"B: "What exactly do you mean? Why did i get an email from geek squad. Even if he imagined the murders, he is obviously still mentally ill since most normal people would not fantasize about murdering dozens of people especially the way Bateman does. American Psycho II: All American Girl (2002) sees Bateman (played by Michael Kremko) killed by a potential victim (Mila Kunis), who then becomes a serial killer herself. The most important conversation involving mistaken identity however is the conversation between Bateman and his lawyer, Harold Carnes (Stephen Bogaert). By extension then, presumably, none of the murders are real - Bateman is simply insane and he imagines himself committing unspeakable acts when in fact he is doing no harm to anyone. However, for those who know the novels upon which the films are based, there are a number of implicit connections. When directly asked by Bateman where he has been, Price answers with "Just making the rounds" (p. 384), and nobody enquires any further as to exactly what this means. However, he misses the chair and crashes through a glass table, severing his artery and bleeding to death (as Davis puts it when leaving the building; his father "had fallen and couldn't get up". Gavin Smith (editor of Film Comment): You can see the film as an extreme comedy of manners, because so much of it is about social status, how people interact, social one upmanship and social anxiety, and a great deal of it is about these transactions that go on between businessmen or between men and women in a rather elevated kind of social world that's removed from day to day reality [] In a way, it's the introduction of the horror element or the element of the serial killer violence into a gentile, polite world, where whatever the underlying sentiments that people have to one another, which, very true to Reaganism, is very cut throat underneath, that's something that there's a real tradition in social satire going back to Molire; there's always the surface politeness and the surface manners and grace, and underneath, the primary kind of human urges, which are usually sexual. Is it true that Christian Bale's stepmother was one of those who protested the publication of the novel? "B: "Maybe he did, huh? He opens it, revealing a number of sharp metal items. Bateman is such a dork, such a boring spineless lightweight. And it's funny, it's making fun of that, and I find that to be so powerful in the book, it's just outright mockery of male behavior. Edit, Awards After Bateman has had sex with Christie (Cara Seymour) and Sabrina (Krista Sutton), they are all lying together in bed, when he gets up and moves over to a drawer. It's almost like alienation breeds serial killers, everyone's so disconnected, it really doesn't matter, it doesn't matter who you kill, it doesn't matter what you do. The actor Christian Bale portrays a wealthy investment banker, Patrick Bateman, who is driven by ambition and murder in the film American Psycho. PDF downloads of all 1699 LitCharts literature guides, and of every new one we publish. "You want me to floss with it? Instant downloads of all 1699 LitChart PDFs Edit, Oftentimes during the course of the film, Bateman has outbursts of rage, which are clearly the kind of thing that should provoke concern in the people who hear them. Bateman also appears in Ellis' fictional-autobiography Lunar Park (2005), in which Ellis himself is haunted by the spirit of Bateman and the forces of evil that were unleashed when Ellis created the character. And it hints that his "acts" are caused by his reaction to the emptiness and foolishness of his surroundings which inspire his defiance, as well as his inability to hold back his darker impulses, and that the killings and destruction are his only means of aiming for truth. Here, the desire to make money overrides all sense of moral decency and responsibility - Wolfe doesn't care what happened in the apartment as long as she can sell it, and if that means covering up what happened, so be it. The movie we only get minor tellings of these, and usually it's when he is comparing himself with someone else.When Bateman talks with Paul Allen about Huey Lewis and the News, as well as the escorts about Phil Collins, and Whitney Houston. In the novel, Bateman tells us that Paul Allen is often mistaken for an arbitrageur, when he is in fact a merger-maker (322), and the implication is that Bateman himself is an arbitrageur. He owns a riverfront property built as a replica of the Czar's summer palace, complete with 121 live-in servants. "C: "That's simply not possible. This selection of quotations offers a broad cross section of such opinions:Official site: The unfolding cinematic fable suggests a series of themes about the 1980s: the obsession with outer perfection, even when it masks inner emptiness; the amoral insistence on conformity at all costs; the desire for stimulation that keeps raising the threshold highermore drugs, money, sex, sound, color, action; and the emotional isolation, expressed by Bateman's videotape addiction, and the fact that he has no back-story, no family, no real characteristics apart from the labels on his clothes. Bateman does not describe what happens, but its clear his controlling and dominating nature has turned violent. And I don't find this funny anymore. In an interview for GQ in 2007, Bale was asked whether he intentionally took on the role in the film due to resentment against his father's girlfriend (David and Steinem were dating