I just watched the movie, and have never read or heard about the book but something that sticks out to me is how he claims he didn’t get Rank killed. Barkovitch was actively egging him on, hoping to start a fight. Even after Rank threw the first punch, both missing and gaining a warning, Barkovitch STILL continued to piss him off to the point where he would start a fight.
Did he think if someone threw a punch, the soldiers would just let them continue to walk after they hash it out? And it’s not like Barkovich didn’t know that if you stopped moving, you died because Rank wasn’t the first person to be shot for not moving. Honestly his whole reaction is confusing. Like did he not purposefully go after him for the exact goal of getting him to lose?
Barkovitch is a complex character with a deep rooted want for friends.
Now, before I dive into this, I will say that I do absolutely love Rank. He’s my favourite character. However, I do also absolutely love Barkovitch too (as my 2nd fav). So I would agree with him on this… Ranks death is not his fault.
As much as I love Rank, his attempt to attack Barkovitch was incredibly stupid.
In the beginning, Barkovitch was very much isolated from the actual group. They were all laughing together and when he spoke about Olson sounding like his “MeeMaw on the bowl in the morning,” everyone stopped laughing and Olson replied with “the fuck is a MeeMaw.”
From the beginning, it was made clear to us that he didn’t fit in. He kept going back and forth from the group, almost attempting to participate in their discussions. Then almost saying the wrong things that lead to the other boys to shout at him and him to back away. For example: “he’s shaking and shit.”
The other boys also seemed to ridicule him behind his back pretty constantly in the beginning. Peter: “If I spit at it will it go away” (after Barko spits at a police officer, he says it towards a camera in a jokey manner), Collie: “better not trip fucko” (after Barko stops to tie his shoe) and Olson telling Barko how stupid he is for stopping “now you gotta walk three goddamn hours.” Barko seemed to be the butt of their jokes.
Now sure, Barko might have kinda deserved the comments he got. But at the same time, it’s clear all he wants is for that group of boys to like him. And winding him up for stopping after he gains three warnings of course is going to actually upset him, as we see with Ray on the hill. At three warnings things get tense and heated quick. Barko is just another example of that. He got heated with the boys after they wind him up about it, and from then on I’d say it is the downfall to them being enemies. He never seems to recover from saying “see who gets their ticket first fuckwad.”
Yet he still tries.
Now it might not seem like Barkovitch tries to rejoin the group. He just seems to get ruder. But given the history of his terrible comments and seeming desperation to be a part of the group, when he was going for Rank, it isn’t farfetched to say he was just trying to make the other boys laugh. Olson found MeeMaw stupid, why wouldn’t he find the name Rank stupid?
So, in an attempt to make the other boys behind them laugh with him, and possibly Rank. He goes for him. He starts slandering Rank for his name and laughing at him, being loud and over dramatic to make sure everyone around can hear him. He’s literally walking backwards, looking for the other boys reaction to hear what he’s hearing. “No fucking way!”
He’s loud and obnoxious about it… yet he unintentionally hits a nerve by bringing Ranks mum into it all! “failed with the old coat hanger trick”
Rank is a mamas boy. He probably already misses his mum and to hear Barkovitch say that on possible live TV, of course he’s gonna get defensive! So he swings at him. To which I get… but think of it like this.
If Rank had actually hit Barkovitch… would it still be Barkovitches fault that he got shot for interfering with another Walker? Because quite frankly, Rank would have got shot for hitting Barkovitch. It’s against the rules! So whether he hit him or not, the move is still incredibly stupid on Ranks behalf and he should have known better than to swing in the first place!
But back to Barkovitch, upon being swung at, he suddenly realises that he’s going too far. However… TO STOP AND APOLOGISE WOULD BE TO ADMIT HIS DIFFERENCE FROM THOSE AROUND HIM. Think about it, he’s desperate to fit in. He’s going to great lengths to try and make the other boys laugh. He’s almost putting on a performance. Yet it backfires. To stop right then and there would not only make him look weak, but it would prove to both him and the other boys that he doesn’t fit in with them. He’s too different. He doesn’t understand the boundaries of what’s okay to say and not. He doesn’t fit in and to stop would be to admit that.
