Nightcrawler another film that, like Trollhunter, I sat on for a long time before throwing it on the list. Not for any particular reason I guess, by all accounts the film was very highly rated, very well liked, but for whatever reason my mind turned elsewhere. Specifically films like Flesh for Frankenstein and Rock & Rule, so clearly my issue is that I consistently avoid good movies in favor of shitty ones. Msn, those first world problems, eh?
Anyway Nightcrawler centers around Louis Bloom, a man living in a one room Los Angeles apartment, with one television and one plant. Louis Bloom is not a very nice person, in fact it would be fair to say he is a lying thieving piece of shit, but he’s a lying, thieving piece of shit who’s dedicated to moving up in the world. One night, Louis passes by a car accident on the highway and it is there that he meets a nightcrawler, a journalist of sorts who films the scenes of accidents or crimes and sells that footage to news stations. Louis is immediately taken by the idea, and the fact that it requires no experience, and immediately starts up his own nightcrawling business. However, despite some initial success, the demand starts to exceed the ability to supply. Audiences are eating up this footage, but they aren’t satisfied with just an appetizer, they want a full-course Thanksgiving Day feast. Just how far is Louis Bloom willing to go to get on top on the nightcrawling game? Pretty damn far, as it turns out.
There is a message here, of course. News stations, like every other channel on TV, are selling a product to us, the consumers. In order to draw the audience's attention, and to a greater extent their money, these stations arrange the news in such a way as to prey upon our fears, our prejudices, and other base emotions. Nightcrawler focuses specifically on reports of crime, but sensationalism is a very real issue across the entirety of news media. It’s not even a particularly recent phenomenon, although the mediums by which it is transmitted has changed. The ‘fake news’ of today is not far removed from the yellow journalism and muckraking of the days of William Randolph Hearst, and while it’s underhanded, the fact is that they do it because it works. People don’t watch the news for the truth, or at least not in a larger sense, they watch so that their view of the world is validated and so they can believe that the way they think is correct. Of course that’s not universal, there are plenty of news organizations that adhere more strictly to journalistic ethics than others, but it is that cynical view that Nightcrawler dwells in. People want blood, we give them blood.
Nightcrawler is a movie that is built entirely upon the character of Lou Bloom and the performance of Jake Gyllenhaal, and that dude nails it. Prior to this I always had the impression that Gyllenhaal wasn’t taken all that seriously, in particular an unfavorable comparison to Tobey MaGuire (at least back when people knew who Tobey MaGuire was), but honestly that only enhances things. From all appearances he seems like a handsome, approachable guy, but the things he says and does are disturbingly sociopathic. It’s a great dichotomy, and Gyllenhaal imbues Lou with just enough goofy little quirks that he almost comes off as endearing. He’s almost normalized, just as the news station normalizes fear-mongering and gore footage, and it is damn disturbing. More than Norman Bates or any other movie serial killer in some ways.
I do think the music (which is quite good) is a little too upbeat for a movie about filming death and violence, but otherwise Nightcrawler is a great, amazingly tense film, uncomfortable in its implications and subject matter. Heartily recommended, especially if you’re the type who thought Lost Highway didn’t have enough driving at night scenes. This year, why not be assured that man is still the greatest monster of them all?
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