when Christian signed on to do the film). Eh. PDFs of modern translations of every Shakespeare play and poem. What are the pills Bateman takes prior to killing Paul Allen? Detailed quotes explanations with page numbers for every important quote on the site. For example, when Carruthers confronts him in a clothes store, confessing his love and begging Bateman to love him back, he ends up on the ground, grabbing onto Bateman's leg, and Bateman shouts "I am going to slit your fucking throat,", to which Carruthers responds, "Oh just kill me [] If I can't have you, I don't want to live. Edit, This is explained in a deleted scene found on the DVD where Bryce has a breakdown of sorts in a club. After being released from jail, Baxter visited every bookstore in Santa Cruz and poured blood on every single copy of the novel she could find.This proved to be the last major incident in the controversy surrounding the novel (at least until it was announced that Leonardo DiCaprio was to star in a filmic adaptation in 1998), but such controversy was not limited to the United States. "In the light of the ensuing controversy, Simon & Schuster decided not to go ahead with publication, citing "aesthetic differences." What did Patrick Bateman do with the coat hanger? [from DVD commentary track] She has made a movie that is really a parable of today. However, at no point does anyone ever react in any way seriously to what he says.Examples of Bateman's outbursts include; in the nightclub early in the movie, Bateman says to the bartender (Kelley Harron), "You're a fucking ugly bitch. He is a wealthy and materialistic yuppie and Wall Street investment banker who, supposedly, leads a secret life as a serial killer.Bateman has also briefly appeared in other . I can't make myself any clearer. [from DVD commentary track] In another scene, he tells a Chinese woman (Margaret Ma), "If you don't shut your mouth, I will fucking kill you." This aspect is also emphasized in a deleted scene on the DVD. The original text plus a side-by-side modern translation of. Complete your free account to access notes and highlights. And to me you're supposed to be left with a feeling of emptiness, like fear, nothingness, no one's paying attention, nothing matters. Edit, You could say that. Edit, The time period of the film is late 1986 to March 4th, 1987; as is evident by the Christmas party early in the movie and the Ronald Reagan speech on the TV in the last scene. What work? Patrick's jaw tightens] Christie : You have a really nice place here, Paul. A writer from The New York Times wants to do a piece on his remarkable success for the paper's business section, Architectural Digest have photographed his apartment for a special issue on luxury homes. He wears a 1938 Platinum Breguet Minute Repeater worth over $217,000. In the novel Timothy Bryce and Paul Allen have mildly different surnames. This is a gauge for Batemans hallucinations; perhaps this encounter is real and its memory unclouded. The film then cuts to Bateman sitting in a . In this first encounter, the reader can see the clear distinction between the sexual part of the evening and the violent part of the evening these two aspects of Batemans life will soon start to blur together, however.. "My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." Bret Easton Ellis: Mary Harron's American Psycho is set mostly in pre-crash 1987 but it's a period that almost seems as distant as the Jazz Age or the swinging 1960s London of Austin Powers. However, Patrick covers himself up See Details 4.American Psycho (2000) - Frequently Asked Questions - IMDb Author:www.imdb.com Post date:19 yesterday Rating:4(837 reviews) Highest rating:5 Low rated:3 And whilst that is a perfectly valid interpretation, as Harron indicates above, it is not entirely what the filmmakers were attempting to achieve. Instead, they had responded to the situation by requesting a meeting with Mehta hoping to talk him out of publishing the novel. It clarified that the novel was a critique of male behavior" (Charlie Rose interview).Guinevere Turner: We're not just having a gay old time showing women be killed by a serial killer, we're showing you a character and his panic. For example, New York ran a cover story on the novel and on Mehta's purchasing of its publication rights, and CNN read extracts from the novel live on-air.Upon Vintage's acquisition of the rights, feminist activist Tammy Bruce, president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW), called for a nationwide boycott of all Vintage and Knopf books, with the specific exception of those by feminist authors, although she did call on such authors to sever their relationships with both companies. For example, in the opening scene of the novel, A guy who looks a lot like Luis Carruthers waves over at Timothy and when Timothy doesn't return the wave the guy - slicked-back hair, suspenders, horn rimmed glasses - realizes it's not who he thought it was and looks back at his copy of USA Today. According to his business card, he is a vice president at Pierce & Pierce. You're my lawyer. As with the practical theories regarding the Carnes conversation, the outbursts and the empty apartment, interpreting the murders as real is part of the film's social satire. As such, unaware that Bateman is working with de Reveney, Ferguson asks Bateman for help, who agrees to do what he can, secretly reveling in the irony inherent in the fact that Ferguson has turned to the architect of his demise for