Culture & Characters

Man of Culture: Patrick Bateman

American Psycho is a 2000 horror film directed by Mary Harron, who co-wrote the screenplay with Guinevere Turner. Based on the 1991 novel of the same name by Bret Easton Ellis, it stars Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman, a New York City investment banker who leads a double life as a serial killer. Willem Dafoe, Jared Leto, Josh Lucas, Chloë Sevigny, Samantha Mathis, Cara Seymour, Justin Theroux, and Reese Witherspoon appear in supporting roles. The film blends horror and black comedy to satirize 1980s yuppie culture and consumerism, exemplified by Bateman.

Bateman, at the beginning of American Psycho, is a 27-year-old specialist in mergers and acquisitions at the fictional Wall Street investment firm of Pierce & Pierce (also Sherman McCoy's firm in The Bonfire of the Vanities) and lives at 55 West 81st Street, Upper West Side on the 11th floor of the American Gardens Building (where he is a neighbor of actor Tom Cruise). The very image of a yuppie, he is obsessed with his health, cleanliness, appearance, money, and music collection. In his secret life, however, he has a darker side, as he is also a serial killer, rapist, cannibal, and necrophile.

Man of Culture: K

Blade Runner 2049 is a 2017 American neo-noir science fiction film directed by Denis Villeneuve and written by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green.[10] A sequel to the 1982 film Blade Runner, the film stars Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford, with Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, Robin Wright, Mackenzie Davis, Dave Bautista, and Jared Leto in supporting roles. Ford and Edward James Olmos reprise their roles from the original film. Gosling plays K, a Nexus-9 replicant "blade runner" who uncovers a secret that threatens to destabilize society and the course of civilization.

K, also known as Joe, is the main protagonist of Blade Runner 2049. He is a Replicant Blade Runner of the "new batch" from 2049, engineered to be less rebellious than the original Replicants. He is portrayed by Ryan Gosling. When "retiring" a Rogue Replicant, K finds strange clues that point to a Replicant having conceived a child. Since Replicants are forbidden to procreate, K is ordered to find the child and "retire" it since if word got out about its existence, it could cause a war between humans and Replicants. This makes him feel conflicted since he's never had to retire something that was actually "born". Eventually, he decides to rebel against his superior, going against his programming by letting his better nature shine through. This puts him in the crosshairs of Luv, the ruthless second in command of the corrupt corporation responsible for the "new batch" of Replicant. The Replicant mother turns out to be none other than Rachael, with Rick Deckard being the father. This makes Deckard himself a target of Luv. When Luv manages to capture Deckard, she puts Deckard on a ship to the off-world colonies, most likely to be tortured and killed. K manages to intercept the ship and engages Luv in a knife fight. K manages to kill Luv, but not before being fatally stabbed himself. K reunites Deckard with his daughter before succumbing to his wounds and dying.

Man of Culture: Travis Bickle

Taxi Driver is a 1976 American film directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Paul Schrader, and starring Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd, Harvey Keitel, Peter Boyle, Leonard Harris, and Albert Brooks. Set in a decaying and morally bankrupt New York City following the Vietnam War, the film follows Travis Bickle (De Niro), a veteran working as a taxi driver, and his deteriorating mental state as he works nights in the city.

Travis Bickle, a military veteran, is a former U.S. Marine who served in the Vietnam War. Living in New York City, he is a paranoid 26-year-old who was given an honorable discharge in May 1973, and has had "not much" education. With few friends, and suffering from PTSD, depression, loneliness, existential crises, and severe and chronic insomnia, he takes a job as a graveyard shift cab driver to occupy his time, working grueling 12–14 hour shifts 6–7 days a week. Working late at night in dangerous neighborhoods, his customers tend to include pimps, drug addicts, and thieves. He is visibly angered by them, and begins fantasizing about "cleansing" such "filth" from the streets.

