Current Events > Finally got around to watching American Psycho *spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

Bateman's insecurities is funny so I get why people make jokes about it all the time and treat it as satire. At the same time, it's unsettling because there are so many who are as obsessed with that bougie shit as he is. You see people getting extremely upset and even angry about social media flex posts all the time now.

Anyways, I read interpretations about the film afterwards, and I'm surprised to see so many people say it's all in his head. I thought the corrupt landlords covered up the apartment and the lawyer confuses people with each other so the point was that society is fucked up, and Bateman can kill all those people and get away with it. Other people are saying that's proof that none of the murders happened.

I've seen the sequel so I already know the answer

I think its intentionally written to be able to be taken both ways

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


Her demeanor seems to be of someone who's seen dead bodies on the regular and doesn't care. That question about the fake ad made it so clear that she held the power in that conversation.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/4/0/AAcI8BAADj3c.jpg

In my watch the movie is pretty unambiguous that the murders didn't happen. Paul Allen really did go to London as confirmed by the lawyer, and most of the murders in the movie take place at "Paul Allen's apartment." The London story was discovered by Willem Dafoe, and Dafoe confirmed that Patrick was with his pals the night Paul disappeared.

The sequence from where the ATM tells him to feed it a cat up until he calls his lawyer is flagged from the beginning to not quite be reality. Patrick hallucinates the message from the ATM. Then the police cars explode like an action movie after he fires a couple potshots at it. He even looks at his gun, bewildered, at what just happened.

A particularly critical detail in this sequence is the office buildings. First, Patrick enters a building as though he is fleeing to his office. The clerk spots him so he shoots him, and he shoots the janitor on the way out. Then the next building we see Patrick enter is... clearly the same building. Its layout is identical, and this time Patrick greets the clerk as though he is pulling out a gun but really takes out a pen.

This visual cue of "Patrick says his real, frustrated feelings, then restates the 'appropriate' response" is echoed repeatedly in the movie, and it's no mistake that this scene is presented the way it is. The first building is what happens in Patrick's fantasy, and the following loop is his mundane reality.

It's also noteworthy that the major scenes Patrick has when not with his coworkers are all structured like different genres of fantasy. Patrick records himself with the prostitutes to do his own porno. The chainsaw murder where Allen's apartment is filled with corpses is Patrick starring in a slasher flick. And the police chase is Patrick's action movie.

What is Patrick's recurring catch phrase? "I have to return some video tapes."

Him filming the porno happens after we see a similar porno on his television. The slasher fantasy coincides with him listening to the screams of a slasher flick while doing his morning crutches.

Now show me Paul Allen's card

Doe posted...

In my watch the movie is pretty unambiguous that the murders didn't happen. Paul Allen really did go to London as confirmed by the lawyer, and most of the murders in the movie take place at "Paul Allen's apartment." The London story was discovered by Willem Dafoe, and Dafoe confirmed that Patrick was with his pals the night Paul disappeared.

The sequence from where the ATM tells him to feed it a cat up until he calls his lawyer is flagged from the beginning to not quite be reality. Patrick hallucinates the message from the ATM. Then the police cars explode like an action movie after he fires a couple potshots at it. He even looks at his gun, bewildered, at what just happened.

A particularly critical detail in this sequence is the office buildings. First, Patrick enters a building as though he is fleeing to his office. The clerk spots him so he shoots him, and he shoots the janitor on the way out. Then the next building we see Patrick enter is... clearly the same building. Its layout is identical, and this time Patrick greets the clerk as though he is pulling out a gun but really takes out a pen.

This visual cue of "Patrick says his real, frustrated feelings, then restates the 'appropriate' response" is echoed repeatedly in the movie, and it's no mistake that this scene is presented the way it is. The first building is what happens in Patrick's fantasy, and the following loop is his mundane reality.

It's also noteworthy that the major scenes Patrick has when not with his coworkers are all structured like different genres of fantasy. Patrick records himself with the prostitutes to do his own porno. The chainsaw murder where Allen's apartment is filled with corpses is Patrick starring in a slasher flick. And the police chase is Patrick's action movie.

What is Patrick's recurring catch phrase? "I have to return some video tapes."

Him filming the porno happens after we see a similar porno on his television. The slasher fantasy coincides with him listening to the screams of a slasher flick while doing his morning crutches.

A big part of the film is how similar every body is, and how often people get mixed up. That's why people like the lawyer always calls people by the wrong name. It's very likely he had lunch in london with somebody else he mistook for Paul Allen. He even that Bateman was somebody else in that same conversation.

I thought the building scene was just showing how even the buildings are identical. They copy layouts.

Irony posted...

I've seen the sequel so I already know the answer

The sequel is DTV fanfiction.

