I’m actually glad Gloria Steinem talked DiCaprio out of the role. He would’ve had the same effect Brad Pitt had on Fight Club. He’s the kind of leading man who convinces audiences to be on his side. Christian Bale is a charismatic actor, but he’s also a person you can be objective about. He lets the movie speak for itself, rather than speaking for the movie, in a sense. The only role DiCaprio really disappeared into was Candy in Django Unchained, and I don’t think he was at that acting stage yet when American Psycho was being made.
Dicaprio didn't look mature enough at that time and had a baby face. Bale was only 27 and looked a lot mature than 27 and fit the role perfect. What i love about Bale's performance is the subtle moments and i don't think DiCaprio could have pulled of a performance like this.
Bale as Bateman has become such an iconic role it's simply hard to imagine anybody else having played it. Thinking about Leo as Bateman is kind of like trying to imagine Chistian Bale as Jack Dawson in Titanic. It just wouldn't have been the same film at all.
I'd like to have seen it done with a much more anonymously conventionally good looking male star, a model or a soap actor who couldn't really act. I want Batemen to be a lot more flat and bland than Bale seems able to be.
There's also a scene in the book where Patrick comes across a homeless man who he blinded. The man holds a sign saying he was blinded in Vietnam. Patrick gets close and calls him a liar or says that's not how it happend. The homeless man instantly recognizes the voice and begins to freak out.
For me one of the reasons the book so so effective, is the way the most graphic and horrific violence is described in the the same way as every other part of his material life. There is no "humanity" in Bateman, there is only a observer to our world. soulless and driven only by objects. It really effected my for days after, and is terrifying
this is sooo retalable. i read this book at the age of 15 while having a spleen for serial killer novels. i had just digged through all the hannibal lecter books, talented mr. ripley and such and thought I had a thick skin, but after AP I felt a void lingering above me. at the time I didnt even understand why the book was ao effective at disgusting me.
But the thing is, there was soul in Bateman at one time. Throughout the book we're shown how crushingly boring his Wall Street life is- the endless new restaurants, the pointless conversations, the rush to always have something new. And it's all reported in this monotone, cold voice that would make you assume he was heartless. Except towards the end, after he goes on holiday with Evelyn, we start to realise just how crushing this lifestyle really is. The man is so fucking dissociated hes eating sand for god sake. And then with Jean, who seems to be the only person that actually cares about him, the only way he can connect to her is through objects (which is why he sends her all that bullshit on Valentine's). The violence isn't because hes evil, it's the only way he can connect to the world as he slowly loses his mind. But towards the end, as he gets more and more violent, it starts to lose any effect on him. Hes given up his ability to feel anything in favour of the rush for the new. Bateman isn't an evil cruel bastard, hes the victim of an evil cruel system.
@@dylandarcy1150 Great analysis as I have also wondered if AP is ultimately a story about boredom as well. But I have a slightly different take: Patrick is bored silly because he "has it all" and for the most part had it handed to him: he was born rich, he's handsome, he has a plush apartment in the high-rent district, he's got a prestigious Wall Street job that doesn't appear to require him to do much work, he eats at trendy restaurants, wears designer clothes, he has a beautiful girlfriend and doesn't have much problem scoring with other women, etc. It's the curse of having everything you want without the satisfaction of having earned any of it or had to overcome any challenges along the way. Failure to get into Dorsia is literally what counts as adversity for Bateman...so eventually the fantasizes about and then commits increasingly gory murders. Because it's the only thing that he can do that doesn't bore him.
@@DanTarrant1 Yeah! Especially considering we never see him doing work at all in the book, and it's either implied or just outright said (cant remember specifically) that his dad owns the company he works at. I fully agree that one of the main reasons he finds his life so crushingly boring is bc hes quite literally doing nothing. And the fact that he gets so proud over his job where he does nothing is one of the most hateable things about him imo.
Another change from the book: Easton has said that he deliberately wrote the outfits to be as ridiculous as possible. Apparently everything's garish and mis-matched, if you actually know all the clothes involved. Obviously, there's no way they'd translate that to screen, but it would certainly add an interesting twist if everyone looked like a clown rather than a magazine model.
Never heard that but it makes sense. I noticed the very first time I read the book that while Bateman describes in great detail the designers that he and everybody else is wearing, he never tells us more basic details, like what color anything is. Even neckties he doesn't give us much to work with. So unless you happen to know the visual differences between, say, Hugo Boss and Armani sport coats, Bateman's descriptions don't help us visualize much at all as to what the characters actually look like in a given scene. Also, of course, it's pretty absurd to think that even somebody obsessed with clothes could instantly identify the designer of every suit, tie, and pair of shoes worn by everybody he meets, even people he doesn't know. Bateman can even perform this amazing feat with womens' outfits as well! I think Ellis did this as another clue that Bateman is an unreliable narrator...
