Ashley Decides...That Hans Landa is A Psychopath

Since the last post that contained my incessant mental unraveling of a couple of films seemed to go over well, I thought I would share the line of thought I enjoyed this morning as I was showering.

Hans Landa is the villain from Tarantino's Inglourious [CENSORED].  If you haven't seen that film, you need to get on that.  It gets the R rating for copious cussing and violence, so be prepared for blood and F-bombs in several spots, but aside from that it is marvelously written and acted.  The Landa character and lucky dog that got to play it, Christoph Waltz, have garnered much praise and plenty of meaty fodder for critics and students of acting to play with.  A big question that none of the interviewers and critics can seem to agree on is, "Is Landa truly evil?"  Now, I know there are plenty of black-and-white types who look at Landa and say, "Um, that's a Nazi uniform.  Of course he's evil."  And please follow me on this: The Nazi ideology was undeniably evil.  I am in no way alleging that it is anything but.  But to round Landa up with the evil that we associate with Nazism, we assume that Landa agrees with that ideology and acts according to its tenets.  If you've seen the movie, you know that isn't the case; he ends up a turncoat of the first water.  There were a couple of moments where Landa acted in ways that pretty much line up with anybody's definition of evil, political party notwithstanding, but I think the "evil" label in this context applies just as much to intent as to action.  To me, "evil" carries emotion, driven by things like anger or vengeance--Landa, cold as he was, never really got angry or vengeful until the very end, after he had done his morally reprehensible things.  Christoph Waltz vaccillates a little from interview to interview (possibly because of time constraints or differences of intellect during different interview), but more often than not, he asserts that the character isn't evil.  And I agree.

I think Hans Landa is a psychopath.

By that, I refer to the clinical definition of psychopathy, not the pop culture one that makes us think of Hannibal Lector.  Per Scientific American, psychopaths are "superficially charming," "largely devoid of guilt, empathy and love," and "have difficulty inhibiting their impulses," among other things.  Basically, few to no feelings and no conscience.  Though they get the most media coverage and Hollywood treatment, violent psychopaths are rare, and most are still able to observe and understand various emotions, even if they don't feel them themselves, and thus learn how to function in society smoothly.  Despite all the cultural baggage and connotations, psychopathy is much like any other mental disorder, with varying degrees of functionality.

As regards Landa specifically, I think he has a deadly combination of high logical-verbal intelligence that allows him to anticipate his enemies' (and allies') actions, and psychopathy that "frees" him from moral and ethical dilemmas.  His actions throughout the film demonstrate many psychopathic symptoms:
1. To Monsieur LaPadite, his conversation seems to convey pride in his post and a fundamental belief that Germans and Jews are fundamentally different--he characterizes them as hawk and rat, predator-prey.  To Shoshanna in the cafe, he speaks condescendingly about black people, refusing to allow the black projectionist in her employ to work the night of the premiere.  But to Aldo and Udavitch, he's most boastful of his skills as a detective, with no concern for the religion or ethnicity of those he kills and obvious contempt for his superiors (there's an understatement...)  He knows what each party wants or expects to hear and he delivers.  To the casual observer, his moral center and beliefs seem obscured.  I'm saying that the closest thing he has to a moral center is his own well-being and material ascendance.
2. Landa kills three times in the film, the third being a bit indirect.  Not once does he show a speck of remorse.  The first time, he was simply doing the job.  The second, as he puts it, "Let's just say she got what she deserved.  And when you purchase friends like Bridget von Hammersmark, you get what you pay for."  And the third time, he kills in exchange for legal clemency and lots of shiny parting gifts.  Yes, I'm being metaphorical in an effort to avoid spoiling.  Anyway, he's most interested in either maintaining his secure position in the SS or moving to another position of security, the cost of human life a mere trifle to him.
3. Bridget von Hammersmark, mere minutes prior to her death, flirtatiously tells Landa to lay off the flattery, saying, "I've met too many of your former conquests to fall into that honeypot."  Sexual promiscuity is common in psychopaths because they don't form the emotional bonds prior to or during such activity that people not afflicted with psychopathy form.
4. Landa's reaction to Bridget becoming a British spy was extreme, especially given the plans he had for later.  Even on the outside chance that he didn't know what Raine's specific plans were at the premiere, he knew by his very presence that something was happening--why not just let Bridget deal with that?  I think that (1) he was upset because he thought he had all of Raine's moves anticipated to the T and Bridget's participation was like a needle to his ego balloon and (2) there was a chance she could escape, and even if he could still finagle getting everything he wanted out of the Big Deal, he couldn't let Bridget get away thinking she had snookered him when he's the Master Manipulator.  Also, I think his choice of weapon demonstrates the impulse control issue that psychopaths tend to have.  After all, he had much more efficient methods at his disposal and, of course, didn't need to worry about cleanup.
5. This is perhaps not as compelling, but there are holes in Landa's story that might also indicate psychopathic symptoms in his past.  We learn about Raine's family--"I'm a di-rect descendant of the mountain man Jim Bridger."  We learn about Shoshanna's family, if briefly, and about her current lover.  But there's no mention of family or any major relationships at all in Landa's personal story.  The most we learn is that he was plucked out of a house in Austria.  Because of the aforementioned inability to form emotional ties, psychopaths tend to fail at long-term relationships and marriages.
6. Another small indicator--Landa could give a crap about social norms, to the point of never really learning anybody's name unless he has to know it.  Any man in a subservient position to him (waiter at the premiere, radio operator at the end) gets called Herrman, which is rather the German equivalent of "Mr. Man."  (per Wikipedia.) 
7. There are only two occasions when Landa exhibits what might loosely be called emotions.  He seems pretty angry with Bridget, but then again, he's angry because his Puppet Mastery got interrupted, and anger is one of the few emotions accessible to most psychopaths, especially if their efforts are interrupted or thwarted.  Also, because they don't feel the pressure of social or cultural norms, they don't feel obligated to rein in or conceal that anger.  The second time Landa gets angry, he is again protesting the fact that his control over the situation has been usurped.  His cry of, "I made a deal with your general for that man's life!" is made not as a protest of the man having been killed (since he doesn't even know the guy's name), but as a protest of the terms of his agreement being violated.

Taking a broader perspective, I think Landa works toward maintaining the most advantageous circumstances for himself.  At the beginning of the movie, which is at the height of Nazi power, it is most advantageous for him to be the Most Feared SS Officer Ever.  However, he is well aware that the Nazi ideology is too extreme to last for long; while he personally could care less who is killing whom, he knows that there are lots of people in power who don't like genocide and will eventually topple the Third Reich.  As soon as he sees a clear way to move himself into more advantageous circumstances, he makes it happen.

So, to call him "evil" would be to assign malicious intent to him that he doesn't necessarily have.  He's not out to "hurt" anyone per se because he wouldn't perceive "hurt" the way we do.  He's interested in maintaining control and in meeting his own needs and desires.  Sure, he's completely unconcerned with the means he uses to meet those needs and desires and with the consequences of those means, but I warrant you that if he had been in a different time and place where there wasn't state-sanctioned genocide going on, he wouldn't have been killing anybody because to do so wouldn't gain him anything.  He didn't derive pleasure from killing; he wanted whatever "reward" issued from the killing, be it job security, a plugged leak or a "promotion" of sorts.

Thus, Hans Landa wasn't evil--he was a psychopath.

Yes, I think about this kind of crap in the shower.  No, I am not a psychopath.  (Believe me, I got emotions coming out my ears.)