Saturday, August 16, 2008

Five favorite films with crazy protagonists

For this list of five favorite films, the common denominator is madness.

In each of the five on the list below, the main character is nutty. Craziness is what drives the story. To narrow the field, I’ve limited it to movies that are essentially about characters who are steadily getting more detached from the supposedly sane reality around them. Since it's hard to find the sane world in the midst of a war, movies set in war are not included on this list of five, which is presented in alphabetical order.

Five Favorite Films with Crazy Protagonists

"Aguirre, the Wrath of God" (1972): Directed by Werner Herzog; Cast: Klaus Kinski, Helena Rojo, Del Negro
"Network" (1976): Directed by Sidney Lumet; Cast: Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway, William Holden
"Repulsion" (1965): Directed By Roman Polanski; Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Ian Hendry, John Fraser
"Taxi Driver" (1976): Directed by Martin Scorsese; Cast: Robert DeNiro, Cybill Shepherd, Peter Boyle
"Wise Blood" (1979): Directed by John Huston; Cast: Brad Dourif, Harry Dean Stanton, John Huston

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey another great movie along those lines is "Falling Down" directed by Joel Schumacher and starring Michael Douglas. The main character, Bill Foster, goes from a sympathetic, downtrodden everyman to deranged, psychotic murderer in under two hours. Brrr.