To a first approximation, a character in a movie is interesting to the degree their motive is strong without being legible. Think Ahab or Tyler Durden, Phil Connors in Groundhog Day, Andy Dufrese. If there’s a clear motive, it tends to be nominal (whale, anarchy, girl, escape)
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Notice that the behavior of such characters tends not to be efficient in pursuit of the nominal goal. Exceptions like the Terminator (a robot) prove the rule. But it’s not inefficient either. It is just distorted somehow in a characteristic/signature way. Hence strong characters.
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By contrast genre fiction characters efficiently pursue their nominal goals, at least within a formulaic notion of efficiency, tied to a virtue. Liam Neeson’s “particular set of skills” in Taken for example. Genre comedy characters merely flip it to inefficiency.
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Occasionally, such stock genre characters rise above formulaic efficiency via what we tend to call a stylized presence, like John Wick. They go from character to idea.
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Interesting edge case: Hans Gruber in Die Hard.
Opaque motive? Check. Seems to be a terrorist, but is a thief.
Just a thief? No. Highly stylized presentation suggests his true motive is to perform his civilized European contempt for American blue collar masuiclinity.
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The stylization point holds, but the motive opacity is just tactical misdirection, not illegibility. A truly illegible villain of that type is the Joker in The Dark Knight... seems to be a thief, but then burns the money and claims to just “do things”
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Hmm. This points to an interesting discussion: “weakly illegible,” because information was withheld; and “strongly illegible,” even with all information available, because there is a kernel of motivation that feels consistent but cannot be articulated.
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Exactly. We get a sense of the Joker’s motivation as some sort of cosmic order-chaos thing, but its manifestation in his behavior is unpredictable without being inconsistent. The Jokerly resolution to a situation feels right whether he wins or not
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