That’s so true abt rich ppl, I used to go to college in nyc and saw the super rich kids wear the weirdest designer stuff. Like, shoes that are shaped like camel toes that are apparently thousands of dollars.
I've always thought that Bateman (in the novel) getting the brand names of the outfits he and the other yuppies are wearing wrong was another way to illustrate his detachment from reality. The book opens with Bateman misidentifying the character on the Les Misérables poster. The little girl on the musicals poster is Cosette but Bateman, throughout the book, refers to her as Fantine. He also, after rambling on for several pages about how good a certain recording artist is, (Whitney Houston) admits that he doesn't recognize the songwriting credit in the liner notes of his copy of the tape for one of the songs, even though we, the reader, most likely would. (D. Parton.) Dolly Parton wrote, and performed the song "I Will Always Love You" long before Houston covered it.
@@simonmacomber7466 I do remember an interview with BEE where he said that he poured through many copies of GQ in order to come up with the descriptions of the character's outfits. I don't really recall thinking that Bateman was getting any of these "wrong" but it kind of makes sense that he was just bullshitting rather than being able to correctly identify the brand names instantly on sight. I will also admit that I wasn't aware that the character on the Les Mis posters was incorrectly identified, but I did notice that Bateman was fond of pointing out every time he saw the poster, which I figured was BEE's commentary on the growing class divide in America.
my favorite part of the book is where patrick microwaves and eats a jellyfish, and also eats sand. hes 100x crazier in the novel, not just in terms of violence.
God damn it, I just commented something similar 11 months later apparently. He's so absolutely deranged by the end of the book it's equally horrifying and hilarious. Him talking to the bench is something else
I don’t think ‘boring’ is the best way to describe the book. It is moreso EXHAUSTING and diminishes any potential idolization of the yuppie/psychopath archetype. As other comments have stated, he is completely obsessed with objects and material goods (as well as himself as an object) to such an extent that it is a curse. The droning text by Ellis is the best medium to portray this aspect of his tortured character. It’s immense detail is also extremely illustrative - as pointed out in the video - that it is difficult to read, not in a boring sense but that it is difficult to escape Bateman’s reality (real or imagined, it does not matter). Nonetheless I love the movie and Bale’s delivery of his script is just brilliant.
I thought it was horribly boring. I rarely fail to finish a book, but I gave up on this one. One of the only books I found more tedious was Less Than Zero, which I also didn't finish. The love for Easton Ellis confuses the hell out of me- sometimes you just have to accept you don't "get" an author, or their style doesn't click with you.
@@mankytoes If he doesn't work for you, fair enough. I've never understood the big deal over Virginia Woolf. I did enjoy the book, I thought it was very dark humour. I'm not one of these folk who just follows fashions. But if someone else didn't enjoy it, that's okay too.
@@anonb4632 agreed. I prefer the book. I find his inner monologue hilarious and the movie misses these moments. Like the Tom cruise elevator nose bleed.
Absolutely. You are not meant to be drawn in or understand or appreciate Bateman's fascination with food or fashion. They are meant to show his obsessive neurotic ways of thinking. I.e. while you are thinking about what you need to do about work, he's thinking about all the expensive clothes his buddies are wearing and how they all look shit compared to him
Films like “American Psycho” open themselves up to a healthy application of headcanon and speculation since what is objectively real is in question. The way I like to read it: Patrick Bateman is a murderer and his crimes (or some of them, anyway) happened. The horror of the story is not the depravity Bateman will indulge in, but the fact that the world around him refuses to acknowledge it. I believe that he did kill Paul Allen, but no one is willing to believe him because he “fits the mould” so well. For Bateman, a psychopath wanting to buck the yuppie trend with horrific nihilistic acts, his personal hell is that he’ll never be acknowledged as “different” from the people he loathes. His crimes will go unnoticed (or unacknowledged) and the world will keep spinning. That, to me, is the true condemnation of yuppie culture the book and movie are trying to get at. It’s so up its own ass that it can’t see a serial killer for what they are as long as they are wearing designer shoes.
