A Demented Man for All Seasons

This has been a season of demented men. They flicker on the movie screen, igniting our emotions, and then leave us in darkness. Rarely do they touch the better parts of our nature. Mostly they engender fear and teach violence as a solution to the problems of society.

The demented man has a long tradition in the cinema. But recently there has been a change in how such men are portrayed on screen. In the past the demented man was someone who destroyed order: an outsider, a madman, a criminal, a sadist, or literally a monster. In the seventies and early eighties, he became a hero. The new demented man was a rogue cop or vigilante: a person who used unconventional means to enforce “law and order.” These newer movies seemed...