The Strange and Flawed Greatness of Betty Blue

About two or three weeks ago, I watched Betty Blue for the first time. I had been wanting to watch the movie for quite a while, and with my folks off to Doha visiting my sister I thought I'd have a Saturday night in with the dog.

Betty Blue, or 37° 2 le matin (37.2°C in the morning), based on the 1985 novel by Philippe Dijan, directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix, starring Jean-Hughes Anglade as Zorg and Béatrice Dalle in the titular role of Betty, was a sensation upon initial release in 1986, both domestically and internationally. In France, it was the eighth highest-grossing film of the year, receiving both BAFTA and Oscar nominations for Best Foreign Language Film. It also entered the-then contemporary eighties zeitgeist. A key part of the Cinéma Du Look film movement, Beineix, who, along with his previous features Diva and Moon In The Gutter, had experience in making advertisements, and went away from some of the realist traditions of La Nouvelle Vague (The New Wave), the film being marketed upon the stylised, picaresque cinematography, particularly in relation to lead actor Béatrice Dalle, who makes her acting debut and came from a modelling background. Also, with a fair amount of onscreen nudity, the film was simultaneously praised and decried for it's depiction of eroticism. Notably in the latter camp, the late Roger Ebert stated in his original review upon theatrical release in the Chicago Sun-Times that, "Love is not the same thing as nudity. This may seem obvious, but I feel it ought to be explained to director Jean-Jacques Beineix," (Roger Ebert, December 25, 1986) going on to write that the film was negative throwback to the days of 'skin flicks' before the advent of pornography.

In 2001, Beineix would re-visit Betty Blue fifteen years after it's initial theatrical release to put together a 'version intégrale' of the film, adding roughly an hour's worth of extra footage cut from the theatrical release. On principle I am generally against there being multiple cuts of the same film. In some cases it has enabled filmmakers to realise their true visions post-hence, but more often than not it is a marketing ploy and is to be taken with a pinch of salt. I am of the Martin Scorsese school of thought in that regard. There has always been a question surrounding the great director and his truncated epic Gangs Of New York, which had the producing weight of then-powerhouse Harvey Weinstein demanding cuts to it's length, and whether or not another version of the film should be released. Rumours abound that a three-hour plus workprint did exist and was circulated among Scorsese's friends, but both regular editor-collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker and Scorsese himself have dismissed any plans of a prospective director's cut, "Marty doesn't believe in that... He believes in showing only the finished film." (Thelma Schoonmaker, from Jeffrey Wells', 'Hollywood Elsewhere: Gangs vs. Gangs', October 26, 2007). Anyway, as the 2013 Second Sight DVD I possess features both the original theatrical release and the version intégrale, I decided if I am going to watch one version I would rather watch the director's preferred cut.

I was very impressed by the picture, and I have not been able to get it out of my head since. As perhaps expected from a key figure of the Cinéma Du Look, often grouped alongside the likes of Luc Besson and Leos Carax, it does, indeed, look the part. Jean-François Robin shot a gorgeous looking film, particularly in the opening segment. The score by Gabriel Yared, which I have listened to compulsively while I'm working at the desk of late, is a collection of highly and sparsely textured pieces, diametrically opposed in many ways, a mixture of electronic synths and guitars, string sections, chorus', saxophone, and a simple piano duet. It's a diverse and layered work from a composer who would later go on to become one of the most celebrated in contemporary cinema. Also, I think there is a bold and challenging authorial intent from writer-director Beineix. While often described as an erotic film, I wouldn't hasten to describe it as such. There are elements of eroticism, but I feel it more resembles naturalism, and in a sense part of what I feel his intent to be is to depict the complexity(s) of romantic relationships. What struck me most though was the strength, courage and conviction of the lead performances. Jean-Hughes Anglade is a sympathetic and humorous protagonist in Zorg, who is an aspiring writer, which is something I can certainly relate to, while Béatrice Dalle creates one of the great onscreen characters in Betty; wild, tempestuous, sensual, inspiring, engaging, and tragic. There's something to be said about how unforced and authentic Betty feels to watch onscreen, flashing a big grin in delight or pouting in displeasure. It's a performance of many little things, and very subtle in terms of the progression she makes over the course of the film. Dalle and Anglade share a palpable onscreen chemistry that is often aimed for but, alas, rarely achieved.

That being said, while I thought it to be a great film, I didn't deem it to be a masterpiece. I was fascinated by the picture, and I knew there was something in there. I just felt that there was something missing, a deep flaw in the overall fabric of the piece, not just something that could be fixed or eradicated with a minor change. For the first time in a while, I was troubled as to what I felt about a given work. Normally I have a fair idea right off the bat what I think, basing intellectual judgement upon initial, purely cerebral reactions, and generally my opinions remain fairly concrete. A notable exception to that rule is Alfonso Cuarón's Children Of Men, but Betty Blue had me in a fix. Then I got to thinking of a film of a similar vein, Fatih Akın's 2004 film Head-On (Gegen die Wand), a personal favourite and another picture I would categorise under the sub-heading of 'Bad Romance' films, depicting impossible relationships (a genre-based theory I've long held and should probably write about some day). Head-On was/is, in my opinion, a lot more focused and channeled a picture, and while I would not make it common practice to always hold one film against another, rather judge them by their own merit, I knew instantly what the problem with Betty Blue was:

it was simply too damn long! While this is clearly part of the authorial intent, I felt that there was a lot of material which was superfluous to the true focus of the story, Betty and Zorg. There were scenes that distracted and took me away from what it was doing right, were tonally too much of an opposing force to get my head around. Not that I'm a humourless dullard, but I really did not need all these comedic scenes involving minor characters who served no purpose to the narrative or, in some cases, detracted from it. Without giving away any spoilers, there is a highly charged dramatic scene a large part of the way through the film involving Betty and Zorg, which had me there, hook-line-and-sinker, until the untimely intervention of certain agencies. It pulled me out of the moment and actually made me rather cross and go, "why am I wasting my time with these idiots when I only care about Betty and Zorg?" I wasn't keeping count, but I would say there were at least half a dozen of these infuriating instances which did nothing but eat up screen-time and threaten to turn it into a snoozefest, regardless of whether or not I was supping a tin of Monster energy drink!

But I had been bitten by the bug. Betty Blue entranced me. I did some research online, and although much of what others think has little to no impugnment upon my own judgement, I scoured through Reddit forums and the like, and from the information I gathered it seemed to be fairly mixed in terms of which cut was considered superior: some preferred the theatrical release, others more so the version intégrale. There's an article I found on Movie-Censorship.com which does a wonderful scene-by-scene comparison of the two different versions corresponding to a rough parallel of their respective running times (definitely recommend checking out their website). So, for the first time in quite a while (the last was Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker, but that was more down to my being tired and having a poor lack of attention heading into watching such a great picture), as often I don't re-watch films for years apart, I decided to re-watch Betty Blue a few days later, only this time it was to be the theatrical cut.

I felt the narrative to be a lot leaner and cleaner. There are times whenever an artist is not necessarily the best judge of their own work. Just look at the difference between the theatrical release of Donnie Darko and Richard Kelly's Director's Cut of same said film. With an additional twenty minutes that took away from the fluidity of the original and questionable artistic changes (yes, I'm going give off about the iconic use of Echo And The Bunnymen's The Killing Moon being replaced by INXS' Never Tear Us Apart!), it's a worse film for the freedom he was granted. I will always say "artist first," but a second opinion is handy, and some people just need beaten with a stick and told to wise up (I'm looking at you, Quentin Tarantino!)! Anyway, Betty Blue's theatrical cut has a far better pace to it. It skims across like a stone across the surface of the water briskly, whereas at times the version intégrale trudges along rather sluggishly. The focus is far less on the bigger picture than the narrow. By proxy of artistic paradox this means that even it is on the surface smaller it is blown up to larger proportions, and thus, even with an hour's less screentime, the theatrical cut comes across in many respects as larger and more significant than the version intégrale. But things still weren't right, and once again I was left befuddled. Again, something was missing, and the very existence of the version intégrale hinted at what the problem with the theatrical release was:

it was simply too damn short! While getting rid of a lot of the perfunctory material that existed in the version intégrale, the theatrical release came with it's own problems, and for me presented problems from the opposite end of the spectrum. There were inconsistent elements which were fixed in the later cut, and some of which were not (that scene involving other agencies is still there!), shots added or moved around differently, and the same could be said for some of the continuity. The largest absence in the theatrical release is that it lacks the same level of texture, the epic scope and scale, that, no matter how bright the prism of the artistic paradox may shine, the picture was not as big as it should have been. There are moments which, though I have now seen both versions, I am unable to erase from my mind as key to the story. Once again, I will try to elucidate without giving away any spoilers, but there is a scene late in the film involving Betty and Zorg at a fun fair which is vital to the narrative; I will just leave it at that. Without this and a number of other scenes that add to the strength of the overall story, I come to the opinion that the theatrical version is also troublesome.

