Louis Bloom

nyarlothothep

Just saw Nightcrawler last Saturday and I'm still thinking about it (which means it's probably a great film, for me anyway). I thought I'd start this thread about the central protagonist. Just wondering is the guy a sociopath or not, intelligent or not etc? To me it seems that despite being an evil sob at the start of the film he appears very naive, there is a wide eyed look which offsets what he becomes later. It seems almost as if he's following the textbook examples he reads online about how to become a ruthless business leader except he takes it to the reductio ad absurdum whereby people are so much like instruments that he doesn't mind getting them killed etc. It's like he's performing a role.

I think Rick is the only character to get an insight into what he's truly like and what he was doing in the past, Louis responds to Rick's assertion that he doesn't understand people by saying that he in fact does understand them but doesn't like them. So he adopts the business rhetoric he gets from these online courses not because he believes in it (although maybe he does to some extent) but because it's the most advantageous way of dealing with people. Louis understands people in terms of transactions, he has no empathy as such so it would make sense to formalise human interactions through business speak, relations with other people are reduced to what he can gain financially and socially. He is as Gyllenhaal calls him a cayote and looking back on the film you can definitely see that. When confronted with bigger 'predators' he's meek but a complete bastard when he has the upper hand. That cayote aspect I think is quite evident when confronted by the security guard, he doesn't attack but instead holds back, affecting an appearance of meekness which is countered by some audacious questioning until he has determined that he can win. I also like the way when he is photographing the crime scenes he affects this stunned look when told to leave. He really is a predatorial weasel. He's not a big man though he would like to think he is. His business might be thriving but it's thriving in the world of stringers! Even at the end he will have to diversify if he wants to get into the big leagues but that's uncertain as he can't interact with people at all, he manages to succeed because he's determined, ruthless and lucky but that can only get him so far as there is something very wrong with him that has thus far held him back and may continue to do so outside of his 'niche'. But if anything he's a mirror to the society in which he lives. Why is he so cold? Well he may be a sociopath but that might be too simple an explanation, at the beginning of the film we see him getting treated like sh1t by everyone, now maybe that's because they pick up on the fact that he's evil but at the same time he perhaps understands the world around them better than they do themselves. If the world doesn't give a fck about him his reasoning is why should he give a fck about it and so he acts like a total asshole the more powerful he becomes.