Nightcrawler is Literally Me

we all have a fascination with death part of what makes us human is our knowledge of our own mortality we know that someday we will all die this idea of mortality has led to the growth of religions and philosophies as well as scientific advancements we fight against death knowing that we will almost certainly lose but we fight anyways and you know what we've been pretty successful sure we're all still going to die but you can live your whole life now without encountering death all that much we've been pretty great in pushing it into its own little space a space we can willfully ignore but that Curiosity still exists within us we're drawn to images of Gore Carnage and destruction but we don't see those images in real life we see them on a screen it's virtual death very real for the victims who are being filmed but only semi-real for the rest of us we watch the horrors of the world with disinterest glued to the screens but we lack any real emotion we can't stop watching it those images don't just magically show up on television though people need to film them those people are called stringers but they're also known as nightcrawlers Dan Gilroy's debut film Nightcrawler which released in 2014 quickly became a Mainstay in the literally Mead Canon because of the coyote-like character of Lou Bloom Gyllenhaal basically starved himself for the role losing something like 28 pounds according to the director Gyllenhaal would bike to set and then only eat kale salad so that he would actually feel like he was starving and thus add that extra bite to his character he's a haunting portrait of the new American worker a worker who knows that job security is a myth now who participates in the gig economy who fights stagnating wages and who understands that cash is superior to morality his moral compass is simple will this action result in a more positive business transaction or not Nightcrawler really is about the sigma grind set if you want to be like Lou Bloom if you want to be as financially successful as he is then you have to work long hours basically not eat basically not sleep read a ton of self-help in business books and maybe just maybe been the law if Lou Bloom was working today in 2023 do you think that he would have read zero to one I think so before we get into the meat of the movie a little backstory years before he even wrote the script Gilroy became fascinated with Arthur felig most famously known as Ouija a photographer who helped to Pioneer The Art of Crime Scene photography Ouija would follow emergency services in New York City and document the aftermaths of the various tragedies often getting there before the police he would sell the photos to tabloids and magazines with his photos appearing in Publications such as Daily News and Life Magazine his collection of crime scene photographs would go on to inspire the Classic police procedural film The Naked City he even went on to work as a technical consultant and photographer on Stanley Kubrick's satirical Masterwork Dr Strangelove or how he learned to stop worrying and love the bomb there was a movie that released in 1950 about this line of work called Shakedown go and watch it and you'll see how close it is to Nightcrawler it's a film Noir about a sociopathic crime photographer whose work is somewhere between journalism and criminal except unlike Nightcrawler this film doesn't have anyways Gilroy's attraction Luigi made him want to know what the modern equivalent of the legendary photographer was to which he found out about the job of stringers to research the film he worked with a couple notable La stringers to get a sense of what the job was really like at one point he elswood and Gyllenhaal rode with one they recall that one of the first things a Stringer told them was to wear a bulletproof vest as it's not uncommon for people to shoot at him okay the backstory is over before filming or even pre-production had even begun for the film there is a script and a Hollywood writer who wanted to finally direct a feature thankfully for him his script was a big hit with everyone who read it so he was able to put together a core team of producers very quickly Gyllenhaal also loved the script but at the time he was currently shooting prisoners and he was being courted for another project so he wanted to meet with Gilroy to get a sense of what the movie was going to be his first question to the writer director was a simple one how do you see this movie to which Gilroy replied I see it as a success story that response so solidified Gyllenhaal's faith in the project I know that there are quite a few people who watch Nightcrawler in place the protagonist Lou Bloom alongside other sociopathic characters like Patrick Bateman but Gilroy's approach to this film is incredibly interesting he wasn't concerned with moralizing about what Lou is doing and the film is about Lou ultimately succeeding it's a classic rags to riches story but with a darker spin in interviews Gilroy avoids putting the blame on Lou and has said multiple times that Lou is merely a product of Bart Society [Applause] there are a lot of facets to his character but I don't want to get jumbled up so I'm going to take this one step at a time first let's look at the moral downfall of blue Bloom and how that parallels his financial success there's been a shooting near the college campus please respond on it at the beginning of the film we see Lou cutting wire and assaulting a security guard he then takes his stolen goods to a construction site and sells it all while begging for a full-time job I'm not hiring a thief Gilroy efficiently shows us just how hungry Lou is he's willing to commit felonies for a buck but he does have higher aspirations in life there's nothing he won't do to climb the ladder of success one night he comes upon a car crash and runs into some stringers where he gets the idea that capturing video for local news might end up being a good gig so he pawns a stolen bike in exchange for a camcorder and begins his new career he's not as fast as the other stringers and his equipment is woefully outdated but he lacks something that the other guys have integrity while filming a new segment at a house that was recently shot up loot takes his first dark step he sneaks into the house and films the damage from the inside he also arranges the family photos on the fridge in such a way so as to maximize emotional impact his second step of his descent occurs soon after he arrives at a car wreck scene before the police arrive he takes advantage of the situation and moves the victim's body into the light and sets up a perfect shot other movies would portray this as something sinister score from