Byzantium's Shores: chronicling the misadventures of an overalls-clad hippie

Last night, CBS aired the latest American Film Institute "100 Years" special. This year's focus was on heroes and villains, with the top fifty of each named. The show alternated between bad guy and good guy, finally winding down to the Number One of each. The whole list can be found here (It's a .pdf thingie), but for those wanting to cut to the chase, here are the top results:

Number One Villain: Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, Red Dragon)

Number One Hero: Atticus Finch (To Kill a Mockingbird)

Those are pretty good choices. I have to admit that when I saw Darth Vader named the Number Three villain, I was wondering, "Who on earth are two villains badder than Darth Vader?" Of course, my personal view is "Nobody", but I guess I can grumblingly accept that Vader at least made the Top Three. (Number Two was Norman Bates.)

As for Atticus Finch, his selection as Number One hero struck me as both surprising and obvious, once I realized it. After Rick Blaine of Casablanca was named Number Four, I had a very hard time figuring who was more heroic than him. But Atticus makes perfect sense…and I'm reminded now that not only has it been a very long time since I saw To Kill a Mockingbird, it's been even longer since I read the book. (This book was assigned reading by my tenth grade English teacher. The other book I recall her assigning was Ordinary People. Well, one out of two ain't bad.)

Here are some random thoughts and inevitable complaints about omissions from the show.

:: I guess I should go ahead and infuriate my doppelganger right away: I hated The Usual Suspects. I thought it took interesting characters in an interesting situation and wasted them, choosing instead to focus on a lame mystery with a trick ending that I saw coming a mile away. Of the characters in the film, I thought Verbal Kint was the least interesting. There is no way he belongs on this list. There, I said it. (Of course, having noted that, I should also point out that years ago my doppelganger served me with a masterful analysis of the film, which is one of his favorites. I used to cite that exegesis as a reason why he should start blogging. And yet, he has yet to reconstruct that analysis and post it….)

:: Han Solo made the cut. Luke Skywalker didn't. I found this strange…the original Star Wars trilogy is constructed around Luke Skywalker's "hero's journey", in all its Joseph Campbellian glory. Han Solo has a parallel hero's journey (the "man who learns better"), and Han has taken root, I think, as the original trilogy's most memorable hero-character. This fact often crops up when people bash the prequels ("There's no Han Solo character, no cocky space pirate cracking wise!"). I won't go into that, because frankly I'm not entirely sure what to make of it other than to wonder just why people think that's necessary in a Star Wars movie. (Wise-cracking cynics aren't in great supply in the Lord of the Rings movies either, and I suspect that if they were, there would be complaints galore.) I do sometimes wonder, though, if Han Solo's character is more memorable as a function of Harrison Ford's career than anything else. If Mark Hamill had gone on to stardom, and Ford had remained in relative obscurity, would Solo have still made the cut on this list? I don't know. (I'm thinking out loud here, not framing an actual hypothesis.)

:: OK, call me a curmedgeon, but I don't think that they needed to include every Jimmy Stewart character from a Frank Capra movie. But then, watching It's a Wonderful Life always gives me the feeling of eating a gigantic, fudgy brownie…with no milk to wash it down.

:: "Man" from Bambi was a villain? Well…I guess so, but I'm not sure. I'm just not sure I buy into the concept of an unseen, faceless "force" being a "villain". It can serve some of the function, to be sure. Opinions? (It's not that Man is never seen that bugs me, but that Man is an amorphous mass.)

:: Gordon Gekko from Wall Street was named as a top villain. Nothing much to say, except to point out the fine review of that film by Terminus. Check it out.

And time to move right into the Complaints About Omissions department….

:: I like that Ah-nuld's Terminator was cited as both a villain (the first movie) and a hero (the second). But if Robert Patrick's T-1000 isn't one of the most memorable movie villains of all time, I don't know who is. "Have you seen John Connor?" Aieee!!!

:: Indiana Jones is one of the top heroes. Yup. And for my money, Belloq (from Raiders) is one of the top villains: charming, opportunistic, amoral.

:: Tim Roth's Cunningham from Rob Roy should be there.

:: So should John Malkovich's Mitch Leary, from In the Line of Fire.

:: I assume this list was devoted to American films, so clearly Lady Eboshi from Princess Mononoke shouldn't be there. But then, I've always loved Hayao Miyazaki's complex portrayal of her, which is evil at first glance but not so evil when all of her conduct is considered. She illustrates the idea that while villains are evil, they think they are good and view themselves as the heroes.

:: I'm likewise not sure if there was a cut-off date, and the LOTR movies are probably too recent anyway (or maybe they're not "American" enough, being made in New Zealand and all), but I would have liked to have seen either Ian McKellen's Gandalf or Viggo Mortensen's Aragorn on the list. (Of all the things in these movies, I am most pleasantly surprised by Mortensen, whose casting as Aragorn drew a solid "huh-whuh?!" from me when I learned of it.

:: The selection of Atticus Finch as Number One demonstrates that the essence of heroism is making the right decision when the choice is offered; a hero will do what is right, no matter the risk or what has gone before. That said, I have to wonder why Lt. John J. Dunbar, from Dances With Wolves, didn't make the cut.

:: I know it's not in fashion anymore, but I still love Titanic, and as far as I'm concerned, Jack Dawson belongs on the list. Sue me.

:: How on earth did Andy Dufresne (The Shawshank Redemption) not make it?

:: Romances have heroes, too; it's just that their heroic behavior isn't of the same type as a Rick Blaine or T.E. Lawrence or Moses. So on that basis, Lloyd Dobbler (of Say Anything) is a hero. Of course, the AFI somehow managed to leave that film off its list of the 100 greatest film romances, so I can't say as I'm too surprised here.

Oh well, that's probably enough bleating on this topic. The whole purpose of these shows is, of course, to drum up conversations and remind people of all those movies that they've either not seen in a long time or not seen at all.