The Greatest Villain
From time to time I get thinking about the villains of cinema or literature - and recently there are a few more top-dawg contenders...Anton Chigurth (Bardem) in No Country for Old Men, and of course Daniel Painvew (Lewis) in There Will Be Blood. Chistopher Walken gave a command performance years ago as Brad Whitewood Sr. in At Close Range. Very believable ex-con habitual criminal with no scruples whatsoever.
But if I had to choose the greatest (which has to translate to "my favorite") villain of all time it would be Captain Ronald Merrick, played by Tim Pigott-Smith, in the PBS mini-series "The Jewel in the Crown." (1984). I don't want to go into too much detail becuase Paul Scott's novel, on which the miniseries is based, used Merrick as the fulcrum of his critique of the British Raj, and too much character info would be a spoiler. You can rent the mini series on DVD - its quite long but as I missed a few episodes when it was aired on PBS, the 15 hour/4 disk set was a god send. The character is complex - very believable - pitiful and repullsive at once.
So who's your favorite villain?
But if I had to choose the greatest (which has to translate to "my favorite") villain of all time it would be Captain Ronald Merrick, played by Tim Pigott-Smith, in the PBS mini-series "The Jewel in the Crown." (1984). I don't want to go into too much detail becuase Paul Scott's novel, on which the miniseries is based, used Merrick as the fulcrum of his critique of the British Raj, and too much character info would be a spoiler. You can rent the mini series on DVD - its quite long but as I missed a few episodes when it was aired on PBS, the 15 hour/4 disk set was a god send. The character is complex - very believable - pitiful and repullsive at once.
So who's your favorite villain?
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favorite villain, I don't know. Most feared villain; depression.
August 15, 2009 2:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Laughton as Captain Bligh I guess as Captain of the Bounty.
I have read a few books on the real fellow. Three mutinies under his command and three advances in rank. Kind of like how they handle the members of the top caste in this country. Ever so often they throw a madooff under the bus, but really just for media effect.
Walken as Gabriel in the first two Prophesies. Really funny leading those zombies around.
Reservoir Dogs. The guy torturing the cop.
Favorite because there are so many dogs. Hatred and revenge and resentment...no humanity really except between the scum. Kind of like the RNC
Samuel Jackson before he finds god in Pulp Fiction: I'm sorry, have I disturbed your concentration--as he shoots the guy on the couch.
Vice President Cheney...no honor, no wish to speak or expose any truths, no consideration for anyone except the top one tenth of one percent, no wish to see the world from another cultural view, no possibility for remorse. Just pissed off when his zombie(w) woke up from his nap of four or five years.
Maybe the new pope.
Karl Rove simply because he looks despicable, speaks despicably, thinks despicably, has absolutely no belief in anything...
I may have to spend ten pages on a blog one of these days.
August 15, 2009 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, yeah, Jackson. Also top notch villainy in Jackie Brow- but I gotta say De Niro skunked him in that film.
How many Cpt. Blighs have there been? Laughton in '35; Trevor Howard (who I worship) in '62; Anthony Hopkins in 84. I think there are others, but since were on mutinies, let's not forget Queeg (Bogart) in the Caine Mutiny '54. Hey, it just dawned on me that we can youtube this stuff:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zgeQmzV9kk&feature=related
August 15, 2009 4:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
So much available Neo. I was so upset with my memory problems...
Hey, I can have a faint trace of a memory and find exactly what I was thinking of on the web. And Youtube is unbelievable. Yeah we could just hit bligh or bounty on google and find every damn film ever made along with fifty books.
I forgot to tell yea, this is a good blog but a fun one toooooooooooo.
Oh and you got me on this Arias thing and he has swine flu. Probably the single most important figure on two continents when you think about it.
A real hero of mine now. Thanks to you.
August 15, 2009 5:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Since you mention Hopkins as Bligh, how about his even meatier performance in Silence of the Lambs?
Can't see Bogart's Queeg as any kind of villain. Dislikeable, yes, but really just a broken, mentally unstable man.
In the seldom-seen but great Tunes of Glory, Alec Guinness indulges a vicious streak until he drives his rival -- another even more broken man -- to suicide, then experiences a sort of redemption.
I love the jovial villains: Gert Frobe as Auric Goldfinger (a tied-up Bond, as a laser moves toward his crotch: "Do you expect me to talk?" Frobe: "No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die!")
And, of course, the lovable but homicidal Sydney Greenstreet, especially as The Maltese Falcon's Fat Man.
August 16, 2009 3:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Laughton was excellent in that DD. Haven't seen that version of the movie in many years. He was also great in Les Miserables.
August 16, 2009 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Tomas de Torquemada
I know he is not fictional but some consider organized religion to be based on fictional pretenses.
Nothing says evil like institutional transitive punishment from flesh to the afterlife.
August 15, 2009 4:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
No problem...life imitates art.
August 15, 2009 4:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
The computer, Hal, from '2001: A Space Odyssey'.
And Lionel Barrymore, as Mr. Potter, in 'It's a Wonderful Life'.
August 15, 2009 4:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, and speaking of evil computers...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHiX0FZcjkA
August 15, 2009 5:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd still say Sauron.
August 15, 2009 4:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
second
August 15, 2009 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, but what literary merit can a damn eyeball have? Just kidding, Sauron is the epitome of evil - we all love to hate and fear him/her.
And the bonus is that the eyeball looks conspicuously like a chicken egg - good call, Bwakfat.
August 15, 2009 6:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I kind of remembered the White Witch from my childhood in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe from C.S. Lewis. She epitomized evil for me in my younger years, because not only was she cruel and evil, she tried to trick people into thinking she was their friend.
