Recently I got around to finally watching the 2014 Jake Gyllenhaal leading film Nightcrawler. This movie follows his portrayed character named Louis Bloom, or just Lou as he's generally referred, a socially awkward loner (more on that later) with what would be deemed a higher than average intellect who takes an interest in the videotaping of brutal injury and death for TV news after wandering about Los Angeles one night and stumbling upon a man doing just that and selling it to said media for a small profit. As the movie goes on Lou becomes more and more embroiled as well as pervasive in his pursuit of these graphic death scenes as his profession; going so far as to take out the person who had inspired his journey and became a competitor by fiddling with the mechanisms under his car, resulting in a crash which Lou then came to film himself, as planned.
During the course of the movie he acquires a partner, Rick, via more manipulative means, who eventually comes to figure out Lou's methods were being done with less than legal means. He puts together that Lou had intentionally withheld video evidence showing the faces and van license plate numbers of the two perpetrators of a triple homicide which they had arrived to just as the killers were leaving and prior to law enforcement arriving. Lou managed to capture that as well as go through the entire scene of the crime (where during, is revealed to actually be a drug related slaughter), which became a major news story and shortly thereafter visited by two detectives questioning him regarding if he'd seen or captured footage of those who did the act, denying he had. He then used the plate information he very much did possess and with that track down the partners in crime to a corner restaurant where he then tipped off police, which resulted in a shootout; turning into a high speed chase with Lou and Rick in hot pursuit and ending in a massive crash where Lou got out of the car (their vehicle unscathed and not in the accident) to check out the scene, getting back into it and having Rick go to take some video of the multiple overturned mobile machines where the remaining criminal shot him multiple times before getting out of the wreckage; both dying in the end. Lou, knowing the perp was still alive allowed such to occur as Rick had given him a taste of his own manipulative medicine earlier, and in the final moments of Rick's life admitted such.
Movie ending after a short and willing interrogation by one of the detectives who stopped by Lou's apartment earlier, getting out based on there being no evidence to hold against him. Cutting to the final scene from there, showing Lou now with two whole vans and a few new employees as part of his own small media conglomerate dedicated to this type of entertainment.
Now, initially I viewed Lou as being socially awkward in a way analogous to autistic due to his social oddities and straightforward explanations of memorised factoids, however most consensus and with consideration on the matter more accurately landing him on the antisocial personality disorder spectrum. It's likenable to Patrick Bateman from American Psycho (book or movie, take your pick), with the key difference being aptitude for emotional mirroring of Bateman opposing Lou's near constant flat affect. Nonetheless both hold a key intelligent prowess and agility in the situations they find themselves in, commanding the circumstances which they enter.
Overall though, Nightcrawler reminds me most of a line from the 2019 movie Joker that's spoken by Arthur Fleck when he's donned the signature look and gone on a talk show he'd previously had admiration for, and after revealing himself as the culprit behind a triple murder of three young men on a subway expressed that the outrage regarding them was superficial as they'd been employees of Wayne Investments and that, "if it was me on dying on the sidewalk, you'd walk all over me." Which in a way, this film entirely disproves as it goes to show there's a morbid curiosity and fascination with death. It's more of a spectacle. Nightcrawler serves as a showcase in this tendency, even as contrived as the presented narrative the newswomen explains her own point in it all being a campaign of fear for viewership as; it very well does do that as much as titillate other senses. Death is eye candy, a car crash you can't look away from and to the point as necrophile Karen Greenlee once remarked on the matter of the onlookers of dead's groaning, "people really can't tell if you're grief-stricken or passion stricken." Be it the Colosseum of old Rome, footage of President Kennedy's brains exploding or the crucifixes word by Christians; this enamorment intertwined with aversion and denial is ever constant. As I detailed in a previous piece:
where it would seem the spirit of this has survived, or transferred is almost that of a regression, but as much been there the entire time. Seen prominently with the Wild-West-outlaw-vigilante-justice acquired by Luigi Mangione's shooting of a man merely referred to now as the UnitedHealtchare CEO— overshadowing the now deceased Brian Thompson entirely; imbuing him with a similar 'aura' (as it is now phrased) as figures like Bonnie & Clyde or Doc Holliday and Billy The Kid. What it really is, I'm not sure entirely but it's a unique aspect of an almost ancient impulse— et tu, Brutus?
Except, as pointed out in Joker, this captivation is impersonal and without rhyme or reason; as is the nature of tragedy itself. It's voyeurism for suffering.
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