assistance. (p. 325). Halberstram then tells Kimball that he was at a club called Atlantis with Craig McDermott, Frederick Dibble, Harry Newman, George Butler and Bateman himself (which is inaccurate, insofar as Bateman was killing Paul Allen when Halberstram was at Atlantis). As Mary Harron discusses on her DVD commentary, there is no truth in this, the song is absent purely because of publishing rights. "B: "Hm. (including. Otherwise it was amusing. Find related themes, quotes, symbols, characters, and more. It is also revealed that the restaurant Dorsia has closed down.In the "plot" of the emails, Bateman is attempting to outmaneuver a successful businessman named T. Davis Ferguson, the largest producer of Silicate in the world, by manipulating Ferguson's wayward son, Terry Davis. Is that Edward Towers? It's all part of trying to feed this void that is, in a larger sense, the void of the eighties' intense consumer culture and decadence. The scenes from the novel where Bateman slices a dog's stomach open and cuts its owner's throat, where he drowns Evelyn's dog, and where he crushes a rat by stomping on it are not in the film, nor is the infamous scene from the novel where he tortures a girl by putting a live rat into her vagina. Still living in New York, he spends most of his leisure time hanging out with A-list movie stars, heads of state and fashion designers. Rio Macarena is a popular song by Los Del Rio. He is beginning to incorporate drugs directly into his violence more and more. Interestingly enough, in the corresponding scene in the novel, the narrative switches from 1st person present to 3rd person present mid-sentence (p. 341) at the beginning of the sequence, and then back to 1st person present (again mid-sentence) at the end (p. 352). After a particularly infuriating party, Bateman asks Evelyn why she doesn't just date Bryce instead of him, pointing out that Bryce is rich, good-looking and has a great body, to which Evelyn replies, "Everybody's rich. Here, money and sex are interchangeable in a certain kind of way of looking at the 80s, in which money was the erotic object, it was the source of eroticism in the 80s.American Psycho: From Book to Screen (2005)] What mental illness does Patrick Bateman have? On a more analytical level, videotapes could also function as something of a status symbol (Bateman is so rich and cool, he can rent huge amounts of videotapes whenever he wants, and most nights, that's exactly what he does). "The conversations between Bateman and Kimball also address the issue of mistaken identity. Edit, After Bateman has had sex with Christie (Cara Seymour) and Sabrina (Krista Sutton), they are all lying together in bed, when he gets up and moves over to a drawer. (critic): Harron, if anything, is an even more devious provocateur than Ellis was. | All I wanted was to be ambiguous in the way that the book was. My eyes open and I warn them not to touch the Rolex, which I've kept on during this entire time. As usual, his sexual and sadistic violence has no effect on him, and he goes about his day as normal after. However, within a few days, it transpired that Koch Records, the publishers of the soundtrack, hadn't obtained the publishing rights to "Hip to Be Square" by Huey Lewis & The News (separate rights needed to be acquired for each song; one for the movie and another for the soundtrack). It's not about the law, it's not about justice, it's not about morality, it's about "You are damaging the potential for me to sell this apartment [] Go, go, go. According to the film's official website, the videotape addiction is a metaphor for Bateman's "emotional isolation"; he has no real life himself, no real existence to keep him occupied, so he needs to fill that emptiness by continually immersing himself in the lives of others, i.e. By treating the book as raw material for an exuberantly perverse exercise in '80s nostalgia, she recasts the go-go years as a template for the casually brainwashing-consumer/fashion/image culture that emerged from them. What are the differences between the R-rated cut and the unrated cut of the film? The names were changed since it was later discovered that there were real people who worked on Wall Street with those names, and they production could run into trouble down the road.Also while most of the dialogue from the novel is similar in terms of wording, they are slightly changed up to match the actors portraying the characters.The scene were Bateman sleeps with the two escorts, the novel he uses the word Rolex. Its almost as if hes blacked out while narrating. In the book their names are Timothy Price, and Paul Owen. Instant PDF downloads. The novel is filled with these explanations that sometimes take up more than one page. "Once more Carnes tries to leave, once more Bateman stops him.B: "No, listen, don't you know who I am? This theory is supported by the novel, where it is strongly implied that Wolfe knows about the murders and realizes that Bateman is involved (p. 369).This interpretation is best explained by actress/co-screenwriter Guinevere Turner on her DVD commentary;To me, the more disturbing part about this scene is that here's this real estate agent who really doesn't give a fuck what happened in this apartment and knows damn well what kind of state it was in. She just wants that association or anyone who might know anything about it to be away from the apartment so she can sell it. Evelyn (played by Reese Witherspoon in the film) is on her third marriage, to