Sunday, August 10, 2008

Can there every really be a Chigurh?

Are there any Anton Chigurh's in real life?  Anton Chigurh, the villain in No Country for Old Men, is now and newly one of my favorite villains ever.  

My first is still Alex from Clockwork Orange:  Ho, ho, ho! Well, if it isn't fat stinking billy goat Billy Boy in poison! How art thou, thou globby bottle of cheap, stinking chip oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, if ya have any yarbles, you eunuch jelly thou! 

Isn't Burgess' invented argot great?  I especially liked the (I believe more realistic) novel version of Clockwork Orange in which Alex and his three droogs just get too old and tired for the foolishness.

So, Alex is still my favorite, but Chigurh is high on the list.  Up there with Hannibal. 

And of course I liked the movie, No Country for Old Men.  So these musings are not criticism.  This is the type of movie of which I will watch ten minute snippets for a long time during sessions of mind-numbing channel surfing.

But can Chigurh really live outside of the movies or is he more like Superman and Batman and Shrek?  That is,  possible, perhaps, but highly unlikely.

I have never run into anyone remotely like Chigurh.  The murderers I have known have been more sad than frightening.

I have raised this question many times since seeing the movie.  There is a certain type of response in which the answerer will nod sagely and with a certain sympathy and contempt for my naivete assure me that human evil has no bounds and Chigurhs are all around us.  

I doubt it though.  The people who I have asked who likely would have encountered such as Chigurh don't see him as likely to grow in real life.  Old criminal lawyers, forensic psychiatrists and priests would perhaps be the best ones to ask.  Among that group, from my limited polling, no one has met Chigurh.

There are serial killers in real life who have killed more than Chigurh.  But the nature of Chigurh is what makes him frightening.  He is not grabbing prostitutes and skulking away, but can be (albeit uncontrollable) a weapon.

My hunch is the reason Chigurh seems impossible to me is that serial killer types (Bundy, Gacy, Lucas) are always so damaged otherwise, that it seems unlikely they would function at the level of a Chigurh, attacking a drug lord power structure and winning.

One theory that I like that makes Chigurh believable is that he is the invention of Sheriff Ed Tom Bell.  Sheriff Bell creates Chigurh to sweep the trash out of his county:

Bell on the nature of Chigurh:

El Paso Sheriff: He's just a goddamn homicidal lunatic, Ed Tom. 
Ed Tom Bell: I'm not sure he's a lunatic. 
El Paso Sheriff: Yea well what would you call him? 
Ed Tom Bell: Well, sometimes I think he's pretty much a ghost.

5 comments:

Mas Triste said...

Ed,

Wouldn't the bigger question be whether Chigurh is genetically predisposed to his evilness or is there a sliver of free will choice in there?

Kurgan

EL ROCINANTE said...

Chigurh can't compete with GW. The former is the figment of the author's imagination. GW is the real deal. He kills dozens daily, but goes to bed early, sleeps well and awakes late the next morning. And taking a page from Ronnie's best acting days, he cries on cue. Chigurh is out of his league going mano-a-mano with GW. Fiction can never compete with reality.

StapletonAndStapleton said...

El Rocinante-

Of course you are correct. But I was talking about serial killers, not mass murder.

We can talk about Frazier and Ali or we can talk about the Genghis' Mongols and Alexander's Macedonians.

EL ROCINANTE said...

Distinction duly noted. Thanks for the clarification. As to Ali vs. Frazier...ah, those were the days. As to the Mongols and Macedonians, Genghis Khan tallied three goals in a surprising 4-1 victory against their adversaries who were sporting the jerseys of the Atticus Spartans. Alexander was dismal in the net.

Anonymous said...

Let us not forget the Gulf of Tonkin. Mass murder on a grand scale much more efficiently.