Which brings me to the next problem: does there exist, in the material presented in these two versions of Betty Blue a true masterpiece, and if so, is it morally and ethically correct to take a more involved approach to another person's artistic work?

(The above paragraph was the note I made to remind me as to where I was to pick up from when I resumed work on the article, after a 9am start on a Sunday inbetween...)

In answer to the first part of the above question, it is a definitive answer in the affirmative. There is no doubt that Betty Blue, for better or worse, has captured my heart and mind, and in such a unique way that it has provoked a causal reaction unlike any I've had to other films. I can safely say that, warts and all, for everything I acknowledge as being 'wrong' about it, I recognise and see these things and still say I believe it to be a great film. There is a masterpiece in there, but I do not feel that either of these representations show the singular masterwork.

One of the 21st century phenomenons among certain sections of the wider film community is the fan edit. Although alternate cuts existed before, oftentimes the individual work of professionals such as editors or even projectionists slicing and splicing directly onto film reels, they first began to gain prominence in popular culture with The Phantom Edit, a version of Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, created by editor Mike J. Nichols due to his discontent with the original, based upon what he saw as George Lucas' previous execution of his philosophies on storytelling. Since then, fans and filmmakers alike (Steven Soderbergh, for instance) have got in on it, perhaps the most notable instance of artistic endorsement being that of Peet Gelderblom's edit of Brian De Palma's Raising Cain, which followed the film's original script as opposed the theatrical release. This saw De Palma, who loved this particular cut, arrange to have Gelderblom supervise an edit which was added to the Blu-Ray release, becoming what De Palma felt to be the film's 'Director's Cut.'

Betty Blue, as has been the case with the film itself, is a different kettle of fish. As seen in Blue Notes And Bungalows, the making-of documentary accompanying the DVD release, those involved with the film seem be divided 50/50 down the middle as to which version they prefer. The most interesting statement comes from the film's associate producer Claudie Ossard, who states more or less the exact length I think is most appropriate for this story: "For me the ideal running time for Betty Blue is 130 or 140 minutes. Three hours is too much. But Jean-Jacques [Beineix] decided that his three-hour version should be restored." Indeed, Beineix says himself as much that "It [the version intégrale] is the version... You know, there is no... no doubt about that."

Although I can say it's the only picture I've ever felt inclined towards seeing a fan edit of, or even doing my own, equally I feel it is questionable to do this to another artist's work. Perhaps my own increasing involvement in the process has made me more sensitive about such things, but I feel that to do such a thing to someone else's work, especially when they have already stated they are satisfied that their version is out there for audiences to enjoy, is to go a step too far. I'm fairly open-minded when it comes to remix culture (The Caretaker's An Empty Bliss Beyond This World is one of my favourite albums) and turning older art into something else anew, but where this becomes problematic morally is when people start putting their own stamp onto something else extant. While An Empty Bliss... is the work of another artist operating with materials to make something different, a fan edit detracts from the autonomy of an artist. It goes above and beyond the realms of audience engagement and art critique, into that of interaction. Altering the DNA, genetic code, mutating it into something else entirely, the fan edit fundamentally change the rules of a given piece. By placing their own principles upon it in this sense, unless that level of interactivity is part of the story itself, openly invited, (the recent Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, or video game developer Quantic Dream's work, for example), I feel it to be a potentially dangerous element. Whatever the purpose or intent may be, it inserts the viewer into a different form of engagement which makes you (as in me) ask,

"What is the point if you just get to pick and choose what you want to see?"

In life, you do not get to simply pick and choose what happens to you. Although matters of free will and choice come into the equation, ultimately there are things which can only be put down to chance (another feather in Beineix's favour when he argues that "Life is an absurdity..."), and if you aren't able to go with the challenges and accept reality, art, as it were, for what it is, you either reject that particular piece, reality, or, if you try to change it, manipulate your surroundings to fit your liking or preference, the ego flows over into tyranny. This question surrounding art, however troublesome it may be, can be applied to that of one's approach to life itself.

And so, for the present at least, I have resigned myself to taking Betty Blue for what it is. Though it infuriates me so, I still love the movie. It might not be everyone's cup of tea (things'd be no fun if they were), but I think that it's a lovely piece: sweet, sincere, funny, romantic, heartbreaking. It speaks to it's quality that it has got me thinking about it in such a way. A work of strange and flawed greatness. Hence the title.

Joker: Mental Health in Relation, and Personal Thoughts

Joker is a dangerous and subversive film. I just want to say that outright and get it out of the way. I understand that the use of such rhetoric has meaning and may be seen by some as gross, but it was among the first things that came to mind when I started to think about it properly. The film definitely comes with a warning for those folks who are more sensitive to such subject matter. I am the last person to get hysterical, and in no way do I want to contribute to this shitstorm of hullaballoo going around about the film being a potential 'trigger' (incidentally, a lot of the responses backlashing to those responses have less than coherent or cohesive in their rebuttal), but walking out of the Odeon at Victoria Square, I had such a cerebral reaction to the piece that I actually decided to ascend the stairs and went up to The Dome for a spell so I could gather my thoughts together. Now, while I may use such words as 'dangerous' and 'subversive' in my opening sentence, I do believe the film to be a masterpiece. It is a cautionary tale on the media, politics and society of our times, and will probably end up being the most significant film of 2019. No work this year is going to inspire as much debate and discussion with audiences. While opinion may be divided on the film's overall quality, I feel that for a mainstream film to bring out this level of engagement and participation it deserves to be applauded. It's a truly bold and provocative work, but the thing that was most striking for me and really took away was it's depiction and portrayal of mental illness.

Yesterday was World Mental Health Day, something which, I won't lie, completely passed under my radar until I found that my Facebook and various social media feeds were clogged up with resplendent posts on the matter ("It's okay not to be okay."). That being said, from my own standpoint it's an unusual but somewhat fitting coincidence I went to see the picture yesterday. I think part of the reason that it got me so much is because there was an air of familiarity to it. I recognised the things this character was doing and where his head was at. The big difference between, say, Heath Ledger's Joker and Joaquin Phoenix's Joker is that, while Ledger played a ghost, an existential agent of chaos, Phoenix's Joker is a man. Not the man, but a man. As in any man. As in everyman. Arthur Fleck could be Joe Bloggs or Johnny Smith, any lost soul walking down the street towards you, wrapped up in the tortures and troubles of their inner demons, trying to make sense of it all, figure out what's going on and where they belong in a world which is, to their perception, inherently crazy. Not to be all beh beh about it, because I didn't forget about it, but I more or less switched off that I was watching a, quote, 'Batman movie,' endquote. I was simply watching a man suffering from severe depression descend into madness.

As I said, part of what I guess frightened me so much and really got under my skin about Joker is that familiarity and recognition. There were times watching the film I couldn't help thinking "I've been there."

I've been that guy who has been frustrated with my job and work colleagues.

I've been that guy who plays out fantastical scenarios of love and death in my head, be they when I'm asleep or in a daydream, so vivid they could almost be real.

I've been that guy who scribbles and scrawls compulsively in a journal.

I've been that guy who dances half-naked at home wielding weapons.

I've been that guy who has shrunk in weight, had a radical physical alteration.

I've been that guy who has had to listen to other people tell me to "put on a happy face."

I've been that guy sways about the place, caught up in the delirious joy of my own little world.

I've been that guy who has woke up screaming or sobbing in the middle of the night.

I've been that guy who has been seized with involuntary, nervous reactions when it is uncalled for at certain moments.

I've been that guy who has been unable to express what he is feeling, living in dread of the consequences of giving breath to my thoughts through action.

I've been that guy who gets into stupid situations but, like a moth, is drawn to the flame, unable to turn away.

I've been that guy who wants to be an artist.

Josh Brolin said something rather telling about his thoughts on the film: "To appreciate Joker I believe you have to have gone through something traumatic in your lifetime (and I believe most of us have) or understand somewhere in your psyche what true compassion is."

I too have danced with the devil in the pale moonlight.

When writing my book, Cat's Miaow, while I wrote a work of fiction from the perspective of a character, Jack, in so doing I ended up going through a prolonged period of self-exploration.

"When you look long into the abyss, the abyss looks back at you."

The pool shimmering in the moonlight at the bottom of the well is the sea of - 

Jack was something I invented years ago as a coping strategy for me to deal with things that were particularly troubling to me as a teenager. I liked to imagine it manifested itself as an alter ego, and it was one of my ways, mechanisms of putting all my negative thoughts and feelings into one place and locking them away. When I wrote the book, though, Pandora's Box was opened.