Man of Culture: Driver

Drive is a 2011 American action drama film directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. The screenplay, written by Hossein Amini, is based on James Sallis's 2005 novel of the same name. The film stars Ryan Gosling as an unnamed Hollywood stunt driver who moonlights as a getaway driver. He quickly grows fond of his neighbor, Irene (Carey Mulligan), and her young son, Benicio. When her debt-ridden husband, Standard (Oscar Isaac), is released from prison, the two men take part in what turns out to be a botched million-dollar heist that endangers the lives of everyone involved. The film co-stars Bryan Cranston, Christina Hendricks, Ron Perlman, and Albert Brooks.

An unnamed man, known as "Driver", works as a mechanic, a stunt double, a stunt driver, and a criminal-for-hire getaway car driver in Los Angeles, California. His jobs are all managed by auto shop owner Shannon, who persuades Jewish mobster Bernie Rose and his half-Italian partner Nino "Izzy" Paolozzi to purchase a car for the Driver to race. The Driver meets his new neighbor, Irene, and grows close to her and her young son, Benicio. Their relationship is interrupted when Irene's husband, Standard Gabriel, arrives after his release from prison. Standard owes protection money from his time in prison and is assaulted by Albanian gangster Chris Cook, who demands that Standard rob a pawn shop for $40,000 to pay off the debt. Learning this, the Driver offers to act as the getaway driver for the pawn shop robbery.

Man of Culture: Tyler Durden

Fight Club is a 1999 American film directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter. It is based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk. Norton plays the unnamed narrator, who is discontented with his white-collar job. He forms a "fight club" with soap salesman Tyler Durden (Pitt), and becomes embroiled in a relationship with a mysterious woman, Marla Singer (Bonham Carter).

Tyler worked several night jobs. Partly to fund himself while engaging in general subversion, but also to set up situations enabling him to blackmail his employers later. In addition to his jobs, Tyler made soap from human fat, which he collected from dumpsters behind liposuction clinics. He sold this soap to fancy department stores. The soap also functioned as a source of materials for homemade explosives. It's likely that Tyler was busy setting all of this up during the time the Narrator was attending the groups and was sleeping through the night (he thought he was, anyway). This would also be when he bought the Paper Street House under the Narrator's name. By the time the Narrator's insomnia returned, Tyler had already firmly established himself in the world behind the Narrator's back.

Man of Culture: Louis "Lou" Bloom

Nightcrawler is a 2014 American neo-noir psychological thriller film written and directed by Dan Gilroy in his directorial debut. It stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Louis "Lou" Bloom, a stringer who records violent events late at night in Los Angeles and sells the footage to a local television news station. Rene Russo, Riz Ahmed, and Bill Paxton also star. A common theme in the film is the symbiotic relationship between unethical journalism and consumer demand.

Louis Bloom is a sociopathic, manipulative, smarmy, but unrelentingly dedicated individual. He will do whatever is necessary to achieve his goals and has no qualms of doing it, justifying his means with the end result. First impressions deem him a very kind and charismatic person, but those who know him long enough learn of his more sinister tendencies, quickly becoming pawns in his line of work. Much of what he has to say is delivered through insincere business motivation phrases, indicating an aptitude in the business world. He is also very intelligent and uncannily perceptive, using his knowledge of Nina's fragile position in the company to extort her both financially and sexually. It is implied that he has extreme or degrading sexual tastes that he forces Nina to endure. He is self-taught and a quick learner, grasping and mastering the methods of the video industry from scratch.

Man of Culture: Luke Glanton

The Place Beyond the Pines is a 2012 American crime drama film directed by Derek Cianfrance, and written by Cianfrance, Ben Coccio, and Darius Marder. The film tells three linear stories: Luke (Ryan Gosling), a motorcycle stunt rider who supports his family through a life of crime; Avery (Bradley Cooper), an ambitious policeman who confronts his corrupt police department; and two troubled teenagers (Emory Cohen and Dane DeHaan) who explore the aftermath of Luke and Avery's actions fifteen years later. The supporting cast includes Eva Mendes, with Ben Mendelsohn, Rose Byrne, Mahershala Ali, Bruce Greenwood, Harris Yulin, and Ray Liotta.

