Denethor is as complex in the films as in the books, and is by no means a cartoon villain. A cartoon villain is evil for evil's sake. Movie-Denethor has had the compassion sucked out of him by the long fight he has endured. He looks out the window every morning and sees Mt Doom. His way of dealing with his failures is to shoulder the responsibility onto his sons. Yet he sees the value of Pippin's pledge and eventually the value of his younger son.<P>I don't think the palantir is needed to explain his madness. Mordor oozes into Gondor - everyone can feel it. Denethor's susceptibility to Sauron's evil is no less than Boromir's, or anyone else's, and it serves as a reminder of Faramir's integrity, the integrity he almost lost in TTT.
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