This movie had no soundtrack which also made this film unsettling for me. Spooky, how authentic it was
This movie had no soundtrack which also made this film unsettling for me. Spooky, how authentic it was
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I heard Todd from breaking bad was the best depiction of a psychopath in media. He's not just outright evil like Anton he just doesn't really have feelings of guilt or remorse like normal people.
Can we just take a moment to appreciate how genius a performance that was? Pre-Breaking Bad, I had no feelings about Jesse Plemons one way or the other. Now, every time I see him in something, I immediately think "What's this personified incarnation of evil up to now?"
There are many flavors of murdering psychopaths. A few mass murderers from history would've been called cliche portrayals today.
The banality of evil is what needs to be learned. Much like fascist rhetoric sounds stupid and is obvious in a vaccuum, when people are drenched in it, A LOT of people slowly succumb to the horrible attitude even if they never start explicitly supporting fascistic positions.
It is poison much like mental illness becomes a poison, slowly enabling mostly normal people to do terrible things, like Todd. Todd was only a psychopath in that he exhibited no sympathy, which a lot of "normal" psychopaths have. It took an enabling environment to turn Todd in to a dengerous captor and murderer.
Dan Carlin called fascism, among other things, an "intellectual contagion."
Most ideologies and religions are "viral" in the way they spread. Being able to think critically is how one stays immune.
"Enlightened" atheist centrists are often pretty similar to what they claim to be smarter about than people who follow religion and ideology.
And thinking one is "immune" because of their ability to "think critically" is a very solid step to vulnerability. You'll finde the same wordings for Q-Anon and other conspiracy theorists referring to themselves.
Fuckin Dead Eyed Todd! Dude always creeped me out. So much so that I find it hard not to see that character in everything else that actor has done.
His small role in Civil War was so creepy and memorable.
I don't think Anton was outright evil. I don't think you consider yourself evil for swatting a fly. To Anton people who crossed him were no different than flies to be swatted. And of course killing (or trying to kill) some people, like Moss, were just part of the job. He was simply violent because it was in his nature.
I think "killing people like they were flies" disqualifies you from anything above "neutral" on the morality chart, like pretty handily too.
I think it's safe to say that this is a pretty incomprehensible standard for most. Could you explain what would make him evil? Viewing people as people, for example?
I guess I should add that I made the comment because of the comparison between Todd and Anton. I found it odd to call Anton "outright evil" as if that's some distinction between Todd and Anton. Anton is no more or less evil than Todd. The only difference is that Anton was more violent due to the nature of his profession.
Gotcha - that's an understandable, relative position I think I can agree with based on my memory of both characters and portrayals.
...Absent this clarification, it was looking as though you might belong in the same bucket as them.
Yeah, note to self, don't make comments when tired. Key information might go missing.
In the book Anton is a personification of human evil as a natural force a bit like The Judge in Blood Meridian. The film is more ambiguous I think mainly due to the medium making the character more human by being played by an actor.