Hollywood has a long, long history of psychopaths, some of them even on film. Michael Douglas‘ Gordon Gekko from Wall Street, The Silence of the Lambs‘ infamous Hannibal Lecter, brought to chilling life by Anthony Hopkins, or Kathy Bates‘ Annie Wilkes, whose skills with a sledgehammer are on full display in Misery, to name a few. However, if we were to look at which psychopaths in films exhibit the truetraits of a psychopath, that list becomes much smaller. There is actually only one character, one performance that is cited as being the most realistic, and, surprisingly, it isn’t found in a horror movie. The movie is No Country for Old Men, and the character is Javier Bardem’s Oscar-winning Anton Chigurh.
No Country for Old Men
Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong and more than two million dollars in cash near the Rio Grande.
What Are the Traits of a True Psychopath?
Now to understand what makes Anton Chigurh the most realistic psychopath on film, one has to understand exactly what makes a true psychopath. According to Psychology Today, the most common trait of psychopathy is an absence of empathy, while other affecting states are dulled. If that were all, of course, then it would be quite simple to ascertain if someone is a psychopath. Only the disorder is quite difficult to assess, as a psychopath can appear normal, not the axe-wielding, wide-eyed miscreant with the maniacal laugh stereotype. Other traits may point to psychopathy, like callousness, impulsivity, compulsive lying, the lack of a conscience, and a tendency towards antisocial behavior.
Psychopaths are, as told by criminologist Robert Blakey, “people who are detached from their own emotions and the emotions of other people.” Psychopathy shares traits with sociopathy, Antisocial Personality Disorder, and even autism, although the latter isn’t marked with the amorality that psychopaths exhibit. There is a checklist developed by Canadian researcher Robert Hare that, while not foolproof, does grade on superficial charm, manipulation, and even promiscuity. In the previously cited Psychology Today article, the bar for clinical psychopathy is a score of 30 or higher. To put that in perspective, serial killer Ted Bundy landed higher. 39, to be exact.
