Was Veda a psychopath ???
It would seem so.
shareI think so too.
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MovieChat Forums > Mildred Pierce (1945) Discussion > Was Veda a psychopath ???
No. She was just an asshole.
shareYes, she was a sociopath. She turned on the tears like a faucet when it served her needs (her sister's death, pleading
with her mother that she'd "change"). Sociopaths are real, and they exist. Both Veda and Phyllis Deidrickson ("Double
Indemnity") fit the sociopath characteristics down to the last detail.
You still haven't proven that Veda is a sociopath, and not just a spoiled brat asshole.
shareHow can I "prove" something from a fictional character, you twit?
Spoiled assholes don't take a gun and shoot a man that won't marry them five or six times. They don't go from
cold icebergs to sobbing, pleading manipulators in the span of 43 seconds. Again, while the character isn't
real, Veda exhibits every characteristic of a sociopath. I work in the mental health field, and to my eyes, this
is what the screenwriter and director Curtiz were after. Veda's last line alone is bone chilling in its complete
lack of emotion. It isn't spoken in fear or rage. It's spoken totally devoid of any feeling.
My observations aren't brilliant. Ann Blythe was brilliant, and she should've won the Oscar over Anne Revere.
I agree that Blythe was terrific as Veda, and should have won the Oscar. Her performance is especially impressive because she was just a teenager when she made the movie.
shareYes, she was a sociopath. A textbook definition of one is a person who sees everyone as a means to an end. For her, people only existed to make her rich, and she seemed to have very little feelings outside of this goal.
shareIf her character isnt the perfect manifestation of a sociopath, I dont know what is.
shareMurdering a stranger for fun = psychopath
Murdering someone because they were a jerk to you = sociopath
Murdering someone because they were a jerk to you = sociopath? Hmm. It might just be hysteria combined with poor impulse control. It also might depend to some degree upon how he was a jerk to you. Maybe his jerkiness took the form of life-altering mental cruelty. Maybe he was the sociopath! That being said, Veda was clearly a sociopath.
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