In letting Jack breath and getting into the headspace required to explore the territory I wished to walk for the sake of art, I let myself enter the bleakest parts of my psyche, shone a light on my darker moments. It's not something I yap on about too much, and how apropos I talk about things like this in the form of an article (art as another diversionary tactic of my psychological makeup, dressing things up in fantasy), but I've had my hard times. Alan Moore once said that "an artist or writer is the closest thing in the contemporary world to a shaman," in relation to his belief of art as magic. In the case of Cat's Miaow, I took the curse, my inner demons, and I cast a long, arduous spell on the black and wicked thing. It took two years of my life, during which I was, on occasion, consumed, worrying I was no longer able to distinguish between Callum and Jack, my true identity, and I still have some of the lingering aftereffects, but ultimately it was worth it. Call it suffering for your art and all that boohick, but it was like an exorcism. I came out the other end feeling fresh, more vigorous and alive than ever before. On top of that, I've now done something which I feel to be of relative merit. If nothing else, it was worth it for that alone.

But enough about me!

And so, of all the many things to take away from it, that was what struck me the most. Joaquin Phoenix deserves all the accolades in the world for his extraordinarily empathetic lead performance, which, despite being something which pushes against two very different polarities, manages to be incredibly well-balanced. Arthur Fleck does things which are morally questionable and has an all-encompassing world view of self-isolationism, and yet he remains throughout pitiable and sympathetic. Furthermore, I forgive Todd Phillips for The Hangover films. He and the rest of the crew that he has assembled deserve a pat on the back for their efforts in contributing to the overall piece. It is a testament and a delight to me personally that people were willing to take a chance on this one. Even without the Joker character itself, it's a hard sell. It's a hard, hard sell. But oftentimes, it's the harder ones that makes the buying all the more worth it. It invites in and is more than welcome in conversation alongside the likes of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, or Death Wish and First Blood, two movies also from the period in which the film is set that also see their protagonists react to injustice with violence. Also, aside from perhaps Ben Esmail's Mr. Robot or Vince Gilligan's Breaking Bad, proof once again that TV is all the rage and where a lot of the more daring and audacious things are being done right now, I can't remember the last time I saw a film released which is such a prescient reflection of it's times.

It's like instead of the APPLAUSE sign that you see on the set of the Murray Franklin show, telling us to bleat out and follow along, the other end of the coin has been revealed, the sign has been turned flipside, and it says,

THIS IS NOW

So, for all of you folks wondering what the hell I've been yapping on about, I won't tell you too much because frankly there's no need. However, I am expressing positive thoughts on the film as a whole, and I am sharing my solidarity in relation to World Mental Health Day. It goes without saying that mental health awareness is very important (It is okay to not be okay), and this is also where I feel Joker comes in as a significant work. It is a tough film and incredibly intense, but that it touched me in that way, while it may be a purely individual reaction, is indicative there is something worth talking about. Certainly, I can speak for myself about the power of art, engaging with it and your own personal artistic expression, whatever that may be in your life, and the healing effect it can have on you. While I think all this hokum about copycats and it potentially inspiring violence is another constructed moral panic, I definitively believe in the so-called 'artist's responsibility,' and here Joker succeeds. 

It's not easy. To paraphrase Bette Davis, it's a long, hard ride in a bumpy night, but ultimately it's a cathartic experience, well worth it when you come out the other end, "on a sunny day where the skies are clear." 

Dark Days: Boris Johnson and the Supreme Court

(Picture Credit: The Financial Times)

This morning, Lady Hale read out the judgment of the Supreme Court, that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s advice to the Queen that Parliament should be prorogued was unlawful. While I’m sure that many folks on the liberal and left were bouncing with delight and glee, later, as I sat in the café hearing Jeremy Corbyn, the Great White Hope, attaching himself to yet another seemingly populist cause of dissent, calling out, to rapturous applause, that the Prime Minister should resign, I could not see it as anything but another chapter in an ongoing calamity. As a perennially contrarian antagonist and agitator, I’m the last person to vote in favour of the maintenance of the status quo, but I couldn’t help thinking of the dark days ahead.

The decision of the Prime Minister to prorogue Parliament in the midst of the Brexit fiasco was questionable to say the least. At a time when we are approaching major upheaval as regards the future of the United Kingdom in the international sphere, to not have our elected representatives out there doing their best to secure a deal and create the foundations for a viable future is very foolish. Indeed, the case is particularly complicated over here in Northern Ireland. When we should be looking for viable solutions to the Irish border problem, Arlene Foster, the leader of our backwards ruling party the DUP, seems to be more content to pull the wool over our eyes with an illusion all wrapped up in symbolism, discussing with the Prime Minister a proposed bridge between Ardoyne and Scotland which, let’s face it, if this most ridiculous plan does come to fruition, will probably end up like The Bridge On The River Kwai, either by way of dastardly Republicans or the unexploded World War II torpedoes in the Irish Sea. Like that of President Herr Trump’s Great Wall Of Mexico, this grand image is, in essence, highfalutin hullabaloo, nonexistent vapour designed to distract from the issues at hand.

Still, despite my opposition to the parasites and crooks that primarily constitute, stinking up hallowed halls as their greasy sweat sticks to the leathered seats they so lazily stretch and sprawl themselves across while discussing the fate of the peons, I cannot jubilate in this decision. Some will celebrate it as an example of democracy coming through, as our politicians will sit once again on Wednesday, but I cannot. Our democracy has long since been sabotaged. Any semblance of the concept or the idea, the fundamentals behind what the word ‘democracy’ means are lies and the bedrock, source of manipulation from which these charlatans function, use as their base of operations. It will be business as usual as they continue doing nothing to institute change, real, positive change for the betterment of our nation’s inhabitants.

As the old man grumbled in the café while I listened to Corbyn’s declaration in my left ear over the loudspeakers on the radio, “I’ve never heard the likes of it,” I was uncertain as to where he lay, but I knew that whatever way it was a negative statement.

If Prime Minister Boris Johnson does or is forced to resign he will be adopted by the increasingly prominent extreme-right. As we have seen in the case of fringe figures such as Jayda Fransen and Tommy Robinson, everybody loves a martyr, and playing victim to the press in the name of ‘freedom of speech,’ perhaps accompanied by a picture with duck tape over their mouths, it serves to increase discontent. Instead of being a case of democracy, justice being served, these individuals, with their twisted, perverted logic will force themselves to see only what they want to see, that Boris Johnson was screwed out of doing right by the British people. Thankfully though, the plus side of this current brand of the far-right is they are a fairly jumbled bunch who create scenes, mere acts of provocation rather than anything lacking in legitimate meaning. The most dangerous thing about fascism is that it has a philosophy, and this lot are much too lacking in intelligence to be able to capitalise on that base, core simplicity, overloading their senses and sending their brains akimbo by behaving like a bunch of boors and louts. They couldn’t organise the proverbial piss-up in a brewery, much less an armed militia.

The left seem, on the surface, to have been doing a better job of it. Jeremy Corbyn has slowly been building himself into the figurehead they so desperately want, and a number of different organisations operate on a grassroots level, working diligently and patiently to win over supporters. However, I still can’t help but feel that, like Sinn Fein over here, the Labour Party across the water has too many dirty little secrets, the only difference being that while the Tories are playing out their dramas in public, Labour are keeping things close to the bone, inhouse, closed doors, or rather under several gag orders. The presentation they want everyone to see is that of a strong, unified front, but I suspect that behind the scenes there is something nasty and wicked lurking. Furthermore, the mass movements concern themselves more in creating a festival atmosphere of drinking and partying than any legitimate shock to the system, a glowing smiley-face emoji in place of the face of anger, not forgetting to get their sweeping wide-shots all over social media. Such is the nature of 21^st century protest.

Not everyone gets into politics on the basis of ulterior motives, but over time, unfortunately, most of these people lose sight of what brought them to the dance. They compromise their visions, let themselves go, fall in line with everyone else. Raising their feet in a ninety-degree arc, swinging arms together as they march like party animals, all original thoughts thrown to the wayside, lying dead in a ditch as a passing car splashes dirty mud water from a puddle on their carcass.

“He loved Big Brother.”

We stand on the precipice of a period of great uncertainty, and nobody has a clue what to do.

And yet, there is still hope. When I see people like Greta Thunberg, the courageous sixteen-year old activist who is travelling the world to enlighten people on the risks of climate change, I am inspired. It says something about the state of things when it takes someone like this to stand up fearlessly in front of The Big People and give them what for, take no prisoners and aim for the gullet. I bought a collection of her speeches, No One Is To Small To Make A Difference, earlier this year, and I’d urge everyone to pick up a copy. It’s inner-eye/mind-opening stuff. Of course, I worry. Already, the truth hurts too much for some. I have seen the writing on the wall in the rhetoric adopted by those who attack Thunberg. I don’t even like saying it, lest the suggestion has some sort of trickle affect along the psychic bond  shared among all individuals, but the state is crazy and messed up enough as it is that I would not be surprised is someone attempted to assassinate her, and all because she has the guts to say what needs to said, has the will to address what we refuse to admit. People might say, “oh, no, nobody would stoop so low,” but as history proves, our capacity to willingly commit such acts knows no bounds.