Squall28 posted...

It's very likely he had lunch in london with somebody else he mistook for Paul Allen.

I don't think so, he takes the moment far too seriously and the moment of being given evidence Paul is alive seems to sway Patrick. It's specifically setup that Paul Allen claimed to go to London before disappearing too, so it would be a pretty big coincidence in a medium where there's no such thing as coincidences.

Paul Allen is also pretty high on the yuppie totem pole, the kind of guy who can get reservations at Dorsia. He's not like Patrick Bateman who's true form is described as a "dork, such a boring spineless lightweight", ie not someone you just mistakenly think you had dinner with TWICE. I agree a theme of the move is the superficiality and indistinguishable nature of everyone, but I think the directing of the "I had dinner with him twice in London" is too forceful to write it off as the lawyer's error.

And the scene of the lawyer denying it's possible is immediately proceeded by the secretary looking through Patrick's calendar and seeing all his fantasy drawings including depictions of what supposedly happened in the movie. As though not just the audience but Patrick himself is realizing those sequences were just his imagination.

Doe posted...

I don't think so, he takes the moment far too seriously and the moment of being given evidence Paul is alive seems to sway Patrick. It's specifically setup that Paul Allen claimed to go to London before disappearing too, so it would be a pretty big coincidence in a medium where there's no such thing as coincidences.

Paul Allen is also pretty high on the yuppie totem pole, the kind of guy who can get reservations at Dorsia. He's not like Patrick Bateman who's true form is described as a "dork, such a boring spineless lightweight", ie not someone you just mistakenly think you had dinner with TWICE. I agree a theme of the move is the superficiality and indistinguishable nature of everyone, but I think the directing of the "I had dinner with him twice in London" is too forceful to write it off as the lawyer's error.

And the scene of the lawyer denying it's possible is immediately proceeded by the secretary looking through Patrick's calendar and seeing all his fantasy drawings including depictions of what supposedly happened in the movie. As though not just the audience but Patrick himself is realizing those sequences were just his imagination.

I thought the calendar scene is about the secretary figuring how fucked up Bateman is. It's not a way of showing that someone didn't kill anybody. If you found someone's calendar with all those fucked up drawings, are you more or less inclined to think that person is a serial killer?

Squall28 posted...

I thought the calendar scene is about the secretary figuring how fucked up Bateman is. It's not a way of showing that someone didn't kill anybody.

In that case, what is the significance of showing the audience that scene? The immediate previous scene just established that Bateman can't be brought accountable for his feelings/actions even when he tries.

Her face is even ambiguous as we glimpse it before the camera changes to focus the drawings, it kinda looks like she's smiling even, as though to think "wow Bateman, you dork."

To show that scene in the final three minutes of the film as Bateman's place in the world is wrapped up and he gives his monologue-- what is the utility of that scene if it's to show that somebody is aware of Bateman's murders? To say that actually, the mask can be pulled off? That doesn't seem to agree with everything else presented in the ending.

Bateman's mental issues deteriorate rapidly towards the end. It's possible he didn't kill Owen but did kill others.

Tyranthraxus posted...

The sequel is DTV fanfiction.

I mean the movie is basically that compared to the book

Doe posted...

In that case, what is the significance of showing the audience that scene? The immediate previous scene just established that Bateman can't be brought accountable for his feelings/actions even when he tries.

Her face is even ambiguous as we glimpse it before the camera changes to focus the drawings, it kinda looks like she's smiling even, as though to think "wow Bateman, you dork."

To show that scene in the final three minutes of the film as Bateman's place in the world is wrapped up and he gives his monologue-- what is the utility of that scene if it's to show that somebody is aware of Bateman's murders? To say that actually, the mask can be pulled off? That doesn't seem to agree with everything else presented in the ending.

The significance is the reveal to Jean.

Also one of the writers of the movie literally said they tried to avoid "it was all a dream" interpretation.

https://www.moviemaker.com/american-psycho-ending-explained-by-writers-mary-harron-guinevere-turner/

To me and Mary, the book left it up in the air, too, what was real and what was not real. We didnt think that everything was real because some of it is literally surreal. But we just decided, together, that we both really disliked movies where the big reveal is that it was all in someones head or it was all a dream, Turner said.
We just both find that annoying. We just said were going to make a really conscious effort to have it be real, and then at some point hes sort of perceiving things differently, but theyre really happening.

Director also said

"One thing I think is a failure on my part is people keep coming out of the film thinking that it's all a dream, and I never intended that. All I wanted was to be ambiguous in the way that the book was. I think it's a failure of mine in the final scene because I just got the emphasis wrong. I should have left it more open ended. It makes it look like it was all in his head, and as far as I'm concerned, it's not."