a foreign dignitary (referred to by Bateman as "European gay aristo-trash"), as were her two previous husbands (her married names were Princess de Vestota and Comtesse D'Erlanger). "B: "It never was supposed to be. [Patrick Bateman] Do you like Phil Collins? What does Patrick Bateman do to Christie? Jean is Patrick Bateman 's secretary, or, as he refers to her, "my secretary who is in love with me.". Complete your free account to request a guide. Teachers and parents! Did you know I'm utterly insane?" (including. See Details. Edit, When comparing business cards with his co-workers, Bateman tells them that the font in which his card is written is Silian Rail.This is not a real font, the name was invented by Bret Easton Ellis for the novel. The novel's graphic descriptions of the murder and sexual mutilation of women continued to be attacked as inexcusable and Ellis received numerous death threats and hate mail. There are also a couple of new shots during this scene, totaling 17 seconds of additional material. It's clean." This is the first time Bateman tells the reader the full details of the sex he has with prostitutes. Unable to shake the rumors of his involvement, Bateman assisted Halberstram in getting a job in Europe. So although it's supposed to have a surreal feel, it's real.Again, this theory ties into the film's social critique. Similarly, in the novel, when Bateman arrives at a club called Tunnel, he looks around and muses to himself "Everyone looks familiar, everyone looks the same" (p. 61). Interestingly enough, in the novel, a second layer is added to this scene which supports the mistaken identity theory; Carnes first refers to Bateman as Davis, and then at the end of the conversation refers to him as Donaldson. Elizabeth complains about the restaurant they went to. What does Patrick Bateman do in the book? Up to his old tricks, Bateman leaves Elizabeth hanging while he goes in search of a prostitute this is just what he did to Courtney the first time he hired Christie. Elizabeth is clearly only interested in Bateman for his money, arguing with him that a restaurant even favored by the idyllic Wall Street man, Donald Trump, wasnt good enough. "Never date a Vassar girl": McDermott complains about a girl he met who refused to give him a blowjob and would only give him a hand job with her glove still on. In the book there are three separate chapters which deal with Bateman's obsession for Pop Music in which he goes much more in depth in his analysis and gives his overall opinion.The most obvious and major change from the two, is the amount of on-screen Violence that is shown between the two. Additionally, the frequent mention of videotapes (as opposed to DVDs) helps to date the story. Luis Carruthers (played by Matt Ross in the film) now works for Bateman, using his contacts in the entertainment industry to Bateman's advantage (as Bateman puts it, "sucking valuable information"). None of it is real, Bateman is insane, and nothing he sees, says or does can be completely trusted as reality. Bateman tells her he thought it was "hip," and she tells him it couldn't be, because Donald Trump goes there. "B: "Why not you stupid bastard? [p. 5] Another good example can be found when Bateman and his colleagues are at a restaurant called Pastels; Some guy who looks exactly like Christopher Lauder comes over to the table and says, patting me on the shoulder, "Hey Hamilton, nice tan," before walking into the men's room. Of this sequence, Mary Harron comments, You should not trust anything that you see. As such, the novel would not receive a hardback release. ": Bateman and Courtney have sex, but in the middle she complains about the type of condom he's wearing. These videos can be sold as "art" and "free expression" and could be available at every video outlet, library, liquor, and convenience store in the world. He wanted catharsis, he wanted to get caught, he wanted to have his life changed; to be thrown in jail, to be killed by someone himself, but he just can't, so it's kind of like, he's a mutant; nothing can kill him so he just got that much more detached. He breaks countless rules/laws, such as commuting murder, not doing any work at his job, cheats on his fianc and much more. Part of filling that void is trying to keep up with the Joneses, so to speak. As with much of the film, if we accept this theory, exactly how much is reality, and how much is fantasy is difficult to say.Mary Harron, for her part, favors the practical explanation championed by Turner, although she does acknowledge that there is a degree of ambiguity at play; You can read it as simply New York greed of real estate people wanting to sell an expensive apartment but ignoring the terrible things that took place there or it could be all in his imagination, an embodiment of his paranoia. - that says he went to London. What did Patrick Bateman do to Christie and Sabrina? [] And so we really set out, and we failed, and we've acknowledged this to each other, we really set out to make it really clear that he was really killing these people, that this was really happening. I should have left it more open ended. Edit, Although it is not revealed in the film what the tablets are, in the corresponding scene in the novel, Bateman takes two valium. This prompts McDermott to ask "Well who is it then?," to which Bryce answers "It's Paul Allen." Later, when Bateman is dining with Paul Allen, he tells him "I like to dissect girls. However, throughout the course of