I hate to be the doomsayer, to have such a borderline apocalyptic worldview. I see it in my dreams when I sleep, the film pulled back revealing things to me, but for years we have been coming towards the edge. We are on the peak of history. On every single day that passes we are effecting change. The plural duality, aspect of humankind, we’re split one of two ways, either to save the race, fighting against the death-wish, the sex-death instinct, compulsive love of self-destruction, or going with it, wittingly or otherwise, letting ourselves plunge into the abyss.

Bubbles rise to the surface of the water as the kettle boils, brewing. The tension builds. We could be fighting in the streets, descend into chaos when what we is need order and stability. I worry, I fear for the future of our world, not my own.

But that is one possible future.

At risk of sounding like I’ve been drinking the Kool-Aid, humanity has a strange and wonderful knack of surviving. In my heightened states of mind I imagine all possibilities operating on respective planes simultaneously, and yet the one I gravitate towards sees us transcending, crossing over, break on through to the other side.

Although we may have dark days ahead, I have no doubt that we will pass this crisis, walk forward, moving, in our way, learning, understanding, to live long, love our world and one another.

The Retch Effect - Ideas and Content in Extreme Cinema

Recently, for the first time I watched Gaspar Noe's 2002 film Irreversible. Associated with the movement of cinema du corps (cinema of the body), more popularly known as the New French Extremity, which has gained prominence since the turn of the 21st century. Highly controversial upon initial release, while featuring graphic violence and being constructed in an unconventional fashion, it is the extended ten-minute sequence at it's centrepiece, in which Monica Bellucci's character Alex is brutally raped and beaten in a long take, that has continued to live on in notoriety. It is an excruciating scene, and as I was watching it I felt physically sick and began dry-heaving, several times coming close to turning it off because I was so revolted at the suffering I was witnessing I thought I might not be able to continue. However, as horrific as it is, I was glad I saw the film through to the end, as within the cerebral experimentation I knew I was watching a picture quite unlike any I had ever seen. Weeks later, as time goes on I'm still thinking about the film, and while others may disagree (it has a mixed reception of 57% on Rotten Tomatoes), some quite vehemently, I do believe it to be a masterpiece. It got me thinking,

"What other works of art have elicited similar such emotional responses?"

Without focusing on art as a wider whole (if I did that, I'd be going so far as to include Francisco Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son), I am going to focus specifically on the genre of film known as Extreme Cinema.

So, what is extreme cinema?

The history of extreme cinema originates alongside the censorship of art films, exploitation pictures, the liberalisation of depictions of sexuality in the late-20th century, and excessive violence and torture. The term itself comes from the growth in the early-21st century of Asian films, specifically those of South Korea and Japan (the former UK distributor Tartan marketed a number of these films under the Tartan Asia Extreme label, giving many of them their most widespread releases), although Japan in particular was exploring these avenues for some decades before with the pinku eiga. American cinema also had it's ventures with the rape and revenge picture, the slasher and the splatter genres, and Italian has a historic tradition of genre cinema, but the extreme side came along in the seventies with the giallo and the cannibal film. These pictures are often a source of debate among film fans and film critics, some even going as far as rankling the ire of the political establishment (infamously, Ruggero Deodato, after initial charges of obscenity, had them amended to include multiple charges of murder in relation to his 1980 film Cannibal Holocaust, only being cleared by the courts after having to prove that the actors were not legitimately killed onscreen).

Being a person who engages in a physical fashion to the stimulus around me through my senses and my intellect, this particular reaction probably says as much about myself as it does the works in question. "The Retch Effect," as I refer to it, is when I am driven by such an instinctive, gut impulse that my whole body surges towards this sickness that has me sounding like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. There are only a couple of other films I can recall having conjured up such a response:

1. Audition - Takashi Miike's film is one I have hailed for many years. I place it prominently among my ten favourite films of all time and feel there's a strong argument for it being perhaps the greatest horror film of all time (the other half of that argument goes to George A. Romero's Night Of The Living Dead). Despite having seen it around a decade ago and holding it in such high esteem, I have only returned to it maybe three or four times since. The first time I saw it I dug my hands into a cushion so hard that the imprints of my fingers were left there days after. There are a couple of key scenes which produced this reaction.

2. Eraserhead - I am a big fan of David Lynch, but only in the past few years did I watch Eraserhead for the first time (on a side note, it was very important in the process of writing my debut novel, Cat's Miaow). Since then, I have watched five or six times, and no matter how much I may appreciate the craftsmanship of the picture and the strangely beautiful way in which the story unfolds, at the film's climax I am always brought forth towards the dry-heaves. The reaction is always the same, to the point that even before I get there I can already start feeling my body building itself towards that horrific denouement. There's something so personal there in the pain which just drives home in a traumatic manner.

The question from here is that if I can react in such a way to some works, why not so to other works, some even more extreme in their content?

While I would by no means proclaim myself an expert, I do watch a fair degree of tough movies, and go out of my way to seek the films which, for better or worse, have pushed the boundaries of acceptability in cinema. However, despite the fact that their content might be considered extreme, I fail to respond in such a manner and they do not stay with me apart from the fact I have a knowledge that I do not feel I have gained anything of real significance from having seen them. Lucio Fulci's New York Ripper is one I always come back to, as any potential qualities it has get lost in a muddled tone that is, if not intentional, then certainly openly misogynistic and homophobic. Eli Roth's Hostel is a laughably bad picture that did nothing for me as a teenager, and I can only imagine that years of hardened cynicism and all-round grumpiness won't make it any better. A sad case is Tom Six, whose first two Human Centipede films, while not being great works of art, were good pieces of trash cinema that delivered exactly what it said on the tin, while his magnum opus, the orgiastic Gotterdammerung that was Human Centipede 3 was an outrageously self-indulgent piece of ego-stroking. And people get angry at Lars Von Trier! Even the multiplexes have been invade. Look at The Hangover Part II. Admittedly, I didn't like any of them, but this was a Fulci-level exploitation film wrapped up in the guise of comedy. The same can be said for Michael Bay's Transformers franchise. These are big, loud, brash and bombastic pictures which are essentially exploitation pictures dressed up as big-budget blockbusters.

From here, comes another question: apart from me getting slightly cross, why was it that these films had to little to no effect?

It is because they lack any central ideas. I forget if this is the exact quote (I'm not just being lazy, I did try to research it) but I believe it is from the Mademoiselle in Pascal Laugier's 2008 film Martyrs: "the most frightening thing about pain is that it has a philosophy." The same can be said for the film itself. Although featuring some of the most savage brutality ever committed to cinema, Martyrs is a film in which all of the violence has meaning (which is more than can be said for the glut of torture porn and found footage grot plaguing cinemas) and I would argue is the crown jewel of New French Extremity. Speaking of Lars Von Trier, the same can be said for Antichrist. In his best film to date, through the committed performances of lead actors Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe he creates a telling work on trauma, heartbreak and mental illness. The oeuvre of David Cronenberg, most specifically his body horror work and adaptation of J.G. Ballard's Crash, all have something under the surface that engages on a level beyond that of simple revulsion. Cast the net back to earlier works such as Pasolini's Salo, Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange and Ken Russell's The Devils, and all of these are made by artists at the peak of their craft doing something of great merit or meaning. Even in cinema's relative infancy, Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali's 1929 short Un Chien Andalou, featuring one of the most disturbing images in cinema history, that of a woman's eye being sliced open with a razor, is designed around dream logic, Freudian free-association and the psychological implications it has on the viewer. These are no mere provocateurs.

Content alone will not truly get under the skin of the viewer. Otherwise it is without meaning. Rather, it is the ideas behind the content that make a particular work disturbing. It is not enough to simply splash such extremities up on the screen in a lurid and exploitative manner that indulges in a subconscious craving towards violence and objectification. The depiction and portrayal of extreme content should be executed in a manner in which the viewer, while not necessarily deriving enjoyment in the classical sense, should have gained something, learning from the ideas presented to them by the overall experience. While perception is indeed in the eye of the beholder, it is the artist's responsibility to get across their message and aim to deliver something of meaning,

thus, the ideas behind the content.

Toy Story 4, and the Redundancy of Self-Celebratory Art

(On a slight note prefacing this article, which takes the shape of an op-ed, my previous article, Born Villain: The Greatest Antagonists in Film History, was my six-hundredth post on this blog. I knew I was prolific, but flip me!)

