Thinking and Writing — Nightcrawler

“The best and clearest way I can phrase it for you, to capture the spirit of what we air, is think of our news cast as a screaming woman running down the street with her throat cut,” counsels news director Nina Romina in Nightcrawler, a 2014 film that explores the underbelly ethics of TV journalism in LA. The story centers around one Lou Bloom, a new cameraman who finds he is very comfortable working in the industry, and who will stop at nothing to get the most graphic shot he can—“If it bleeds, it leads.” However, to say that Nightcrawler is only about violence in media would be to commit the same crime as so many of its characters: seeing at face value. The story’s anti-hero is very decidedly a charming, slithering psychopath. “What if my problem wasn't that I don't understand people but that I don't like them?” he says. His insensitive behavior never changes, but only continues to horrify at greater levels, and he is ultimately rewarded for it. The film deliberately puts a clinical psychopath front and center to symbolize the psychopathy that is becoming pervasive in the news and media industry. Through its main character, Nightcrawler shows that, like Lou, TV journalism isn’t just violent—it’s heartless.

Many elements of the film reinforce the idea of a collective psychopathic approach to journalism. The way the characters at the news station interact with one another feels nonchalant after reporting terrible and grotesque things. Lou is rewarded by the industry for taking unethical risks and breaking laws, similar to the way clinical psychopaths often achieve success. Lou’s continually darker demeanor and dangerous demands also seem to parallel the increasingly violent appetite of the news director and she seeks more graphic footage to air. His behavior seems abhorrent at first, until the audience realizes by the end of the film that he fits right in. No one but the police seems to care when Lou’s partner dies getting a shot, or worse yet, that Lou actually films his partner dying and sells the footage to the station. By the time the credits roll, we cannot truly hate Lou for being a psychopath, when his sins are so disgustingly pervasive throughout the entire TV journalism machine.

The aesthetic of the film supports this idea, as does the music. As the film’s cinematographer, Robert Elswit creates a “look” that feels slick and dreamy, especially at night as Lou grabs his footage. The neon lights and popped-out glow of the city scream superficial. Elswit’s sweeping shots of LA cityscapes and broadcasting towers are meant to remind us that the emotionless industry never sleeps. The choice of cinematographer for this project is also notable, as this isn’t the first time Elswit has visually connected psychopathy to an industry. His award winning work on There Will Be Blood follows a very similar theme. The music, too, is specifically set to give the audience a level of disconnect. It certainly never feels ominous, but captures a sort of dreamy quality, even when Lou is doing particularly atrocious things, such as dragging a dying man’s body across the street to get the shot he needs. The music isn’t contrapuntal, but rather fits with what Lou is genuinely feeling, which is perhaps more horrifying. The same dreamy music underscores the “glory” of the news industry, welding together Lou’s insanity and the industry’s disconnect.

Screenwriter and director Dan Gilroy explained the reason for using Lou in a 2015 AwardsLine interview. He stated, “What we were aiming for in telling this success story—what we wanted the audience to walk away with—is that the problem wasn’t Lou, although Lou is obviously a problem for quite a few people in the film. The problem is the world…the society that created Lou and rewards Lou.” He goes on to explain that the film never answers the question of whether Lou is actually a psychopath, but rather urges the viewer to wonder about their own assumptions based on the world Lou finds himself a part of. Because of this, the case could be made that perhaps Lou is, in fact, not a psychopath at all. Regardless, the theme is less about the possible mental condition of Lou and more about the obvious emotional disconnect of the television industry. The case for Lou as a psychopath rests in the idea that his clinical behavior serves a symbol for the larger corporate monster.

As a filmmaker, a personal takeaway of mine from Nightcrawler is to avoid losing my humanity trying to get “the perfect shot.” The film seems to be a relevant critique on the media industry in general, on trading values and goodness for producing a good product. The subject is certainly poignant and true for TV journalism, but could be applied to any medium, or even to our consumerism culture as a whole. Despite myself, I couldn’t help but relate to and even root for Lou. Filmmaker or not, perhaps the further-reaching point of the film is that if you sympathize with Lou, there may be something wrong with you, too.