Luke is 'a melting pot' of masculinity (as Gosling puts it). He has tattoos everywhere and he is in a 'motorcycle boy band' (again, as Gosling puts it). He travels with a circus where he is a motorcyle stunt performer. One night, an old flame reappears, Romina. He finds out he has fathered a child with her and this changes the course of Luke's life. To provide for his child and Romina, he turns to robbing banks.

Man of Culture: Elliot Alderson

Mr. Robot is an American drama thriller television series created by Sam Esmail for USA Network. It stars Rami Malek as Elliot Alderson, a cybersecurity engineer and hacker with social anxiety disorder and clinical depression. Elliot is recruited by an insurrectionary anarchist known as "Mr. Robot", played by Christian Slater, to join a group of hacktivists called "fsociety".[8] The group aims to destroy all debt records by encrypting the financial data of E Corp, the largest conglomerate in the world

Elliot Alderson is a former cybersecurity engineer of Allsafe Cybersecurity and a member of fsociety. He is played by Rami Malek. Elliot suffers from social anxiety disorder, clinical depression, delusions and paranoia. His internal life is revealed via voice-overs that provide insight into his mental state, his opinions of the people he encounters and the activity around him. These dialogues with the audience are designed to help us interpret Elliot's world, but given his mental illness, he is an unreliable narrator, leaving us unsure whether what he tells us we're seeing is actually what is happening. Typical of this is when Elliot hears everyone around him refer to E Corp as Evil Corp, reflecting his own opinion of the conglomerate.

Man of Culture: Rustin Spencer "Rust" Cohle

True Detective is an American anthology crime drama television series created and written by Nic Pizzolatto. The series, broadcast by the premium cable network HBO in the United States, premiered on January 12, 2014. Each season of the series is structured as a self-contained narrative, employing new cast ensembles, and following various sets of characters and settings.

Cohle is introduced as a gifted, but deeply troubled, detective from Texas who is transferred from working on regional drug task force to LSP near the end of 1994. After three months, in January 1995, he and Hart are tasked with investigating a series of brutal, bizarre murders. A haunted, solitary cynic, Cohle believes that life is meaningless and that human beings are merely "sentient meat".[2] Cohle spends his free time obsessing over every detail of the crime, hoarding evidence and keeping extensive notes in a ledger, which earns him the derisive nickname "The Taxman" among his colleagues.

Man of Culture: Jesse Pinkman

Breaking Bad is an American crime drama television series created and produced by Vince Gilligan. Set and filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the series follows Walter White (Bryan Cranston), an underpaid, overqualified, and dispirited high-school chemistry teacher who is struggling with a recent diagnosis of stage-three lung cancer. White turns to a life of crime and partners with a former student, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), to produce and distribute methamphetamine to secure his family's financial future before he dies, while navigating the dangers of the criminal underworld. The show aired on AMC from January 20, 2008, to September 29, 2013, consisting of five seasons for a total of 62 episodes.

Jesse Bruce Pinkman, also known by his clandestine pseudonym and business moniker Cap'n Cook, is a former chemist, manufacturer, and distributor who worked in Albuquerque, New Mexico, currently residing in Haines, Alaska. Originally a low-level methamphetamine dealer who worked with his friend and fellow meth cook Emilio Koyama, Jesse is best known as the former business and meth cook partner of his former chemistry teacher Walter White, teaming up with Walt for two years to help him manufacture chemically pure crystal methamphetamine so Walt could provide for his family (his wife Skyler, son Walt Jr., and infant daughter Holly) upon his death. Alongside catalyzing Walt's drug empire and being the second biggest player in it after Walt himself, Jesse was also the leader of a short-lived meth distribution chain which his friends and fellow meth distributors were also a part of.