Read More: https://www.slashfilm.com/611833/american-psycho-ending-explained/?utm_campaign=clip

it's pretty obvious he doesn't murder all those people

only the most literal of people will think otherwise.

Robot2600 posted...

it's pretty obvious he doesn't murder all those people

only the most literal of people will think otherwise.

or you know the writer and director....

some think it was a dream but i dont think it was

https://www.moviemaker.com/american-psycho-anniversary-oral-history-christian-bale-mary-harron-bret-easton-ellis/4/

The End
People still ask Harron and Turner if Batemans murders really happened, or take place in his imagination.
Mary Harron: I would never answer that. As Quentin Tarantino says, If I tell you that, I take this movie away from you. I will say theres a moment where it becomes less realistic, and thats the moment when the ATM says Feed Me a Stray Cat.

So in the first place the director/co-writer and other co-writer don't say the same thing about this. Either way, I more subscribe to an "author is dead" approach to analyzing works. What Guineverre Turner claims about the process of writing the scenes does not necessarily hold up to the textual evidence, and how she felt in developing those scenes did not necessarily translate to how those scenes resulted, and the direction that was taken to actually create those scenes past the initial text. For example, right after your quote cuts off she says,

Like he shoots at a cop car, and it just bursts into flames, and she just directed him to look at the gun like, Hmmm, how did that happen?

There's more to a movie getting made than the screenplay.

Squall28 posted...

The significance is the reveal to Jean.

But my point is, Jean no longer holds relevance to the story at that point. Patrick's interpersonal life doesn't matter in the last minutes of the movie.

Patrick's psychopath shtick and the murders are a desperate attempt at being unique and having agency in a world where everyone is such an interchangeable drone that they're acting like personalized business cards are fascinating fashion statements. It's even kind of sad at points. Like the movie plays the Huey Lewis and the News stuff for laughs but in the book it's almost depressing and relatable even because he has all these opinions about music and other stuff he likes to categorize that he obviously wants to share with people and relates to his own life, but when he's interacting with other characters they rarely actually seem to care or even notice anything he says.

It makes a lot more sense if you're thinking about it from a logical story-set-in-our-world standpoint that none of it could have happened. But the book doesn't take place in our world, it takes place in a gray miserable postmodernist parody of it. It leaves the door open for either interpretation: either Patrick Bateman is attempting to escape conformity through fantasy, or the universe itself disregarded his attempt at being unique and having agency and is just continuing to grind on. Honestly, the message is the exact same bleak conclusion either way and I don't think you're ever supposed to truly known in a concrete sense because even Paul, the most realistic and feasible murder he commits, is called into question in the end.

Lol what? The murders happened.

The scene with the realtor was pretty straighforward unless you don't sense nuance.
Her instant switch in demeanor the moment she realizes who he might be makes it clear that she's very much aware of what had been cleaned from there.

Here's the actual script excerpts by the way.
https://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/American_Psycho_Harron_Turner.html

Bateman ducks down behind a parked car and continues
shooting wildly. A bullet hits the gas tank of one of the
police cars. It catches fire and explodes. The flames light
up the scene, illuminating the bodies of policemen both living
and dead.

NEW ANGLE: Bateman flees from the scene. The camera follows
him as he runs along a row of Porsches, trying to open each
one, setting off a cacophony of CAR ALARMS.

The surreal nature of how this is presented when it was directed and filmed is absent from the screenplay.

INT. PIERCE & PIERCE LOBBY - NIGHT

Bateman nods at the Pierce & Pierce NIGHT WATCHMAN and signs
in. He breathes a sigh of relief as the elevator doors close
behind him.

This is straight up changed in the movie. Bateman doesn't breathe a sigh of relief, he is visibly distressed. The elevator doors don't close behind him in the movie; it's a close-up shot of the doors closing in front of him and the language of the scene actually gives a feeling of suffocation or being cornered.

I can't remember but she's dead too. And Paul Owen. I killed
Paul Owen with an ax, in the face. His body is dissolving
in a bathtub in Hell's Kitchen.

Just a funny detail - he was apparently originally called Paul Owen, not Allen. Perhaps the greatest change from the script, much more catchy as Allen.

There's also different omissions like some of the comments on Reagan and 'seeming so harmless' being omitted. So in conclusion, you really can't judge the movie as a work based on how they felt writing the screenplay. Because filming the movie added, subtracted, and changed things from it.

Mr_hulk88 posted...

The scene with the realtor was pretty straighforward unless you don't sense nuance.
Her instant switch in demeanor the moment she realizes who he might be makes it clear that she's very much aware of what had been cleaned from there.