James Newton Howard plays into the idea that this is a success story the music in the scene is not dark Anonymous it's optimistic and gives us the feeling that this is something great happening it contrasts what we see but allows us to feel the same emotions as Lou next Lou blackmails Nina to better his leverage with the studio and acquire her as a sexual partner we never see them actually have sex and the director defended his choice to not include a sex scene because it's more interesting in this case if that's left up to the viewer maybe they have normal sex or weird kinky sex or maybe Lou just has Nina read and Bedtime Stories and act as a mother figure for him behind closed doors that's all up for interpretation I also understand his decision because the actress who plays his Nina Renee Russo is the director's wife at this point Lou is doing pretty well for himself but he has a problem competition Joe loader played by the late great Bill Paxton is a classic Stringer he plays by the old rules and he's got a good thing going Joe recognizes is that there's something special with Lou and that Lou might be a very intense competitor and so he tries to hire him but Lou doesn't want to work for anyone he wants to eventually become a medium Mogul so he not so politely declines to offer I feel like grabbing you by your ears right now and screaming in your face I'm not interested a normal person would leave it at that but not Lou after parting on bad terms with Joe and knowing that Joe's expanding his business which will make it harder for Lou to obtain exclusive Scoops Lou sabotages his competition the common thinking is that Luke had the breaks to Joe's van but I have seen some talk online about how he possibly installed remote driving controls the specifics don't really matter though as the end result is that Joe's van crashes into a pole and while EMTs are dragging his bloody body away from the accident Lou stands above Joe camera in hand making content out of his competitor's demise I like how Gilroy compared Joe and Lou to different versions of the Terminator Joe is the original Terminator while Lou is T2 Joe's demise at the hands of Lou is inevitable as Lou represents a new generation of stringers who will do anything to succeed now we come to the final evolution of blue the home shooting Lou arrives at the scene while the shooting is happening he gets footage of the perpetrators as well as their license plate then he breaks into the house and films a Grizzly aftermath however he keeps the first bits of footage only for himself selling the bloody footage of the victims to the news station for a large sum of cash he's smart though and knows that he can milk this for more he tracks on the killers and stages a scene waiting until they're in a nice easily filmable spot with plenty of other people he calls the cops and films the entire encounter it turns into a shootout and then a car chase finally after the car chase ends he sends his assistant Rick to film the murderer putting Rick right in the killer sights just like what he did with Joe Lou turns the death of his colleague into profitable content that he could sell all this happens right after he captured the Killer's death on camera and with that seals is fate as the top Nightcrawler in La there are a few things to glean from all of this first I want to highlight how Lou Bloom wouldn't find success if it weren't profitable the reason he continues to do what he does is because he's giving the people what they want collaborators who might have morally objected to his methods become complicit because they need the money or in Nina's case the money and the health care benefits I know I said this before but there is a kind of irony in the progression of Blue's story as he sings slower morally he rises higher financially I also want to point out that the Chinese restaurant is a great metaphor for the movie as a whole it's a well-lit glass building but Lou stands in the shadows practically invisible and peers into the lives of others to him the world is his stage and he's a director the actors might not know that they're on a stage but when they find out it's the worst day of their lives it seems like over the course of the film the characters become more and more deaf to the moral voice of the one news producer until he's effectively silent to them it's as if Lou's dark amoral energy is infectious Jesus you sound like Lou ten seconds to back I think Lou is inspiring all of us to reach a little higher Gilroy isn't just criticizing the news media for doing what they do he's also criticizing us viewers for feeding the Beast we like to see these gruesome images and hear stories that scare us they even note in the film that crime is actually on a downward Trend with Los Angeles crime rates going down I think that makes items like mine particularly valuable like rare animals but it's their job to make it seem like it's just the opposite for example when it breaks that the home invasion was a drug deal gone wrong they hold the story because they know that fear sells and when the masses feel fear about something they voraciously consume all media related to it they don't worry about Coke dealers shooting each other they worry about criminals coming into their safe neighborhoods and massacring them it all links to Lou's concept of fear false evidence appearing real this is exactly what Lou gives the viewers he starts off by slightly staging scenes to get better shots but he ends up orchestrating shootouts and car chases for profit another way of looking at this movie is that it's about the evolution of an artist an artist who is using his art to sow chaos and Discord rather than uplift but an artist nonetheless and were enthralled by it we're sucked into his world or is it our world Dan Gilroy does something very interesting he turns us into the Target demographic he used real news anchors from LA and he and cinematographer Robert ellswidge Shot the movie in such a way so as to turn us into Lou's audience but how let's look at the pivotal home shooting scene notice how the camera is not focused on the bodies but instead on his camera's viewfinder in order to process what's happening in front of us we have to look at the world through Lou's lens we watch a lot of the film through viewfinders or monitors simulating the experience of watching this all in real life I know that this is just a movie and that nothing that happens here is real but Gilroy manages to blur the lines between reality and fiction as best he can in a totally fictional film so what does Nightcrawler have to say about workers in this new economy Gilroy stated that he was more interested in asking questions rather than