So, if just watching American Psycho wasn't enough to blow your mind I've been reading random interviews/articles about the movie that I think y'all might find interesting. If you check out the salon index for Mary Harron (the director) you will come across a bunch of great stuff. For example, Leonardo DiCaprio was originally slated to play Patrick Bateman and it had (shockingly) a very hard time finding a studio to distribute it. One thing that I really struggle with when it comes to this movie is how to think about a female behind the camera telling a story adapted from such a controversial masculine novel.
In an piece in Salon by Jessica Hundley --
"In "American Psycho," Harron directs a delicately boned, elegantly dressed Christian Bale as Bret Easton Ellis' coldhearted killer. Bale plays the part with bored and haughty bemusement, moving through the film like a smugly satisfied cat. "American Psycho" is not a film one might expect to be directed by a woman, but it is Harron's feminine touch -- and her humor -- that keeps the film's brutal elements palatable. In a satirical take on '80s excess, Bale's rich kid has a sense of entitlement as large as his ego -- yet there's something in his snobbery that is appealing. We can laugh at his cruelty because Harron has created an effective film stereotype: the privileged white Ivy Leaguer every viewer loves to hate".
I'm not really sure this is a very complete thought on Mary Harron directing the movie--what is this feminine touch? Is it possible for a female director to escape a male aesthetic? I also wonder if the fetishization of Bateman is unique to her eye or just necessary for the adaptation?
And finally--as far as the music in the film goes Sarah Vowell has a really interesting take on it in yet another Salon article.
"Ellis writes deftly about people who shouldn't be doing what they're doing, and one way they live with themselves is by shutting off the silence that is the examined life's requisite. You cannot examine your life too closely if you've got "Walking on Sunshine" full blast on your Walkman, as serial killer Patrick Bateman (played by Christian Bale) does in the new screen adaptation of Ellis' "American Psycho." I always thought good people needed good music to make a good life, but do the bad-to-worse characters of Ellis' imagination need music to drown out the sound of their own consciences?"
So, for those of you who found the music intolerable-- here's your defense.
"The genius of director Mary Harron's film "American Psycho" is the way she juxtaposes Ellis' musical tirades into the action. In the movie, she has Bateman delivering his manifestos he's killing people. Harron's comic timing is impeccable. Now, when Bateman's talking up Huey Lewis and the News he's jabbering that their album "Sports" is "a personal statement about the band itself" as he ax-murders a guy. After he's finished the guy off, Bateman absorbs "Hip 2 Be Square" with blood all over his face; he lights a cigar, and -- something Ellis would probably never let him do -- actually listens to the song. Even though sometimes the reader feels like Ellis is letting Bateman get away with murder, the author punishes his protagonist: He has no peace; and despite the fact that Bateman shall have music wherever he goes, it's Collins' "Sussudio," which strikes me as punishment enough"
I'll end here by swearing that I don't write for Salon, and this is not just one big plug for them, but they do have some pretty great stuff.
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I was thinking that all this talk of directorial perspective vs. author intent made me want to read the book. From this, they're attributing the heavy-handedness of satire to the female director, but alot of it probably also has to do with the distance: the book was published in 1991 while the movie wasn't made until 2000, which kind of leaves wide open the oppertunity for fetishisng the 80's-ness of the film...
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