Purposes of News Reporting

Gloomy story tone, distinct characters, intense conflicts, stressful rhythms and unique black humor contribute to Nightcrawler to become a successful noir thriller. Although as an anti-hero movie, Nightcrawler lacks some surprises regarding the plots, the fantastic narrative style and the revelations behind this story are quite impressive and evocative. And there is no clear indication of correct moral value in this movie, leaving a broad space for audiences to explore and think.
   What I enjoy most is the incredible performance of Jake Gyllenhaal (act as Lou Bloom) in this film, contrasting sharply with that in Brokeback Mountain. His deep-set and dour eyes, indifferent attitude towards death and extreme bigotry towards success forms the characteristics of a typical sociopath. He can sacrifice everyone blocking his way and be callus to crime and death. However, at the same time, Lou owns strategic and forward thinking capability, outstanding social and negotiating skills, and a calm head to judge situations. He possesses almost all of the skills required to be a successful person which clash intensively with his dark side. I think the ample personalities of such an anti-society person are the light spots in this film for audiences to judge between the right and wrong.
   Regarding the social implications, in the first half of this movie, when Lou Bloom asks Nina Romina about which kind of news materials they need, no matter how Nina tries to emphasize they need graphic news about crimes and accidents with social relevance, Lou summarizes in one word 「bloody」. It seems strange and provincial to characterize such news only as 「bloody」. However, ironically, all of the materials finally attract Ana are sanguinary even losing truthfulness. Such an inversion discloses the real status of the press without mercy. Compared to the media elites in a US TV series The Newsroom trying to educate and lead the public, some newsmakers marked by Lou and Nina choose to cater to the audiences』 tastes directly. They focus on eye-catching and gory incidents and document them by extremely impertinent methods such as entering people’s houses without permission and take close-ups of dead victims. What is worse, they even produce sensational news by themselves at the expense of authenticity. It is heart-struck to find that when the audience rating becomes the top priority to consider, the purpose of the news is not to demonstrate an actual world anymore but to take advantages from the public.