On the 21st of June of this year, Toy Story 4 opened in UK cinemas to delight of audiences and critics alike. So far, it has grossed approximately $920, 535, 664 (Box Office Mojo), a resounding success off the back of it's $200 million budget. Indeed, far from the argument of the doomsday naysayers who lament the death of cinema, if the numbers are to judge by anything, our multiplexes are flourishing, the pictures are taking in more money, and audiences continue to flock in ever-increasing droves to see the latest tentpole releases. In 2019 alone, six films thus far have grossed over $900 million, four of which have crossed the $1 billion threshold (including re-releases, only three films pre-2000, Jurassic Park, Titanic and Stars Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, have generated that much revenue at the box-office), and Avengers: Endgame, the tip of Marvel's marketing iceberg, has grossed $2, 793, 404, 739 (Box Office Mojo), displacing Avatar as the highest-grossing film of all time. And yet, despite all these statistics, facts and the general consensus being that now is perhaps as vibrant a time as ever to go to the cinema, I can't help myself, can't shake this feeling that something's awry. There's a taste in my mouth, and it's a little bit bitter. 

Now, objectively speaking, Toy Story 4 is a great film. It's a charming work, beautifully animated with a wonderful voice cast, and a crew of hundreds, maybe thousands at Pixar, working behind the scenes who put their heart and soul into realising these characters to their fullest degree, with warmth and sincerity. They are people who care about what they do, the efforts that they put into their craft, and the audiences they're making their pictures for. And still, I can't help but feel that the whole thing is a perfunctory exercise. Maybe part of the problem is that with Toy Story 3, a film which I hold up in the highest estimation as one of the greatest motion pictures of all time, was for me a perfect ending to this story. How do you top perfection, or move on from there? 

It's an inevitability that anything you follow on with has an uphill battle, and more often than not these works fail to live up expectations. There have been times when I have been very vocal in my opposition to reboots, remakes and sequels, but have been thoroughly proved wrong. I cite the recent entries into the Planet Of The Apes franchise. As a lover of that series, and an old-school make-up/practical special effects guy, I was horrified and dismissive of the move to do it all with motion-capture and animation. However, when I saw it all in action, the skill, excellence and dedication to the craft sold me on it. I was hooked, convinced from the get-go by the performances. The same can be said for Blade Runner 2049. I was outraged that a sequel was even being made, much less contemplated as some mindless fantasy in the head of a fanboy. Again, I went to see the film in the cinema and was astounded. It's an extraordinary piece, very much within the same universe but a work all of it's own, a rare piece of cinema, and one of the few times in recent years that studios have invested a heavy financial budget into what is essentially an art film. 

That being said, while it's hardly a recent trend (indeed, since the mid-1970s in particular), I feel that in the 21st century our cinemas have been increasingly swallowed up and digested by what I call 'self-celebratory art.' What I mean when I refer to certain works as self-celebratory art is non-original pictures which are part of an extended franchises, or are remakes/adaptations of already-existing works. I might be generalising and lumping things together here, and it's not a commentary on the quality (or lack thereof) of a given work, but I do feel the overall atmosphere to be roundly insidious, pernicious, negative, damaging and detrimental to the advancement of cinema and art as a whole. 

Take a quick glance over a list of the top fifty highest-grossing films of all time (Wikipedia). I haven't had a look at it for a few years, being largely out of film criticism and focusing on my own creative work, but it's even more frightening than it was before. The numbers may be up, but I've cobbled up a short list of what I suppose could be considered 'original properties' at the time of their release:

(Number is according to their ranking on the top fifty highest-grossing films of all time)

#45. The Lion King - $968, 483, 777 (1994)

#43. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - $975, 051, 288 (2001)

#38. Zootopia - $1, 023, 784, 195 (2016)

#34. Jurassic Park - $1, 029, 939, 903 (1993)

#14. Frozen - $1, 276, 480, 335 (2013)

#3. Titanic - $2, 187, 463, 944 (1997)

#2. Avatar - $2, 789, 679, 794 (2009)

Of the information presented here, there are a few things to take back. Three of these pictures (The Lion King, Frozen and Zootopia) were produced by Disney, the former two developed into successful franchises. Indeed, the original Lion King was surpassed at the box-office recently by it's 2019 remake, and Frozen has become a massively popular sub-brand under Disney. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone came off the back of J.K. Rowling's literary success and launched the beginning of it's own cinematic franchise. Jurassic Park was an adaptation of a hot property (by Michael Crichton, soon to become even hotter property with ER on the way for television), and Titanic and Avatar were the brainchild of a visionary filmmaker (and at their given times of production the highest-budgeted films of all time). 

So, basically, unless you have Disney's backing, a ready-made brand (Harry Potter), or your name is Steven Spielberg or James Cameron, good luck trying to get some backing for your $200 million masterpiece. Filmmakers such as Christopher Nolan and Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu, original auteurs for all intents and purposes, needed the financial success of The Dark Knight or the award-winning acclaim of Birdman to get the backing required for big-budget original passion projects Inception and The Revenant. No such trouble for Alfonso Cuaron, who followed 2013's Gravity with the modestly-budgeted (at $15 million) Roma, but Guillermo del Toro has encountered production problems (as he has throughout his career) in realising the vision for his adaptation of Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio, first announced in 2008, even off the back of The Shape Of Water. It was only with the recent intervention and backing of Netflix (increasingly a force in the industry in their own right) that the project was able to be revived. 

In today's world, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is king. With a genius strategy of saturating the market and slowly whetting the appetites of their audiences that everyone else in the game has been trying to emulate since, the twenty-three films of the MCU has collectively grossed $23, 491, 347, 603, and is by some margin the highest-grossing film franchise of all time. The nearest competitor in terms of overall gross is the Star Wars franchise, with it's eleven films having grossed $9, 241, 699, 398. But there is a common thread between these franchises. In October 2012, Lucasfilm was acquired by Disney, and in September of 2015, Marvel Studios was integrated into The Walt Disney Studios. Indeed, on March 20th, 2019, a deal was completed between 20th Century Fox, the previous distributor of the Star Wars franchise and formerly one of the 'Big Six' studios, and Disney, during the merger in which The Walt Disney company purchased most of the assets of 21st Century Fox. 

Now, this is no grand conspiracy against Disney, although certainly my myriad reasons for occasional contempt against Disney are many. Among the top twenty-five highest-grossing film franchises of all time, all but two are properties under the thumb of the current 'Big Five.' Lionsgate, a mini-major studio with a not-insubstantial 3.3% of the market share, have The Hunger Games and The Twilight Saga (through the acquisition of Summit Entertainment in January 2012) under their belt. Besides those, though, everything else is spread between Walt Disney Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures, Universal Pictures, Columbia Pictures and Paramount Pictures. 

The market share statistics among the Big Five (and by proxy their studio parent/conglomerates, are also worth noting):

Universal Pictures - 14.9%

Paramount Pictures - 6.3%

Warner Bros. Pictures - 16.3%

Walt Disney Pictures - 36.3%

Columbia Pictures - 10.9%

(Source: US/CAN Market Share 2018)

Take into account that even a percentage, a comparative small slice of the pie when we're talking about the kind of money that goes into the film industry, is still a fair whack of money. So, as you can see from this information, Disney dominate with over a third of the market share, which is surely only set to increase after said acquisition of 20th Century Fox and it's cinematic franchises. But what this also tells us is that, between the Big Five studios, an estimated 84.8% of the market share is spread among these five companies. It's a staggering statistic when you think about it. 

What I gather from this information is that it is a very financially lucrative market in the film industry at present. I may have said the MCU is king, but really commerce is king. This is a comparative monopoly in which a small group of individuals overlord and run the film industry, essentially propping themselves and their organisations up off of the back of capitalistic gain in the name of consumer art. In recent years, Warner Bros. acquired the distribution rights to The Hobbit films in 2012, partnering with New Line Cinema, who produced and distributed The Lord Of The Rings films, and, with Sony's deal expiring, after an April 2017 bidding competition for distribution rights, Eon Productions and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer announced a one-picture deal with Universal Pictures for the twenty-fifth instalment in the James Bond film franchise, MGM handling domestic distribution and Universal taking on international distribution. The Wizarding World under Heyday Films, the UK's other major franchise, has always had American backing from it's owner and distribution company Warner Bros.. This is a highly competitive market in which the big organisations and conglomerates are snapping up what they see as hot property, not as art but as investments, potential profits, and as you can see from this decade alone the trend seems to be continuing further and further down along that line.

Does that mean that there is a decline in the quality of art? No, not necessarily. Indeed, as I mentioned earlier, there have been some remarkable pictures from these franchises, and from what I've seen of the current crop of independent artists who continue to be ahead of the curve, the cream will always rise to the top. However, what it does mean that unfortunately the film industry is driven, more so than ever, by commerce, money, financial and materialistic gain over quality control and genuinely enriching, original and creative art. When you have an industry, rather than a culture, which is driven in such a fashion, it has the impact upon it's audiences as that of the Ouroboros, the ancient symbol of the serpent, or the dragon, eating it's own tail. Now, while Carl Jung may have seen this as constituting the secret of the prima materia, and it may still be so, I personally tend to take a negative interpretation of the Ouroboros. We become like a worm that devours itself; we're returning to something we're acquainted with, a familiar state, an old friend, maybe, but ultimately, in doing so, and thus continuing to buy into and consume these things, and thus ourselves, we are slowly chewing and swallowing ourselves up, piece by piece. Denying ourselves of the chance, the opportunity, to try out new things, we close ourselves off from the world and submit to living within the warm, comforting arms of solace. We end up walking over the same old ground, treading the same steps we have before, stuck in the mud, not really going anywhere.

