In an earlier blog I picked three characters from films that were a big inspiration to me, to the person I wanted to become - they were Westley/The Man In Black from The Princess Bride, T.E Lawrence from Lawrence of Arabia and Gustav H from The Grand Budapest Hotel. These three are the heroes of their films and with the recent death of Alan Rickman I put some thought into if there might be villains who were equally inspiring.
Hans Gruber - Die Hard
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| The benefits of a classical education |
Alan Rickman was a great actor and had a career that gave him a chance to play every sort of role but for me, and for many others, his best role was as German criminal mastermind Hans Gruber in Die Hard. It may not have been Austen or Shakespeare but Die Hard was a great film, but it was a great film with a terrible flaw, the villain was so much better than the hero. Every time I watch it I'm on the side of the articulate, well-dressed and composed European, not the frantic New York cop running around with no shoes on. For those who don't know in the film Die Hard a group of mainly European criminals take over the Nakatomi building and hold the staff hostage. They are professional, well-prepared and know exactly what they are doing. At first it seemed that these men were terrorists, wanting the release of fellow terrorists but actually they were planning on stealing the millions of dollars in the building. Their plan was thwarted by John McClane, the estranged husband of a high-ranking employee, who was also a cop back home in New York. The criminals were lead by Rickman's Hans Gruber, the most effete criminal mastermind this side of Raffles the Gentleman Thief.
Certainly if I was to be a movie villain I'd be more Hans Gruber and less Scarface or Hannibal Lector. McClane doesn't think much of Gruber seeing him as little more than an ambitious bank robber but I think McClane has underestimated him. The safe they are trying to break into is protected by electronic locks that they can't disable and throughout the first half of the film this was presented as an unsolvable problem but Gruber has thought about this. When McClane managed to alert the local authorities of the hostage situation, Gruber didn't really care, this was because his plan was centred on the police being made aware - why? Because in a hostage situation the FBI would follow procedure and cut the power. Gruber had the FBI do what was impossible for him to do, turn off the electronic locks. For all that he is the villain of the film Gruber is not even the most unpleasant person in the film, that honour fell to the coked up businessman douchebag Harry Ellis, a thoroughly terrible person and a pastiche of 1980s businessman/executive cliches. There is also the hideous news presenter who through sheer stupidity almost caused the death of McClane's wife. True neither Ellis nor the news presenter killed anyone but they were self-serving idiots who didn't care what happened to other people - at least Gruber was more up front about it.
What I took from Hans Gruber whatever you're doing it never hurts to be well-dressed and well-read.
Agent Smith - The Matrix
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| "Mr. Anderson" |
As I've mentioned before on this blog, I don't think being in the matrix is all that bad, certainly a lot better than many movie alternatives. But admittedly the agents who helped control that world were a pretty ruthless bunch. Seemingly the leader of the agents was Hugo Weaving's Agent Smith. Of all the unflappable, calm and in control agents he is the most unflappable, most calm and most in control. Hugo Weaving does an excellent job playing Agent Smith and before it was explained exactly what he was it's clear he wasn't a normal human just from the way he acted. I am a big fan of Hugo Weaving and that started with this film and a lot of it was based on the way he said "Mr. Anderson" the name of Keanu Reeve's character. He spoke in a dull monotone but still managed to convey contempt and disgust. Agent Smith's best moment was when after getting in a fight with Keanu Reeves he was hit by a subway train. The train screeched to a sudden stop and a second later Agent Smith stepped out of the train unscathed having taken over another body and still looking entirely unfazed by the entire incident - like I said, unflappable.
Agent Smith was cold, emotionally distant, rational - aside from the occasional rant about how he hated living in the Matrix, he took his time and spoke calmly. He wore a simple black suit unlike the over the top leather coats and sunglasses the humans wore. Agent Smith looked like someone in control, his movements were measured and precise. The humans were obsessed with all this mystical nonsense about finding "the One" but unsurprisingly the agents had more straightforward and concrete plans. There is an admirable amount of dedication in Agent Smith (and yes in the film he's the "bad guy" but the humans and robots are fighting a war of survival and the humans blocked out the sun so maybe they're not the "good guys") for example at the end of the film when it has been demonstrated that nothing they can do can kill Neo he stands his ground.
Edmund Blackadder - Blackadder
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| Edmund Blackadder shooting a pigeon...scarcely a court martial offence |
I have loved the tv show Blackadder for a long long time. In the dark days when it was prohibitively expensive and space consuming to own all your favourite shows I had a single tape of Blackadder -the first three episodes of the fourth series - Blackadder Goes Forth, the World War I years, and I watched it over and over again. The star of Blackadder was Edmund Blackadder and each series took on a different time period and a different Edmund Blackadder. The first series was the uneven and least loved War of the Roses era Blackadder, with Edmund being the unloved and useless second son of the king, the second series was set during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, or Queenie as she is known in the show, and Lord Blackadder is a member of the court. Series three was set in Regency England Blackadder is the butler for the Prince Regent. The last series is set during World War I and Edmund is now a professional soldier who doesn't much like soldiering.
The character was transformed between series one and two from the stupid and useless but hungry for power fool to the charming and fiendishly clever courtier and it was the latter Edmund that I liked so much. Edmund Blackadder wasn't just clever and funny, he was witty, he always the knew the right thing to say and outwitted all those around him. The clever Blackadder is surrounded by idiots and he relies only on his cunning to survive and prosper. This is of greatest importance during World War I when those idiots are very keen on sending thousands of soldiers to their deaths on a daily basis. Blackadder's despair at the handling of the war is summed up by him declaring it was "a war which would be a damn sight simpler if we just stayed in England and shot fifty thousand of our men a week" and the scary thing was that was probably right. In series two and three Blackadder had been a cad and a rogue but in series four he was battling the insanity of the First World War and it is hard not to be on his side. My favourite book is probably Catch 22 and what Joseph Heller did in that book - show that war was not only Hell but it was ridiculous - the writers of Blackadder did in that series.
Of course in Blackadder we are supposed to be on his side, in that sense he is not too much of a villain at the same time he does do a lot of terrible things - murder, blackmail, theft, assault and many of these cruel acts are against blameless people. Even when picking on the harmless Baldrick we laugh and feel little sympathy for him. When Rick Mayall turned up in Blackadder Goes Forth as the heroic Lord Flashheart we still want Blackadder to come out on top. Flashheart is over the top, loud, and has no self-deprecation, not traits to endear him to the British public. We much prefer the sarcastic smart alec always insulting people.
So for my three villainous heroes I have a well-dressed German bank robber, an emotionally devoid computer programme and a cowardly and devious wit. The one characteristic they all share is being good with words - even Agent Smith has great lines- and while I didn't have that in mind when I picked them it is certainly a trait I really admire.
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