stating anything concrete but what are those questions in order to succeed now must we be willing to Slit some throats on our way to the top is our economy and our culture so transactional at this point in time that morality is merely a liability might have stepped on a few fingers and toes heck may have even slid a few throats along the way but that's business the filmmakers present a couple dichotomies in this movie to explore these questions there's the juxtaposition of Joe and Lou which we already discussed although I will say that Joe is most likely not a very moral person just not as immoral as Lou there's also the contrast between Lou and his assistant Rick Rick is a guy sleeping in a garage with close to no prospects the fact that he takes the job despite only being paid 30 bucks a night shows just how desperate he is he comes across as a pretty normal guy there is a disconnect between him and the various victims of whatever tragedies they film because he and Lou didn't cause any of them they're just filming them to keep the public informed but when Lou starts causing violence is when Rick objects but he doesn't object by leaving he still effectively homeless and he's not making enough money to move out so he really wants that money he objects by demanding a 50 50 split of the profits he makes a foustian deal with the devil for a sum of cash and in turn the devil gets a soul not only does Luke get Rick killed he also turns Rick into Lou a man who cares more about Capital than about what's right or wrong he receives a total death a death of both body and spirit I'm reminded of an exchange they have right before the climax Rick tells Lou that Lou doesn't understand people to which Lou replies with what if my problem was not that I don't understand people but that I don't like them what if I was obliged to hurt you for something like this watching Lou is like watching some kind of inhuman creature try to be human he's also a bit of a contradiction at once he's childlike but also ruthless he talks in platitudes and recites talking points about how to build great businesses while screwing over anyone who gets in his way Gyllenhaal accurately described Lou as a coyote he's hungry animalistic only thinking about what he can do that will benefit him he doesn't think in human terms you left your dead partner well the ambulances arrived they're trained professionals there might be an argument that Lou is the nietzian Ubermensch but I don't buy it after saying how he doesn't like people I think that he's acting against Society rather than trying to forge A New Path he Rebels against the thou shouts that the ethical news editor gives to him but let's say that he has ascended morality to become a conqueror or to keep with Nietzsche's idea a child what exactly has he conquered we can assume that he most likely becomes incredibly successful and years down the line he might become a medium Mogul but he still is just a cog in the machine feeding a corrupt system he's not using his will to create something new but to rather enhance a well-oiled apparatus that sells human tragedy for cheap he's a man that acts against Society by highlighting to the populace the worst parts of it and he hopes that his actions can cause more chaos at the end of the day he might not listen to The Commandments by the few principled people around him but he will bow down to the almighty dollar that's why I think that the coyote is a more fitting descriptor of this character no matter how successful he might become he's still going to be feeding off the detritus in corpses that Society leaves behind for him I would like to think that morality is still a virtue that doesn't hinder success but the more I watch the news about fraudsters and cheats getting away with their actions the more I'm inclined to take the black pill the Nightcrawler offers perhaps though I'm merely falling victim to a media that wants me to feel this way Nightcrawler leaves us with a chilling image Lou gives a pep talk to his new employees telling them about what he expects from them and then saying that he would never ask them to do anything that he wouldn't do but we know what he would do and what he probably continues to do his workers excited for the night hop in their Vans they drive to a fork in the road and the two Vans split up lose energy his whole way of being is multiplying infecting the city it won't be long until Lou is the normal one maybe though this has been the case for a long time other films like Ace in the Hole in Shakedown illustrate how these kinds of men existed Generations ago but in those films they got their comeuppance the singular man might have been evil but the morals of society prevailed in the end in the 21st century though people like Lou Thrive the film was released nine years ago I wonder what the world's like today to end this video I want to leave you all with a few questions to ask yourselves knowing how the media operates do we still fall for the hysteria generated by these companies how often do we know the full truth of these situations and how often do we just buy into immediate narrative that's meant to keep us clicking on their sites and engaging with their content do we follow new sites to play into our biases fears and political Persuasions is that a good thing or are the people behind the camera cynical not believing what they're saying or what they're showing us but they know just how to manipulate us the world of news today is definitely more internet based than it was in 2014 when Nightcrawler released but it's every bit as cynical it might even be more so I mean it certainly feels way more divisive than it did in 2014. Nightcrawler as it stands is not a cautionary tale it's a movie about how the media Works fear of a Kind sells and these people know it they might exploit it but we can resist our urges to give into that fear anyways guys until next time I've been The Kino corner and I will see you all in the next video foreign foreign

Channel: The Kino Corner

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Keywords: nightcrawler, jake gyllenhaal, dan gilroy, tony gilroy, stringer, LA, Los Angeles, news, local news, Rene Russo, The Kino Corner, Literally Me, analysis, video essay, film, cinema, kino, art, theater, cinematography, robert elswit, bill paxton, weegee, shakedown, noir, film noir, wkuk, trevor moore, simpsons, comedy, funny, satire, broadcast, journalism, philosophy, car chase, action, night, techno, indie, independent, criticism, deep dive, sigma, grindset, filmmaking, script, screenplay, zero to one, business

Id: WN0muYMeBgA

Length: 19min 19sec (1159 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 18 2023