So he does what he thinks is best for him… he keeps going. He says “one last thing” after Rank yells “fuck you!” on his first warning. Which shows that he probably would have stopped after Rank had got his second. I say this because Barkovitch isn’t a cold hearted killer, he may have used up a couple of Ranks warnings but he wouldn’t have used them all up. As much as he seems mean, he wants friends not to kill the other participants. He’s just really bad at voicing that and making those intentions clear!
So he goes for Rank again albeit the other boys yelling at him to stop (because to stop would be to admit to them he’s in the wrong and doesn’t fit into their group) “I was thinking of taking her up on it” and Rank goes for him. And he trips…
Now I get blaming Barko for the lead up to him tripping… so I’d say at most the situation is a 50/50 fault to both him and Rank. But how can Barko be a “killer” if he never laid a hand on Rank. He didn’t intend for him to fall at all. He didn’t want Rank to fall. He wanted to wind him up, yes. Cause he wanted to make the other boys laugh and he didn’t want to admit that he didn’t fit in with them. But he never intended to actively assist in the killing of another participant.
So of course Barkovitch said he didn’t kill him. “He came at me man”
Cause to most extent, it’s true. Rank went for Barkovitch, he tripped and died. Sure Barkovitch wound him up to that point, but he didn’t make or intend for Rank to trip.
However, I get the other boys reacting to the situation like this too. Like Barkovitch struggles to understand and fit in with them, they don’t understand Barkovitch and happily hold him to the outcast of the group. They take out on him their frustrations of the walk by ridiculing him which feeds the fire of his self destruction!
Barkovitch isn’t at fault alone for Ranks death. He had his own intentions. All he wanted was a “couple of buddies” on the “fucked up day like this” but his emotional outbursts and his ineptness at communication led to this outcome.
If maybe the boys had laughed with him and taken a moment to try to understand him, things might have changed.
But in reality, no one can really be blamed for what happened here. Emotions were running high, tensions even higher and this walk is just a mind fuck in disguise. Everyone was gonna break at some point, and unfortunately this was the way Barkovitch was broken.
I would neither blame Barkovitch, Rank or the boys themselves (even though I’d be a lot more inclined to blame Rank or the other Boys). Because in reality it’s their situation that causes them to act and react the way they do!
His character is confusing, sure. But he makes sense if you think about him and try to put yourself into his shoes! And if you look at things from the wider perspective rather than just through than group of boys… you can see his intentions and why he acts the way he does!
This is such an excellent write up and analysis of barkovitch
This is an awesome analytics. I like it
Charlie Plummer did an amazing job with a complex character there.
When explained like this I can see both points where it seems like Rank is at his own fault and Barkovitch is at fault. I think if they had maybe shown his intention of rejoining the group better, I could more understand it on the first watch. But the way the movie depicts it (yes I know if you’re gonna watch a movie that’s a book first, you should in fact read the book too), it makes it seem like it’s just a cheap shot to make a semi-important character end up killing himself in a way that’s more eerie than the background characters.
I mean I understand his want to join the boys and be part of the group as well as Rank throwing a punch would’ve gotten him killed anyway, but Barkovitch knows the consequences to breaking the rules. The boys watched Curly get shot, a moment in the movie where it’s clear to see is a clarifying moment for the boys where the matter of life and death sets in. Barkovitch then going after Rank, where he was threatened with the possibility of Rank being shot for hitting him, seems like an excuse for Barkovitch to then go crazy and hurt himself.
I love your explanation a lot, yet I feel that Barkovitch and his want to rejoin the boys wouldn’t outweigh his own conscience enough to potentially tempt someone to end their life by breaking the rules to hit him. I understand that Barkovitch was protecting himself from being hit or killed and that’s how Rank ended up on the ground in the first place. But he had to know after the “warning” punch, tipping the scale more would have ended up in Rank’s death.