Where are the risk-takers, where are the daredevils, the enfant terribles, the provocatuers, the agitators, the extremists?

Where are the people who're willing to break the chains that hold, the mould created around them, throw the middle-finger up and shout with defiance in the face of fear?

Where are you now? 

Show yourself.

The greatest creative artists, Ingmar Bergman, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, people of that ilk, had their very own specific crafts, but never allowed themselves to get pigeonholed or repeat themselves. Masters of self re-invention, they consistently gave the world something new and original (and they didn't have to bankrupt half a third-world country for their productions to boot!), fresh and interesting, to devour and consume, if you want to look at it in those rather base and crude terms. I prefer to look at it as bathing in the light of the sun, or basking in the sea of consciousness. The greatest of art, as one of the great forms of human expression, inspires a universal and collective sense of oneness, being, consciousness, enlightenment, understanding and contentment. Personally speaking, I for the most part do not get that feeling of satisfaction from these grotesque and bombastic works made with money that would be better off going towards charitable causes, more especially given their varying quality. I lament every time a new Terminator film is on the way. Sometimes it's better, to rip off a phrase from John Ajvide Lindqvist, to let the old dreams die. 

So, what is there to be taken away from this?

To creative artists, keep doing your thing. You are a unique and original voice, and your fierce determination and self-confidence will continue to inspire others around you. Never let anyone tell you that you and your work ain't worth it, because, believe me, they are. There is always a place out there for those who willing to dare to dream, be brave, courageous, and kick against the pricks.

To audiences, don't just take what you're given, what's foisted upon you or shoved down your throats, and that goes for all aspects of life as well as art. Get out there, venture into the unknown, do something new, participate in something you've done before, engage with what you otherwise thought was not possible. There's a big bad world out there waiting to be discovered. 

At the end of the day, all of these great trees and the branches spinning-off of them, grow from the very same soil as everything else, and from this fertile ground, all the same seeds, sown; 

the lightswitches in the brain, the flickering flames in the heart, the beginning of new ideas...

Born Villain - The Greatest Antagonists in Film History

(During the course of my writing this article, on the very day I had just finished banging up all of these entries, I discovered that Rutger Hauer had passed away. Notwithstanding his presence on this list as a great screen antagonist, Hauer was one of my personal favourite actors, from his early work in Holland with Paul Verhoeven right up to the present day. An environmentalist who supported numerous causes, including the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, he also established his own AIDS awareness organisation, the Rutger Hauer Starfish Foundation. He is survived by his wife Ineke, his daughter Aysha, and grandson Leandro. He will be greatly missed.)

At the centre of great storytelling, we must have characters who we care about, sympathise with, understand. Everyone likes to have a hero to root for in the course of their plight, but we would not be able to do so if it were not for their antagonists. These agents of conflict and tension are what the hero bounce off of, and without them they would not be able to successfully navigate their way through the trials and tribulations of their struggles. Also, while most heroes, though varying in range, have their archetypes, their prototypes, general attributes, the same rules do not apply to the antagonists. As such (and this is speaking personally as well as generally), we cannot help but be drawn to the elusive, mysterious qualities of the antagonist, their level of distance from us as viewers, identifying with the hero. So, with that being said, we are focusing here on the greatest antagonists in film history. Before we get started, I want to establish some ground rules, for this being a subjective judgement, I would like to define to you what exactly makes, in my eyes, an antagonist.

1. Agent of conflict - the antagonist causes challenges for the protagonist to overcome over the course of the film.

2. Negative energy - for me, a true antagonist is that of a dark force to that of the protagonist's light. There may be varying shades of grey, but we're going to be talking about black-and-white/good-and-evil psychology. 

3. No protagonists - this is perhaps the most contentious of my ground rules. However, in my opinion if the antagonist is the main character/protagonist in a work, than they cannot be a true antagonist; for all intents and purposes, they are the hero of their respective worlds, so no Alexander De Larges or Travis Bickles.

Also, as a quick preface, I do have to admit a more than slight bias towards the less-celebrated antagonists in film history, so you perhaps may see a few unfamiliar faces in lieu of some notable absences. 

So, here it is!

(In alphabetical order)

Staff Sergeant Bob Barnes (Platoon), played by Tom Berenger

I saw Platoon at a young age (probably about ten or eleven), and since then it has been one of my favourite pictures. It has stood the test of time and repeated viewing as a strong, humanist depiction of conflict. At the crux of it's drama is the battle of ideologies between the compassionate Elias (played by Willem Dafoe) and the brutal Barnes. As Charlie Sheen's protagonist Chris Taylor states, "There are times since, I've felt like a child, born of those two fathers." This is Shakespearean tragedy placed right in the centre of the Vietnam War. As a boy, I hated Barnes for his brutality and cold dispensing of his interpretation of justice, to keep the machine from breaking down. As a man, I understand him a lot more, but detest him nonetheless. 

Norman Bates (Psycho), played by Anthony Perkins

When prepping and researching this article, I repeatedly stated and had in mind Norman Bates as the kind of antagonist I gravitated towards. In many ways, to use a cliche, he has almost become an archetype. The first factor in that process is that he is a three-dimensional character and not a mere pantomime. Without spoiling anything, there are lots of little nooks and crannies in the different aspects of Norman. Secondly, he's portrayed with a wonderfully nuanced performance by Anthony Perkins. He has the shy, boy-next-door charm, and executes the perfect balance in terms of dialling all his tics up and down, so he manages be simultaneously sympathetic and frightening.

Roy Batty (Blade Runner), played by Rutger Hauer

I recently watched Blade Runner again, sometime around the release of the delightfully brilliant surprise that was Denis Villeneuve's 2017 sequel Blade Runner 2049. As with every time I watch Blade Runner (and any truly great film), I see something new, and this time it was how little actual screentime there is of Roy Batty. Yet, despite this, his shadow looms long among the many over the whole picture. As strong as Harrison Ford's Rick Deckard is as a protagonist, I've always gravitated towards Rutger Hauer's android replicant Batty. His primary focus towards prolonging life is a relatable end goal, and while this is going on he's still learning what it means to be alive. Thus, Deckard, and by proxy us as viewers, are asked to question our values and the meaning of existence. Batty is an intelligent, receptive, seductive and philosophical foil, a perfect piece, perhaps the perfect piece, for the world of Blade Runner (and Rutger Hauer delivers perhaps the greatest soliloquy in film history in his final scene). Spellbinding.

Hans Beckert (M), played by Peter Lorre

When I was a teenager broadening my palette into international cinema, one of the pictures that I came across was Fritz Lang's M. Notwithstanding the fact that it is all-round a majestically constructed work, it is a major achievement on the part of Peter Lorre that he was able to make Hans Beckert a sympathetic character. A serial killer who preys on and murders children, he is introduced to us in a manner akin to that of a phantom boogeyman, whistling the leitmotif of Edvard Grieg's In The Hall Of The Mountain King from Peer Gynt Suite No. 1. The whole film builds itself around the manhunt and bases itself upon the predication that Beckert is a monster. By the end, however, it is clear that Beckert is not a ghoul or a fiend, but a person, a deranged and insane one, but a human being nonetheless. It is another classic case of an antagonist being used to question our morals and ethics, and the torment and anguish which this man so clearly suffers makes him a sorrowful figure indeed.

Frank Booth (Blue Velvet), played by Dennis Hopper

And now we head into altogether different territory. For each of these entries I use Google Images to find an appropriate picture. In the case of Frank Booth, I found it hard to find one that was relatively neutral. Dennis Hopper's wild-eyed and foul-mouthed Booth is sexually aggressive and violently psychotic. Every time he is onscreen in the presence of Kyle MacLachlan's poor Jeffrey Beaumont, like him, we are on edge, because Frank is the epitome of human evil cranked up to eleven. At a moment's notice, with his hair-trigger temperament, helped in no part by his gas-inhaling habit, he could snap and fly into a rage. Hopper is a force of nature who wreaks havoc wherever he walks in this part, chewing people up and spitting them out for his pleasure and delight. Of all the antagonists on this list, Frank Booth may well be the most terrifying.

