Really Ricky?

         When Ricky was younger, his father wanted to give him discipline and order in his life because Ricky was not necessarily the most pristine child. He was sent to military school, but was kicked out soon after. When he returned home, his father beat him for getting kicked out. To add even more fuel to the fire, when Ricky went back to school the next day, another student told him he had a bad haircut, which provoked Ricky to assault the kid nearly to death. Most people that meet him call him "weird" and a "psycho", but he is eventually lucky enough to meet Lester's daughter, who is repulsed at first, but gradually she grows to fall in love with him. In terms of the existential ideas conveyed in the film,ricky exhibits both quietism and heroism.Existentialists would say that Ricky is not an inherently bad person, only that he has performed some bad actions. In fact, Ricky claims that he is constantly searching for the "beauty" in the world. He is always under the scrutiny of others, and yet he continues acting on his own accord. He is also seen video taping all of his encounters for most of the movie, including the clip which is shown in this excerpt.
       This scene shows Ricky explaining why he videotaped a plastic bag in the wind for 15 minutes. He describes the experience as if "the plastic bag were dancing or playing" with him, driven by an ineffable "beauty" in the world. I found this very related to Jean-Paul Sartre and existentialism as a whole. Only Ricky was there to witness and experience this beauty, and so he feels obliged to document and capture this scene.