Have you never met someone like this? This is how cruel people behave. It's cognitive dissonance. He acted out due to likely the exhaustion. So he acted evil and cruely. Then he cannot live with the consequences of his action. He has to die feeling like a good person.
I think he was triying to justify himself even if liying
He only acted out because he was lonely. He admits it toward his death scene. I have met people like himself
Gary Barkovitch is the embodiment of insecurity and loneliness. He has likely been socially awkward his whole life. The only invitation he ever got was from the kid whose parents insist they invite EVERYONE. Gary likely deals with rejecting by telling himself that HE is the one doing the rejecting: "I choose to be the lone wolf!"
Gary likely believed his loner angsty ways would be an asset in the death march, after all, why would you want to make friends with the very people you are trying to outlive? Gary tries to convince himself above all that he is the meanest hardest kid there. That he doesn't care about the others, that he would be willing to give that weary walker too close to the edge that little shoulder nudge off the road.
Gary shows up to find comradery among the contestants. Gary who deep down does want to be accepted takes a shot at joining in the mocking of Hank's hick speak, but it comes out awkward, and is quickly turned back against him. THIS SOCIAL REJECTION IS A HUGE FACTOR IN GARY'S BEHAVIOR throughout the walk. This snaps Gary back into his aloof antisocial "all for himself" mindset.
When Gary picks on Rank, he likely believes he's being cute and charming, tongue in cheek. When Rank responds badly (something Gary is all to familiar with), Gary just runs with it.
In the end, Gary can't convince himself anymore. He is a human, he does care, he does need to be loved, he is bothered by what he has seen and done. His pretense blows up in his face(or neck).
I both love and despise this character because I see an uncomfortable amount of my own teenage self in him. I too went through a phase of trying to act cold and sociopathic to hide the scars of rejection and loneliness.
He didn't think. He did not imagine that messing with rank will result in him dying.
Later he understands that he should have counted with it, and that he is at fault, and how it looks. And it bothers him.
I just finished this book this morning and watched the movie this evening with a friend. In the book it’s in the rules you cannot inhibit other players and what happens there is !>barkovitch bates, another character into punching him the same way, but the character succeeds and is shot for punching. <! The movie did a great job, every change they made from the book I feel was an improvement. But I could see why you’re confused, the Bartkiewicz character was much more of a monster in the book, like actively laughing and mocking other players and saying he would dance on all of their graves. I think he said it once in the movie, but he says it repeatedly in the book. In the book he also has a different ending !>he rips out his throat with his own hands<! after getting his apology accepted via agreeing to help take care of another’s wife if he wins. I agree with you overall, in both there’s a sense of him being ostracized in the beginning and affected by it throughout and desperately trying to redeem himself in the end. If you want a full analysis of the differences this review does a great job showing the differences between the movie and the books. But it has spoilers. I would only recommend reading the book before the movie, so if you’ve already watched the movie, I think you’ve seen the best version of this tale (same goes for the Stand book vs the stand tv show , the media is better than the book for once)
Read the book.
“Listen, I got off on the wrong foot with you guys. I didn’t mean to. Shit, I’m a good enough guy when you get to know me, I’m always gettin’ off on the wrong foot, I never had much of a crowd back home. In my school, I mean. Christ, I don’t know why. I’m a good enough guy when you get to know me, as good as anyone else, but I always just, you know, seem to get off on the wrong foot. I mean a guy’s got to have a couple of friends on a thing like this. It’s no good to be alone, right? Jesus Christ, Garraty, you know that. That Rank. He started it, Garraty. He wanted to tear my ass. Guys, they always want to tear my ass. I used to carry a switchblade back at my high school on account of guys wanting to tear my ass. That Rank. I didn’t mean for him to croak, that wasn’t the idea at all. I mean, it wasn’t my fault. You guys just saw the end of it, not the way he was… ripping my ass, you know…” Barkovitch trailed off.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Garraty said, feeling like a hypocrite. Maybe Barkovitch could rewrite history for himself, but Garraty remembered the Rank incident too clearly.
From the book