ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, November 22, 1996 TAG: 9611220003
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO 1. GLENN CLOSE
SOURCE: LYNN ELBER ASSOCIATED PRESS
Call them nasty. Churlish. You can even call them evil incarnate. But call them ours.
From the mustache twirlers of silent films to Oz's Wicked Witch to Hannibal ``The Cannibal'' Lecter, Hollywood movies have created a vivid parade of villains. And we filmgoers, bless our souls, love 'em.
Not that we would want Lecter of ``Silence of the Lambs'' fame to drop in for dinner or would we allow Gordon Gekko, the ``Greed Is Good'' king of ``Wall Street,'' anywhere near our pension fund.
Nor do we wish Cruella DeVil to achieve her heart's desire, turning those precious spotted fluffballs of Disney's new live-action ``101 Dalmatians'' into fur haute couture.
But to see such scoundrels at work in the safe confines of the big screen, to watch them come so close to realizing their dastardly schemes and then to be foiled, can be delicious.
As children, a properly horrid witch - ``Beware, my pretty!'' - draws a thrilling shriek from our throats. As adults, we savor the pang of dread when computer HAL seizes power in ``2001: A Space Odyssey'' or hoot when an aggrieved Nottingham sheriff barks out ``Cancel Christmas!'' in ``Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.''
Sometimes the baddies are black-and-white like Cruella, played to the fiendish hilt by Glenn Close. Or they can be complex, like the scorned woman Close played in ``Fatal Attraction,'' that modern morality play, in which she chilled many a male heart intoning, ``I will not be ignored.''
``The Man You Love to Hate!'' was the promotional slogan trumpeted for Erich von Stroheim, a director who started out playing monocled, menacing Prussians circa World War I; that duality is true with all the best baddies.
It's easy to see why.
Villains, and the lucky actors who play them, get to be flamboyant. They get the best lines, monikers, personality quirks, the best chance to wantonly smash convention.
And we, no risk attached - except perhaps nightmares - are allowed to revel in their audacity. ``Terminator'' villain Arnold Schwarzenegger understands the impulse.
``It's the rebel side'' everyone has, says Schwarzenegger. ``But people are not allowed to be like that. We all have to live by the rules and the law - but there's a side that wishes you didn't.''
Besides, a wimpy villain makes for a puny hero and plot.
``When you get down to basic storytelling, the more evil the villain is, then the more noble the hero is when he overcomes,'' says Stephen Herek, director of the new live-action version of ``101 Dalmatians.''
And the hero's success is that much more cathartic for audiences, which share in the victory: ``Every time the hero conquers villainy, we conquer villainy,'' says Judy Burns of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.
So we need great rogues. They can be timeless archetypes, like the witches of ``Snow White'' or ``The Wizard of Oz,'' fantasy figures such as Darth Vader from ``Star Wars,'' or the durable Western varmint.
Or they can, with Terminator-like skill, morph to fit each era, according to Jonathan Kuntz, also teaching at UCLA's film school.
In the 1930s, when gangsters grabbed headlines in real life, the movie gangster rode high. Sleek George Raft, the coin-flipping Guido of ``Scarface,'' and pugnacious James Cagney in ``The Public Enemy'' were among the elite of the corps.
It's easy to imagine how beguiling their cockiness and power were to Americans made poor and powerless by the Great Depression.
The 1940s and '50s, says Kuntz, brought film noir and the heyday of the offbeat grafter such as Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre in ``The Maltese Falcon'' and the bad woman, played in that film by Mary Astor.
Even the heroes seemed shady then: Take Humphrey Bogart's private eye Sam Spade, who nearly falls for Astor although she murdered his partner.
The modern master criminal, a la Ian Fleming's ``Dr. No'' and ``Goldfinger,'' emerged in the 1960s, juiced by emerging high-tech toys and quasi-political overtones.
Counterculture marked the '60s and 1970s, and so did a new kind of villain: the Establishment. The ultimate expression of that, suggests Kuntz, was ``All the President's Men,'' in which the U.S. presidency itself symbolized wrongdoing.
The bureaucratic villain remains a favorite, the FBI or Army man - or his private-industry brethren - gone bad. It's a role best worn by heavyweight actors: a Donald Sutherland (``Outbreak'') or Gene Hackman (``The Firm,'' ``Extreme Measures'').
Whatever trappings a villain may wear, business suit or witch's robe, those we relish hating must share one element: A touch of human nature and heart. The slimy, insect-like beasts of ``Alien'' are icky and repellent, the dinosaurs of ``Jurassic Park'' merely a prehistoric thrill ride.
``2001's'' HAL, at least, had a sinister human voice.
Man, woman or machine, however, movie villains generally get their just deserts in the end (unless, of course, a sequel is planned).
At the climax of ``Maltese Falcon,'' when Bogart confronts Astor for using him to thwart the partners she's double-crossed, the payoff is rich.
``But, oh, sweetheart, it wasn't only that,'' she says tearfully. ``From the very first instant I saw you, I knew.''
Bogart is unswayed: ``Well, if you get a good break, you can be out of Tehachapi [prison] in 20 years, and you can come back to me then. I hope they don't hang you, precious, by that sweet neck.''
Don't you just love it?
LENGTH: Medium: 100 linesby CNB