(Cinemascope thanks
Ms. Camiele White for this
interesting look at the portrayal of psychopaths in cinema - there have
never been any dearth of them, be it in reel or real life - from Norman
Bates in Hitchcock's Psycho to The Joker in Chris Nolan's Dark Knight
Rises. Details about Ms. White can be found below
the article)
Film has always been able to project the
many nuances and oddities of humanity in stark fashion. Perhaps film’s most
interesting concept is that of the psychopath. As far back as I can remember
there’s always been a unique take on the psychotic mind, a mind so full of chilling
hatred for humanity the person it inhabits has no qualms about destroying it… and
in the most grisly fashion.
While watching The Cell I had a revelation: filmmakers have for years attempted to
get their respective audiences to sympathise with their psychotic leads. And,
I’ve gotta say, they’ve managed to make a believer out of me. For the most
part, it’s been the men who’ve had a profound impact on me emotionally -- the
women either end up seeming bitchy or just too emotionally flighty for me to
relate. However, the men have such depth, such overwhelming intelligence it
makes sense I’d connect with them.
As in The
Cell, our unfortunate madman, Carl Stargher (played with great emotional
depth by Vincent D’Onfrio), happens to have an illness that drives his
insanity. His mind deteriorates to such a state that in the end he has no other
option but to give in to the whims of his id, the hyper-aggressive beast
slithering through his mind like a cocky eel. This prince of darkness, for lack
of a better phrase, is a demon with an ego the size of its own planet, a
creature that sees himself, as Katherine (a much understated Jennifer Lopez)
puts it, “a king of a very twisted kingdom.” However, it’s the repressed child
inside Stargher that ultimately comes into play. The push and pull of the
innocent and the evil within him rips his mind to shreds, inducing a coma that
stops him from being able to so much as move his baby toe, let alone murder
anyone. The emotional pull of the character allowed me to actively see a
different side of the so-called psychopath and give him a heart yearning to be
set free from its damaged self.
It’s no surprise many a director and writer
have portrayed their villains as nothing more than emotionally and spiritually
damaged children. For Stargher, his life was full of sexual and mental abuse at
the hands of his father and negligent, if not equally abused, mother. For a
character like Norman Bates (Psycho),
however, the line between his fantasy and his waking life is a bit more severe.
In his case, he’s internalized the overbearing power of his mother, needing her
almost tyrannical control of his life to balance out the softness most would,
and unfortunately do, see as weakness. Perhaps the most chilling and
heartbreaking scene is when we find out he’s been masquerading as the crazed
matriarch, down to the very crackle and cadence of her voice. The precision of
his portrayal is haunting, to the point that I found myself unable to do
anything but feel for the poor man’s plight. Here he is, alone in a house the
size of a small castle, and he has to run a business on his own, never having
left the confines of this sanatorium that is his home. The struggle he has to
be an adult is overshadowed by the overwhelming childlike innocence inside his
heart, an innocence that forces him to act strictly on impulse. What his body
wants and he desires is, of course, overpowered by the voice that eventually takes
over his mind.
Then, of course, there are those characters
created merely for the sake of destruction. The bloody rollercoaster that is Ichi the Killer is almost mindless
slaughter throughout. However, it’s underscored with a sensitivity that’s quite
surprising. The hapless killer Ichi is balanced by the cold precision of
Kakihara, a man whose sole purpose is to seek and destroy. The iciness of
Kakihara’s execution is breathtaking, an art unto itself. While Ichi is a
sloppy and impulsive teenager living in a grown man’s body (abused and fearful
like the two characters that precede him), Kakihara is very sure with his hand,
taking life without so much as batting an eyelash.
Then there is the freakishly unfortunate
type of psychopath, the kind birthed from a neglectful society and moulded into
a veritable demon. Li’l Dice (La Cidadede Deus), for example, is a child so entrenched in the violence of his
surroundings he becomes petulant. Once given the chance to wield his own
weapon, he brandishes it almost cartoonishly, shooting anything that moves.
Violence is nothing more than a game, humans merely points to add to his score.
The absolute jubilation on his face as we watch him gun down innocent people in
the streets haunted me for years after I first saw the film. And yet my heart
beats with so much pain at seeing a boy, no more than 10 years old, so warped
by his belief in his godlike power over human life he gives it or takes it
based simply on his interest in the person in front of him. It not only struck
fear in me in a way no other film villain had before or since, it made me
re-analyze the things society holds dear, how a world so sure of its inherent
goodness neglects to nurture the innocent.
Though the emotionally crippled and
socially ignored seem to have an overwhelming spot in cinematic history, it’s
those who quite literally toe the line between genius and insanity that have
made the biggest impression on me. The king of hyper-egoism, The Joker (played
with unerring brilliance by the late Heath Ledger) manages to take his genius
and morph it into an exacting idea of justice. His understanding of order is
predicated on the idea that chaos must be the dominating presence in his world.
His platform is simple: if you “introduce a little chaos”, you teach the world
to see itself for what it really is -- a mess of humanity trying desperately to
contain its emotions. But what if we let those impulses run free? What if
people simply allowed the world to implode? His analogy of the death of a
squadron of soldiers versus the impending doom of a senator, for instance,
paints a very disturbing picture of the presupposed order of things. How do we
value the life of one over that of the many, the faceless, and still call
ourselves a beacon of all living things? The Joker’s turn as the “agent of
chaos” took my mind and melted it into every part of my body.
Clyde Shelton (Law Abiding Citizen) was a man whose sole purpose was to be the
active mind behind the CIA’s steel-like brutality. His wasn’t ostentatious
shows of murder. Whatever blatant gore there was in his killings were
underscored with a quiet intelligence. He’s a tightly wound clock ticking and
working with bone-chilling precision. He was always four or five steps ahead of
anyone who tried to corner him. His massacres were methodical, almost poetic,
really. He orchestrated some of the most complex executions, taking every
possible outcome into consideration down to the way the mind perceives and
reacts. From his clinical dismemberment of the man who got away with murdering
his wife and daughter to the complete annihilation of the very system that saw
said murderer get off scot-free, I was beside myself with my attraction to this
man - and I don’t find Gerard Butler particularly appealing. But it was his mind, that never-ending, ever-ticking
calculator that fueled my desire to see him actually... win.
And that’s what it ultimately comes down
to. In some cases, I beg for these people to succeed in their almost perverse
flights of egotism. For me, it all starts in the mind. I believe it to be the
sexiest part of the human makeup. Those who push their minds to do more than
just ponder aimlessly on the obvious make my blood boil, if I’m not being too
bold. How it works, it supposes things, how it manages to solve life as if it
were a puzzle, it excites me. As The Joker made very plain, all it takes is a
little push to force gravity to become nothing more than a concept, a theory
able to be moulded and bent to fit the schema of human impulse.
Some of these characters have haunted me.
I’ve been emotionally compromised, left in a state of spiritual unrest, and had
my impulses heated to ignitable degrees. I’ve left the cinema at times
believing I’ve become a completely different person. Then again, isn’t that the
point of a film - to entertain and enlighten?
Camiele
White suffers from too much film information. In order to remedy her psychosis
she’s decided to write about it. Right now, she’s trying something a bit
different and writes has her own blog called Madasa Writing. If you want to engage
in a little conversation (at your own risk) she can be reached at cmlewhite at
gmail [dot] com.
