The Villain Archetype

Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven. John Milton gave that line to Satan, in Paradise Lost, more than three and a half centuries ago. Readers have been closing that book ever since with the same uncomfortable feeling: the character they could not stop thinking about was the rebel. This film looks at the villain honestly. Four things he has that many men are quietly starving for (ambition, a willingness to be disliked, composure, clear sight), and the one thing he carries that destroys any man who picks it up. With Milton, Blake, Machiavelli, the Gospel of Matthew and Hannah Arendt, told through paintings and old books. SOURCES John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667). Book I, lines 26, 254-255 and 263; Book IV, lines 73-75, 196 and 800; Book X, lines 504-547. The pages on screen are from the first edition (the copy shown has the 1668 title page). William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (c. 1790), plate 6. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince (written 1513, printed 1532), chapter 18. The pages on screen are from the Venice edition of 1554. The Gospel of Matthew 10:16 (King James Version). Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind, volume 1: Thinking (1978). #masculinity #selfimprovement #psychology