There is something very "ack!" about that quality.
Plus chickens are a bit wobbly on ice. Eternal Winter, but never Christmas...
How lame is THAT?!
August 15, 2009 6:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Cheney.
August 15, 2009 4:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
When I hear "Cheney" I think of W.C. Fields, especially in "Never Give a Sucker an Even Break." And with some creative make-up and light cosmetic surgery, Liz would look just like Mae West. Heh, Dick's little chickadee, innit?
August 15, 2009 6:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wish he WAS a fictional character.
Maybe truth is more evil than fictional evil?
August 15, 2009 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, right, it was supposed to be a fictional character. My bad.
But...Cheney is still a villain.
August 15, 2009 6:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Cheney could be fictional. In the days of Machiavelli, they had "sprezzatura" - the art of gentlemanly conduct. It was pure acting - at any social function each guy knew that the other was a complete phoney, and he knew the other guy knew that he knew, and knew that you were putting on aires yourself. It was a tacit agreement to lie, and the better you were at it the greater your reputation.
Sounds like Cheney to me.
August 15, 2009 7:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Damn right.
And, btw, I like the photo. Something sort of Garcia-ish about it.
August 15, 2009 7:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Favorite:The Borg Queen, Star Trek Next Generation.
Most frightening: Hannibal Lecter; I can never even finish the film.
From Childhood: The Wicked Witch of the East and her Flying Monkeys.
August 15, 2009 6:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
p.s. Is that you in the photo? Or one of your heroes? Or, is it you AND one of your heroes? (smile)
August 15, 2009 6:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is I. Cresencia (wife) hates that photo. I don't understand why.
August 15, 2009 6:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Cruella DeVille.
August 15, 2009 9:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's a good one. I had to look it up because I've never seen the flick. But I remember when Katheryn Harris got branded "Cruella" during the 2000 election. Glenn Close is so awesome - how about "Fatal Attraction?" There's a great villain for you.
August 16, 2009 1:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
There was an entity on Star Trek Next Generation, just a disembodied white-bearded face that your picture was quite like.
August 15, 2009 9:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I thought only the original Star Trek did the disembodied white-bearded face entities.
;)
August 15, 2009 10:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
You might be right, liz; it was one where they were trying to find shaka-ree. That may have been spock's brother, which would have been classic star trek. Lord, my mind is fuzzy on it...
August 16, 2009 12:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am still wondering if Anton Chigurth (Bardem) in No Country for Old Men is roaming around out there.
August 15, 2009 10:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
DeNiro was pretty evil in Cape Fear and the guy who played the death camp commander in Schindler's list was evil incarnate. Kevin Bacon also played a pretty evil fella in The River Wild from the 90's with Meryl Streep about the family white water rafting that meet up with the two thieves.
August 16, 2009 11:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the memory jolt, oleeb. Kevin Bacon was really good in that roll.
Some others floated by my consciousness..
El Chivo in Amores Perros
And Kevin Spacey...se7en AND Keyser Sose!
D'Onofrio as "Pooh-bear" in Salton Sea
But Cpt. Ronald Merrick still is tops for me. But it might not be fair - Paul Scott's whole Raj Quartet was based on unfolding Merrick's despicable character, layer by layer by layer. Of course Merrick "stood for" the whole British Empire.
August 16, 2009 1:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Max von Sydow as Ming the Merciless in Flash Gordon (1980); Cheneyesque in the use of torture on his own daughter, impaled by his own weapons, then “disappearing” with the use of a Gollum ring.
The musical background is extra terrestrial Queen. Overall, extraordinary darkside to Max/Ming’s character, foreshadowing Darth Vader and Blunderdick - ruthless rulers of empire.
August 16, 2009 2:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, I think I've settled on a fictional one:
Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. A lot of fun to watch...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144084/
August 16, 2009 2:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Indeed.
If the character played in "The Mechanic" was a villain, I'd put him on my list too...just for weight loss.
August 16, 2009 3:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, it's The Machinist, and when I watched it I was truly hoping his weight loss was some type of fancy CGI trick. Nope. He really lost all that weight on his own, on purpose.
Amazing actor.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/53457/christian_bales_weight_loss_for_the.html
August 16, 2009 3:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
By Jove, yer keerect.
Empire if the Sun is my all time favorite.
August 17, 2009 12:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Empire if the Sun is my all time favorite
It's always good to find a fellow fan, as it's like a secret club! I simply adore that movie, there's something very special about it. And that's coming from someone who is not a big Spielberg fan. I reliably weep at certain scenes without fail, which I would never do with other Spielberg films (they are too blatant or simple in going for that, "Empire" is not,) and I never tire of seeing it. The Bale character gives me shivers, it's something about the essence of life in the resilience of some children to endure almost anything, especially naive and formally protected ones.
Chistopher Walken gave a command performance years ago as Brad Whitewood Sr. in At Close Range
another very strong fav...but I wouldn't put it as the epitome of evil, as it's too real, a clincher of a type of male that too often inhabits that world that many refer to as "the other side of the tracks," and helps make those kind of environs what they are....maybe if you are talking about Arendt's banality?
August 17, 2009 3:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
No kidding? A fellow fan. I got really pissed at the bad reviews the film received. I think it was J.G. Ballard who brought the "art" to the film, but Spielberg brought a really outstanding film crew - the film must be technically perfect.
Basie: Jim, didn't I teach you anything?
Jim: Yes! You taught me people would do anything for a potato.
August 17, 2009 11:11 AM | Reply | Permalink