) is initially Ryker's chief tough guy but once Ryker replaced him with Jack Wilson, he warns Shane that the deck is stacked against Starrett.
Actually, Shane is somewhat dangerous. He instinctively wheels around and begins to draw when he hears Joey cock his rifle, and Marian though attracted to him, considers him violent. But he turns out to be the hero – one who like the Duke in The Searchers cannot live a domestic life.
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Post by Doghouse6 on Aug 30, 2017 19:25:32 GMT
Joseph Cotten in SHADOW OF A DOUBT wasn't really bad -- as sis Patricia Collinge points out he was dropped on his head as a lad. That could turn any young man against merry widows. I know you're probably joking, and I'm just too dumb to get it. Apologies if that's so. If not, then I'll just say that I think Cotten's character is a psychopath. So in my mind he's a real villain. Let me know if you don't agree.
I took it as humor ("He's not really bad; he was just dropped that way"). He's certainly an example of one of Hitch's charming and charismatic baddies. There are so many loving reminiscences of Uncle Charlie's childhood that were untypical of villainous portrayals up to that time; a viewer is invited to consider the dichotomy between what we know about him as an adult and whatever qualities must have engendered his sister's youthful and enduring adoration. The possibilities seem to prefigure Rhoda of The Bad Seed or perhaps Eddie Haskell: the kid who conceals evil under a veneer of sweetness. Hey! The Bad Seed : another candidate for your novel into play into film thread!
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Post by mattgarth on Aug 30, 2017 19:30:10 GMT
Agree entirely, Spider. Uncle Charlie gets no sympathy from me. If young Charlie didn't push him, I would have.
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Post by Staccato on Aug 30, 2017 19:32:44 GMT
Burt Lancaster/Seven Days in May Lee J. Cobb/12 Angry Men Morgan Freeman/Gone, Baby, Gone
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