Anton Chigurh (No Country For Old Men), played by Javier Bardem

Described as the Unstoppable Evil archetype that recurs throughout Cormac McCarthy's literature (think the Judge from Blood Meridian), Javier Bardem's acclaimed performance in the Coen brothers' Academy-Award winning adaptation of No Country For Old Men as Anton Chigurh is already the stuff of legend. Chigurh is one of those characters that when he walks into a room the whole atmosphere changes. The air becomes cooler, the tempo of your heartbeat speeds up, sensing the element of danger, and yet you can't tear your eyes from this strange-looking mop-headed hitman. He is ruthless, remorseless and completely lacking in compassion, but what separates him from the pack is that he has a philosophy. Living by a very specific and deliberate set of morals and principles, he is relentlessly determined in executing his tasks, but abides by a code in doing so. Perhaps that, along with Bardem's unique delivery, is what makes him so fascinating. 

Commodus (Gladiator), played by Joaquin Phoenix

I could write a book about my love for Gladiator. Although widely celebrated when first released in 2000, it has been in the years since then been subject to on-off spats of negative criticism. I first saw it when I was nine years old on the DVD copy my uncle bought me for Christmas (which remains in my possession) and it still carries for me the sheer scope, the spectacle, the awe and wonder of the majesty of Ancient Rome that so entranced me as a boy. But anyway, I digress. One of the things about Gladiator that never changes, though, is that Commodus is an out-and-out bastard. Jealous, insecure, vicious with an insatiable bloodlust, his cruelty knows no bounds of moral transgression in the pursuit of getting what he wants. Played by a young Joaquin Phoenix, who has since went on to have an incredible career with a wide body of work, this was the first time I and many others no doubt saw him on the big screen. I'd be lying if I didn't say there's times I find it hard to get rid of that initial impression.

Sherrif "Little" Bill Daggett (Unforgiven), played by Gene Hackman

This is what I meant earlier by rule number three, because in another picture "Little" Bill Daggett would be hero of the piece, while Clint Eastwood's Will Munny would be the villain. However, in the Eastwood-directed Unforgiven, the lines are blurred. While Munny is no saint in this world of sinners, Gene Hackman, who also gave us one of cinema's great protagonists in "Popeye" Doyle, his "Little" Bill Daggett is clearly anything but an angel. The sheriff of Big Whiskey is a sadistic scoffer who in the course dispensing justice mocks, berates and revels in the downfall of his enemies. Far from the firm but fair objective lawman, he takes pleasure in making grand gestures and displays, all the while exhibiting a rough and ready violent streak. Unforgiven is not just one of the great screen westerns, but one of the great works of the screen period, and "Little" Bill Daggett is a notable part of that.

Death (The Seventh Seal), played by Bengt Ekerot

Ingmar Bergman was a master with a vast body of work spanning multiple decades, and which I have no doubt will continue to live on many centuries after his passing. We will be speaking of Bergman as canon in the same way we do of Shakespeare. However, of all the many great things Bergman did as an artist, no image of his is so indelibly burned into the popular consciousness than the opening scene of Bengt Ekerot's Death playing chess on the beach with Max Von Sydow's knight Antonius Block. Not a regular screen player of Bergman's, Ekerot, although caked in white paint and shrouded in black clothing, depicts Death not as a pantomime figure, a frothing devil with a twist in his tail, but as a self-aware individual whose mere concern is the inevitable fulfilment of his purpose, that of delivering the souls of the living from one realm to another. It's as strong a performance as that of the innumerable greats from the wide oeuvre of The Great Swede, and is certainly the most influential depiction of Death in contemporary culture.

Lady Eboshi (Princess Monoke), played by Yuko Tanaka

There's a lot to admire about Lady Eboshi. She's a strong and determined woman in a world of men, the courageous leader of Irontown, a proud individual not above self-sacrifice in following her beliefs. Unfortunately, though, she's batting for the wrong side. In the pursuit of industrial advancement, Lady Eboshi's cause has a negative impact on the environment and natural wildlife in the world that the characters inhabit. In her steadfast refusal to accept compromise or accept any opposition, she's sincere in her stubborn belief that what she is doing for the greater good of her people. Yuko Tanaka injects Eboshi with a sense of humanity. A pet peeve of mine when watching works by left-wing/liberal filmmakers is the depiction of 'The Big Bad' as a two-dimensional cartoon, a cardboard-cutout caricature of a fascistic demagogue. With thorough fleshing out and three-dimensional complexity, there's none of that with Eboshi.

Terence Fletcher (Whiplash), played by J.K. Simmons

Earlier on I mentioned about how whenever certain characters walk into a room the atmosphere changes. While with Anton Chigurh the temperature drops Terence Fletcher cranks things up high, to the point that, like Miles Teller's Andrew Neiman, you're sweating buckets because you're with him on the edge of that stool behind the drumkit. The dramatic tension of Damien Chazelle's Whiplash is predicated around the mercurial relationship of young jazz student Neiman and his teacher Fletcher. After years of quietly stealing the show, J.K. Simmons took the ball that was this gift of a part and ran with it. His Terence Fletcher is a foul-mouthed tyrant, a perfectionist wound up like a coiled spring and as such has everyone else on edge through the film. Even Fletcher's quieter moments are nerve-wracking. They're like the calm before the storm, and what lies underneath is a human tornado.

Alexandra "Alex" Forrest (Fatal Attraction), played by Glenn Close

When Fatal Attraction was first released in 1987, it caused a sensation. In the midst of the uproar, it became the highest-grossing film of 1987 and was nominated for six Academy Awards. Now, while I will say the film as a whole is terrific, standing up against retrospective negative criticism, it would not work on the level that it does without the extraordinary performance of Glenn Close. Now, I am an unabashed fan of Close, but what she does her with Alexandra Forrest goes above and beyond. Although Fatal Attraction is designed around the tension Close brings to Michael Douglas' Dan Gallagher's life, Alex is no two-dimensional wailing banshee of a woman scorned. Close's Alex is a deeply troubled, disturbed individual with mental health issues who develops a dangerous infatuation. I can't say enough about the brilliance of this performance, certainly up there among my personal favourites. Alex may have become the prototypical 'bunny boiler' in the popular conscious, but Close plays her with such humanity that you cannot help but sympathise with her. In today's day and age and in light of the recent Me Too movement, it seems especially prescient, and that's perhaps why men find Alex so terrifying.

Hans Gruber (Die Hard), played by Alan Rickman

And now we go back into the realm of more famous antagonists. Bruce Willis' John McClane is one of the great screen protagonists, but McClane would not have come across as successfully without the work of Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber. In the forty-two year old's first screen performance, Rickman revels in the opportunity. In another man's hands, Hans would be another two-dimensional terrorist. With Rickman, Gruber portrays the extremist as an intelligent, sophisticated and ruthless gentleman will go to all lengths to get what he wants (namely his detonators!). Just look at the smooth versatility with which he (as an Englishman) floats between an American accent, German and German-accented English when he and McClane meet face-to-face (in a scene which was not originally in the script but only written in once it was found out that Rickman could do an American accent). It's a small scene, but absolute genius. 

Doyle Hargraves (Sling Blade), played by Dwight Yoakam

John Ritter's Vaughan describes Doyle Hargraves as a "monster," and in Billy Bob Thorton's 1996 contemporary classic Sling Blade, Dwight Yoakam's Doyle is the definition of the concept that sometimes the greatest of monsters are often the most human. Doyle is no slasher movie villain, but in the context of this drama, he carries similar attributes where the fear surrounding him is concerned. A violent and abusive alcoholic, he perpetually torments those closest to him, namely his girlfriend Linda, her son Frank, and the various members of his band. He also bullies Vaughan for his homosexuality and our protagonist, Billy Boy Thornton's Karl Childers, feeling that his intellectual disability makes him an easy target. Country musician Yoakam, a non-professional actor, fits right into the Southern Gothic fairy tale world of Sling Blade, and his Doyle is the perfect opposing force to Thornton's Karl.

Matthew Hopkins (Witchfinder General), played by Vincent Price

The late great Vincent Price, a cult favourite of many (and yours truly), played many parts over the course of his career, which spanned seven different decades, but was mostly known for his work in the horror genre. Alternating between protagonist and antagonist, no role in the case of the latter was as deliriously malevolent as that of Matthew Hopkins in Witchfinder General. Despite constant clashes on-set with young director Michael Reeves, Price gives perhaps his most subtle performance. His Hopkins is a suitably restrained menace, and the cool, calm demeanour of this religious zealot in the face of heinous brutality is very unnerving. Price would later admit when he saw the picture that he understood what Reeves had been getting at, and for the rest of his life held it up as one of his personal favourite works. I too believe it to be up there.  

El Indio (For A Few Dollars More), played by Gian Maria Volonte

Sergio Leone, the great master of the Spaghetti Western, was a production powerhouse with five terrific pictures under his belt from 1964-1971, two of which, The Good, The Bad And The Ugly and Once Upon A Time In The West are consider among the greatest films of all time. However, of all the many rogues in the gallery of his antagonists, none is more villainous and dastardly as the laughing face of El Indio. Played by Gian Maria Volonte, himself described as a volatile actor behind the scenes, Indio has been bust out of prison by members of his gang, and while getting back to his old ways displays a savagery going beyond reason and revenge. Merciless, the drug habit which distracts him from haunting memories in fact feeds his cruelty, creating a cyclical process of violence in which he relishes the rules of the games he makes, playing out his duels by the chilling chimes of his pocket watch, designed of course by the Maestro Morricone. Consider the church scene; Alex Cox describes Indio as the "most diabolical Western villain of all time." However fascinating, it's hard to disagree.

