essex,
Good post. It made me think, on seeing this film the first time, so far the only time, I was focusing mostly on the plot's development and then on the characters, atmosphere and such. But arguably this is really on the thematic level a study of Chester's character and his impact on those around him. How he could draw people in, but also had flaws that led to his undoing.
What I would add to your post is the notion that Chester up until that time had stayed at least one step ahead of those who, presumably for good reasons of their own, were out to get him, to follow him. His approach here then would have been in keeping with his past, only this time as the film showed it caught up to him.
What do we make of people like that? On one hand we see in his failure a sort of moral imperative. His story in that sense is a sort of parable. But on anohter level it is too simplistic to only see it that way.
One might ask also what would have been the alternative for Chester? What kind of life would he have been, well, better at?
I don't go so far as to think that all con artists are essentially sociopathic, and Chester, for all his flaws, I think does not rise to that level. He charmed people around him, and saw that he did so. Did that in and of itself make him an awful person?
But of course then at some point, well before the film started, he crossed lines and eventually that caught up with him. But in the meantime... He had Colette, which meant as the story was written he had what he wanted, really the only thing he wanted.
So despite the film's narrative arc, I have to wonder what alternative life would have worked better for a person like Chester.
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essex9999
10 years ago
Chester is definitely not a psychopath. His genuine and seemingly quite normal love for Colette rules that out. As I understand it, psychopaths are not capable of loving other people; they may not even understand the concept.
I don't think Chester would necessarily have been better at - in the sense of more skilled at or better suited to - any other life, but there are plenty of other, more respectable, lives he could have lived if he had had the opportunity. Sales is an obvious choice. Perhaps a lawyer in corporate law.
And, nowadays, Wall Street would be the obvious place for him.
All of the above would require that he have enough of a sense of caution and self-restraint to avoid crossing the line between sharp but ethical (or at least legal) behavior and fraud or malpractice. We don't know enough about him to say whether he had that much self-control, but his behavior after the detective is killed argues against it.
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kenny-164
10 years ago
essex,
First of all I said sociopath, not psychopath, and I think there is a difference, and I also said he is not one. Yes, a sociopath would not be in love as Chester was with Colette.
And my focus on the question of some alternative way of being was not so much on illegality but on conning others. So I take it your reference to jobs or professions where he could con others, I like the Wall Street reference!, is in basic agreement with my post.
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