the film, we also see business cards belonging to Timothy Bryce, Paul Allen, David Van Patten and Luis Carruthers, all of whom possess the exact same job title, thus suggesting that Vice President is not a particularly unique or important position. "C: "The message you left. Bateman, bored by his lavish date with Courtney, has ditched her to go pick up a prostitute. Is there an online sequel to the novel/film? As with the practical explanation of the mistaken identity theme and the Carnes conversation, this would tie it into the film's social critique; everyone looks alike, no one knows anyone else, and no one really listens to anyone else either. This lends credence to the theory that the entire sequence is a hallucination, which in turn lends credence to the suggestion that much of what we see in the film is also an hallucination.However, if this is the case, and if this sequence does represent pure fantasy, Harron ultimately came to feel that she had gone too far with the hallucinatory approach. At the end of the emails, as Bateman heads to a private retreat in the French Riviera, he is asked by the steward if he'd like to see a movie. My students love how organized the handouts are and enjoy tracking the themes as a class., Requesting a new guide requires a free LitCharts account. They're like having in-class notes for every discussion!, This is absolutely THE best teacher resource I have ever purchased. (1) Once again, the first theory is a practical one; the apartment is simply up for sale due to the disappearance of its former occupant. As such, people do hear him, but no one is really listening to him or taking him seriously. David Van Patten (played by Bill Sage in the film) is still in the same business as before but is considerably less successful than Bateman. As he has an extensive exercise and beauty routine to make himself look good and young. This theory is examined in more detail below. Wolfe, or the company she works for, could have decided that after a period of time during which no rent had been paid, and nobody had been able to contact Allen (because he is dead), it was time to check things out. Detailed explanations, analysis, and citation info for every important quote on LitCharts. From this point up to the moment he rings Carnes and leaves his confession on the answering machine, there is a question regarding the reality of the film; is what we are seeing really happening, or is it purely the product of a disturbed mind? Teacher Editions with classroom activities for all 1699 titles we cover. Its interesting to note that Batemans disgust for homosexuality only applies to men; he is turned on by lesbian encounters (though perhaps only when he is the one controlling them), but despises gay men. taglines. In the last scene, McDermott says that Bryce is back. Where can it be read? Complete your free account to request a guide. This ultimately led to Bale being cast. As with the questions of why Allen's apartment is empty, how did Carnes see Allen in London, and why people ignore Bateman's outbursts, there are two basic theories:(1) the murders are very real and Bateman is simply being ignored when he tries to confess(2) everything happened in his imaginationMuch of the discussion regarding the possibility of everything being in his mind focuses on the sequence which begins when the ATM asks him to feed it a stray cat. However, Patrick covers himself up as being Paul Allen. In Brisbane, the novel is available to those over 18 from public libraries only; bookstores are not allowed to carry it, although they can order copies for a private buyer if one makes a specific request. They are all so self-obsessed that no matter what any of them says, the others don't care and won't react; if it doesn't directly involve them, they simply aren't interested. Edit, The character of Patrick Bateman is quite interesting in how he could be diagnosed mentally. It clarified that the novel was a critique of male behavior." Why isn't it possible? Find related themes, quotes, symbols, characters, and more. Bale's father, David Bale married feminist activist Gloria Steinem in 2000. The main character, patrick bateman, is glamorously portrayed as a wealthy, standoffish killer suspected to have antisocial personality disorder and possibly dissociative. Patrick Bateman : I have all the characteristics of a human being: blood, flesh, skin, hair; but not a single, clear, identifiable emotion, except for greed and disgust. "(2) The second theory is that Bateman isn't really saying such things out loud at all, his outbursts are all internal, but he psychologically manifests them as external. Wolfe is shown to be no better or no different than Bateman and his associates; for each and every one of them, money is the be all and end all, they are all willing to do anything to acquire it and willing to do anything to retain it. What's it about? Upon publication of the novel in 1991, Steinem was one of several prolific opponents of the book and wrote numerous articles condemning both it and its author. In the novel, the corresponding scene reads: He then instructs them to begin paying attention to him, and they do so, as he moves them around on his body however he likes. PDF downloads of all 1699 LitCharts literature guides, and of every new one we publish. This kind of thinking simply doesn't enter into the equation in their society; a society of excess, greed, self-absorption and isolation.This theme is perhaps more obvious in the novel.