Joker (The Dark Knight), played by Heath Ledger

It's hard to say anything that hasn't already been said about Heath Ledger's iconic turn as the Joker in The Dark Knight. Having been played in the past by the likes of Cesar Romero, Jack Nicholson and Mark Hamill, initially there was great opposition to Ledger's casting. However, whereas all previous depictions of the character were variations on the same theme, Ledger threw out the rule book and went in a whole other direction. The agent of chaos to the order of Christian Bale's Batman ("You complete me!"), Ledger is that character body and soul, from the lip-smacking scrunched face and yellow teeth under the smeared makeup to his physical movements right down to that voice, his Joker is anarchy personified in a manner which is cerebral, intense, occasionally funny, and always frightening. To say that Ledger's passing at the age of twenty-eight was untimely is an understatement, for he left us with something that will go down in the history of pop culture ("Why so serious?") and one of the classic performances of the screen. 

Lina Lamont (Singin' In The Rain), played by Jean Hagen

Singin' In The Rain is a wonderful cinematic experience: charming, heartfelt, whimsical, satirical and at times outrageously funny, it remains to this day one of the warmest and spiritually uplifting motion pictures ever made. In the midst of all this, though, there's a proverbial "devil in a red dress," or in this case, several different garish, lavish colours. Jean Hagen's Lina Lamont is a prototypical screen 'bitch,' the ancestor of all those high-school bullies that later became steadfast fixtures as foils for our protagonists. Insecure, vindictive and neurotic (with a horrendously screechy voice to boot), Lina has a cold-blooded nasty streak, willing to throw anyone under a speeding train in order to advance her career. It's hard not to feel indignant threatens to sabotage the career of co-star Gene Kelly's Don Lockwood and attempts to use and usurp the budding talents of poor Debbie Reynolds' Kathy Selden. None of this could pulled off as successfully without Hagen's spot-on turn.

SS Colonel Hans Landa (Inglourious Basterds), played by Christoph Waltz

I have a contentious relationship with Inglourious Basterds (and Quentin Tarantino's wider oeuvre as a whole). Famously, back when it was first released, I fell asleep for a couple of minutes only to wake up and see that nothing new had happened and we were still in the middle of the same scene. I have since seen it again, and while I may still have those opines, I've never been anything less than convinced by the sheer magnetism and force of Christoph Waltz' turn as Hans Landa. The film's opening ("Once Upon A Time In Nazi-Occupied France"), in which Landa interrogates a dairy farmer suspected of hiding a Jewish family, is absolutely nerve-wracking, down to Waltz's mercurial talents. Polite, eloquent and charming in his demeanour, Waltz nevertheless manages to get across entirely the cruel economy and intelligent ruthlessness of the self-styled "Jew Hunter." This extended sequence is the highlight of the film and one of the best things Tarantino, a master wordsmith, has ever written. While the rest of the movie may not be entirely up to scratch, every time Waltz's Landa is onscreen we are hooked, line and sinker.

Lots-O-Huggin' Bear "Lotso" (Toy Story 3), played by Ned Beatty

Speaking of Tarantino, who would name Toy Story 3 his favourite film of 2010, this here's a pretty personal pick of mine. Also my favourite film of 2010 and single-favourite picture of the past twenty years, I can't say enough about my absolute love for Toy Story 3. Part of what works so well here, from a general perspective, is the time, craft and exceptional care that goes into establishing and fleshing out (or rather, fluffing out) these characters. In the case of Lotso, who is, on the surface, a kind-natured soul, a good 'ole boy, underneath the warm veneer he's a benevolent dictator ruling the toys of Sunnyside Daycare with an iron fist. He punishes troublemakers with abominable cruelty, all in his belief that it is being the done for the greater good. Ultimately, though, Lotso's darkness emerges from heartbreak and trauma. However bitter and miserable he may be, Ned Beatty ensures that he is, if not sympathetic, then certainly an understandable and relatable antagonist. 

Pazazu (The Exorcist), played by Eileen Dietz/Mercedes McCambridge/Ron Faber/Linda Blair

I have some slight issues with AFI's 100 Years... list of Heroes & Villains. As I mentioned at the beginning, there were some individual characters who, for all intents and purposes, are the heroes as the film's protagonists, such as Travis Bickle, Alexander de Large, Michael Corleone, but one I absolutely object to is Regan MacNeil being classed among the mugshots. It is quite clearly the demon Pazazu that is the film's antagonist. Evil in all it's purity, Pazazu takes possession of the twelve-year-old Regan as a pawn to be used in his inevitable showdown with the priests Merrin and Karras. A dark force throwing down the gauntlet to challenge God's agents of the faith, Pazazu strips down the glory of battle to it's bare bones, and through the various incarnations, guises of a raw, putrid, ugly self, takes our protagonists (and the audience) to otherwise unimaginable territory. 

Reverend Harry Powell (The Night Of The Hunter), played by Robert Mitchum

I saw The Night Of The Hunter for the first time very recently and was completely entranced. I've seen it a second time since, and will probably soon enough watch it again. Although maligned upon release, it is one of the most unique of Hollywood studio pictures. Part of this lasting appeal is down to the incredible performance of Robert Mitchum as the Reverend Harry Powell. With a sinister charm that belies the ruthless efficiency with which he regularly carves his way through people, manipulating them every which way for his purposes like playthings, behind the deep-voiced, sonorous tones of this singing priest are so many questions. He's an enigma, a mystery. Is he really a man of the cloth, or simply or a con man? Is he really a misogynist who despises sex? Does he truly believe in the divine pact worked up betwixt him and God, or is this part of the act? Regardless, it doesn't matter. He is The Preacher. Verbal Kint once said that "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." By the end of The Night Of The Hunter, Mitchum has you convinced otherwise. This character was the inspiration and impetus behind my doing up this list. Death rides a white horse, and his name is Harry Powell.

John Ryder (The Hitcher), played by Rutger Hauer

The only actor to appear twice on this list, I couldn't not include the mighty Rutger Hauer's John Ryder in Robert Harmon's 1986 feature directorial debut, The Hitcher. Another film with a strange history, but unlike The Night Of The Hunter, The Hitcher's retrospective reputation seems set to remain as that of a minor cult classic. Yet, over the years I have talked with many people who express their love for the film as a whole, some of whom were absolutely terrified by John Ryder. He may be a malevolent psychopath tormenting C. Thomas Howell's Jim Halsey, but the presence of Hauer makes him into an existential figure that forces Jim to question and challenge himself. He's a dark phantom who wreaks havoc and destruction before vanishing into the desert from whence he came. It's an extraordinary turn in a criminally underrated picture. 

Norman Stansfield (Leon: The Professional), played by Gary Oldman

This is one of those times when an actor takes what could be a stock villain and injects it with so much energy and pazazz that it takes on a whole other life of it's own. Not known for doing things with half a heart, Gary Oldman throws himself entirely into the character of Norman Stansfield. A perfect flipside to the reserved, calm demeanour of Jean Reno's Leon, Oldman twitches like a tiger full of tics. His delivery is sabre-tongued, lashing out and frightening even his colleagues as he philosophises and speaks at length about his devotion to classical music. This bent copper is one unpredictable cat who, when faced with the wholesale massacre of a family and having been shot, is relatively nonplussed bar a mild concern that his suit has been ruined. However, even in the "calm little moments before the storm" which remind him of a Beethoven, you get the impression that underneath it all there's a ticking timebomb waiting to explode.

The Terminator (The Terminator), played by Arnold Schwarzenegger

Obvious Callum is obvious, right? It's the greatest film of all time, so no list of the greatest antagonists in film history would be complete without Arnold Schwarzenegger in the role of a lifetime as The Terminator. Whatever various incarnations (of mixed quality) appeared over the years and have been put through the popular culture wringer, first impressions mean everything, and the original set the standard for everything that followed. Doing a lot by doing nothing, the cold, menacing stare, the focused precision, the slowly tracking eyes, the trained precision, Schwarzenegger's cyborg is like something out of a neon nightmare, a merciless killing machine who, as Michael Biehn's Kyle Reese says to Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor, "absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead." In the battle between good and evil, the light and the dark, the ages-old story updated into our contemporary world, Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator is the Man-Machine Incarnate. 

And, there you have it with our list. Be sure to engage if you should feel that way inclined. What were your favourite antagonists in film history? Are there some you feel I have left out here? Is there anyone who shouldn't be on this list? Let me know what you think, and don't forget to keep your eyes posted!

Dedicated to

Rutger Hauer (1944-2019)