He was a crazed guy who came in without an appointment and was snooping around the premises, and she's a frail old lady. I find it easier to read that she's uncomfortable that a crazy guy has run into this place, than that the property owner was able to clean out like a dozen rotting bodies and blood stains from this place, not to mention the damage Patrick supposedly did with the chainsaw and the two of them running naked, covered in blood, through the carpeted hallways of the lobby and banging on people's doors. That all this happened without a single tenant ever noticing a bloodstain or smell from the room, or in the lobby. And none of the tenants noticing, and none of the hired cleaners speaking out about, all the blood and gore they'd have to move and covertly dispose of.

The scene is crafted to be ambiguous as it's before the final reveal with Carnes the lawyer. It's surprising, and maybe you can believe it's just a corrupt hyper competent landlord with that evidence alone, but add to the fact that Carnes insists Paul Allen is alive, really is in London, and he met him twice, it becomes easier to believe that the gore scene just didn't happen.

If you think the murders didnt happen then you werent paying attention. The point of the movie is that everyone is so self-absorbed and concerned with their own lives (what restaurants theyre going to eat at, what kind of suits theyre wearing, what bathrooms theyre gonna do coke in, etc.) that the fact Bateman is so clearly a deranged serial killer goes completely over their heads. People get mistaken for other people constantly and events get entirely mixed up because, at the end of the day, none of those yuppies care about anyone other than themselves.

Mr_hulk88 posted...

Lol what? The murders happened.

The scene with the realtor was pretty straighforward unless you don't sense nuance.
Her instant switch in demeanor the moment she realizes who he might be makes it clear that she's very much aware of what had been cleaned from there.

That scene was one of the most memorable for me because she was so calm about it she scared Bateman. Like she's likely even more fucked up than he is.

https://youtu.be/0umarQbTdoo

Froggish posted...

The point of the movie is that everyone is so self-absorbed and concerned with their own lives (what restaurants theyre going to eat at, what kind of suits theyre wearing, what bathrooms theyre gonna do coke in, etc.) that the fact Bateman is so clearly a deranged serial killer goes completely over their heads.

Can you name a single time in the movie that people miss an obvious signal that Patrick is clearly a deranged killer because they're too self-absorbed? I can think of the random guy asking him what material his overnight bag was when it had a body in it, but that's not a case of self-absorption, it's materialism and it arises as a complement to Patrick. The world of the yuppies and the world of the violence are kept very separate in the film, two different aspects that Patrick himself narrates he is trying hard to keep separated.

Doe posted...

I find it easier to read that she's uncomfortable that a crazy guy has run into this place

Look at how her expression changes at 1:20. She's not uncomfortable. She's in complete control of the situation and sent Bateman packing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-or1DhmZe8I

Squall28 posted...

Look at how her expression changes at 1:20. She's not uncomfortable. She's in complete control of the situation and sent Bateman packing.

I'm talking about the change after "Are you my 2 o'clock?" / "No"

Doe posted...

He was a crazed guy who came in without an appointment and was snooping around the premises, and she's a frail old lady. I find it easier to read that she's uncomfortable that a crazy guy has run into this place, than that the property owner was able to clean out like a dozen rotting bodies

Lol? She's wasn't a frail old lady, she was like a 50 something year old executive.

That's my point about the nuance.Confusion about some guy without an appointment is when she first comes in. But the serious tone and way her expression and posture change when she says "I think you need to leave" wasn't "there's something fishy about you" , it was a direct "Oh. We both know what's up. You better leave now."

Doe posted...

but add to the fact that Carnes insists Paul Allen is alive, really is in London, and he met him twice, it becomes easier to believe that the gore scene just didn't happen.

Sure this is what make one believe that nothing really happend.
The thing is if you look at the larger picture, the surreal tone at the end of the filmis emphazing the fact that nobody cares, not that Bateman imagined it all as much as he alucinated certain things like the ATM scene.

Patrick Bateman also does not look like how we see him. Hes a nerdy looking dude that doodles on placemats in expensive restaurants he probably looks more like the dude in the bow tie. We see him how he believes he sees himself.

Squall28 posted...

Look at how her expression changes at 1:20. She's not uncomfortable. She's in complete control of the situation and sent Bateman packing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-or1DhmZe8I

This is more chilling than I remembered.

Why would she say "don't come back" to some guy who is snooping around an apartment she's trying to sell? As a realtor she would only be happy to have a rich looking guy interested even if he didn't have an appointment. The reaction is because she knows why this guy was there.

I will say when I entered this topic I felt it was unambiguous, now I think there's a lot of room (probably intentionally) to interpret the question.

I also wonder whether people will tend to come to different conclusions if they view the movie mainly about examining yuppies vs examining Patrick in particular as a person.