“Skyfall” is arguably one of the best Bond films ever, with perhaps the greatest Bond villain, Javier Bardem’s Silva. With his bleached hair and chilling performance, he’s being lauded for portraying another landmark villain.
Entertainment Weekly sums it up: “To paraphrase the Joker, this franchise deserved a better class of criminal. And Bardem has given it.” The article compares Silva to other famous psychotic villains, from Hannibal Lecter to the Joker to Hans Landa. That trio, for the record, all scored Oscar gold.
We do love our evil geniuses. They get the best lines and sharpest wardrobes. They win Oscars. They even dominate the small screen, with Hannibal headed to NBC, Moriarty actor Andrew Scott scooping up a BAFTA for BBC’s Sherlock and documentaries airing on any given day covering real-life brilliant villains.
Our interest does make a certain sense, as villains can do everything we can’t. We’re governed by consciences and social mores. Well-dressed, snarky bad guys are governed only by their whims.
While zombies are culture’s way of facing our basest and most primitive instincts, evil geniuses probe the same baseness combined with man’s proudest attribute, intellect. Like the zombie, he’s driven by any instinct that strikes him, but rather than shuffling haphazardly to accomplish a task, he does it with careful plotting and one-liners. They may tell us something about our mortality and our primitive instincts, but no one wants to be a zombie. Combine those instincts with genius, however, and we’re transfixed.
Movie psychopaths appeal to our God-complexes: immense power + free will – moral constraints = our greatest desire. It’s not that we wish to terrorize cities or take lives without remorse. It’s that we wish we were so powerful that we could. It’s the desire to be magnetic, calculating, and decisive, unimpeded by society or conscience. It doesn’t hurt that movies make it look so darn cool.
Yet these stories also feature Bond, Batman and Sherlock winning. The side of good might look haggard and weary, but we want it to win because it’s fighting for something more, something basic and grounded. We enjoy unsettling villains sparring with bare-knuckled heroes who win with fortitude, determination and moral gumption.
The latest good guys to hit screens have been downtrodden, taken back to basics, confronted by bad guys with slick technology, vast networks, and no boundaries. The good guys reflect how we feel faced with a puzzling, violent modern world, the bad guys who we think we’re becoming, a frightening potentiality, with a frightening attraction.
“Skyfall” is the latest narrative with a hero facing his twisted mirror image, highlighting our own relationship with onscreen villains. Our journeys with them are journeys with ourselves. When faced with what could be, if only we had superior abilities and abandoned our principles, we’re tempted. Stories cater to that temptation, privileging it with sharp suits and sharper wit.
But while we’re captivated by Silva, we sympathize with Bond. We clothe our villains in black comedy, but we feel for our heroes’ sincerity. Our love affair with evil geniuses is, in a fundamental way, a love affair with the darker versions of ourselves. But we vicariously defeat it through the hero, the version of ourselves we hope we’ll become.
Reach the writer at Esther.Drown@asu.edu or follow her at @EMDrown.
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