I agree with this, I always thought he truly was murdering people (at least Paul Allen) and that because of his status, it was wiped clean. Even the detective, who was given very obvious clues and flags, just shrugged them off. And I think the ending scene with the lawyer solidifies it: "I had dinner with him twice in London." Almost telling him that's the "story" he needs to commit to. And with the realtor in Paul Allen's apartment who told him to go and never come back. I think they were all in on it and cleaning up his mess, which further exasperated his mental condition
@@suddendallas I don't think its so much about people being in on it and knowing Pat as a murder. What I think the book really tries to hammer home is all these people are interchangeable and maybe to an extent they know this themselves. When he's questioned by Kimbell it may seem like he's giving away he really knows Paul Owen more than he leads on. You hear the same things from, I believe Van Pattern when Pat asked him what the detective spoke to him about. Kimbell I think knows these wall street types to be the same narcissists who obsess over themselves and everyone in their circles that none of Patrick's oddities really stand out to him.
The ATM tells Bateman "Feed me a Stray Cat." In the book, a park bench gains sentience and follows him home, making us doubt the reliability of his mind. The way Bateman kills people is so comically ridiculous in both the movie and the book that we can doubt he actually does them. The food the characters eat in the restaurants is also ridiculous stuff that would be inedible if actually served, but the characters are so drugged up that it doesn't matter. There is another youtube video where an expert on business card fonts and production explains what is wrong with the business card scene, with explanations on what debossing is, how raised lettering works, and that Paul Allen's card does not really have a watermark. To me, all those are clues in the book that Patrick Bateman might be too unreliable of a narrator to really be a murderer.
My first watch was far more objective, but rewatching the movie again recently, I took the film a lot more lightly and viewed the comical violence as a sort of criticism of the dark nature of hollywood psychopath archetypes, and how when an archetypal psychopath gets what they want, it really just deteriorates their sense of what's real completely, and their obsession becomes a spectacle for the audience. I even viewed the introduction scene as a sort of metaphor for how an actor readies themselves for a role. Bateman repeatedly admitting that he feels more-or-less like a void, it feels like an affirmation that he is portraying an archetype, not a single character. In all honesty, definitely not the angle I think the director intended, but it's the feeling I got watching it.
My thoughts during the restaurant scenes were usually wondering how he could possibly get enough calories with all the exercising he's doing and how funny 'being healthy' was then as opposed to now. Regarding the business cards, was the RU-vid video about the book card scene or the movie card scene? Because from my memory they were very different. I might be wrong but i remember thinking the movie version was especially bizarre and funny since all the cards are exactly the same whereas in the book they are all clearly different. Btw, I suppose you can disregard if something just went over my head😅
@David Sarmiento yeah i respectfully disagree with the idea that it was all or most of a dream/illusion 😴🚫, sure definitely more than 200% sure of some illusions (like the car exploding at the police exchange in the movie 🚓💥🔫), but bateman is insane in both versions with a little sympathy in the movie 🎥🍿, I haven’t read the novel yet it seems pretty Erie and depressing though, Wish the movie was longer even though American Psycho still is a one of a kind ☝️💝💯
😂😂😂when my hubby gets all weird about putting on moisturizer/skincare I remember this and comfort myself by thinking ''well that probably means he's not a serial killer then"
A lot of people misunderstand the book. It’s meant to be tedious and drawn out to display how mundane and meaningless his life really is. It also goes to show that people really don’t matter to Bateman, clothes and brands do. Everyone is interchangeable.
I’ve always thought that ending was a comment on how the individual doesn’t actually matter in the corporate world. The people are so interchangeable that you can murder and no one bats an eye
You're not wrong. The director herself has went on record as saying that Bateman's killing spree is real, and in the end he meets a man who proclaims to have lunch with one of Bateman's victims. He'll never be caught because no one will ever notice. In the end his confession means nothing
the “rat” and most of the “girl” chapters had me completely sick at my stomach after reading them. like couldn’t finish a paragraph without taking a break. the movie is just funny to me
im quite desensitised to gore and violence but reading the "girls" chapter with Tiffany and Torri, thats definetely the scene that made me go "what the fuck did i just read?" especially after what he did to Tiffany.
Nobody ever talks about Patrick's first 'slip' as he narrates the novel, involving a can of hairspray and a memory of something he did the year before. It catches you by surprise and you begin to realise what a monster he is.... Then nothing happens for a good 50 pages lol. But that makes it even more genius
As well as the bloodied sheets at the dry cleaners. That was the big wake up call for me since up until that point in the book that’s the first more descriptive act of violence that had occurred. The first 100 pages go much slower and mundane than say the first 10-15 minutes of the film which I personally find more impactful. The slower tempo of his deterioration in his day to day life compared to the last 100 pages where there’s violence upon violence.
The 21st chapter is the whole purpose of the book. Fun fact-for years the book was printed in the US without the 21st chapter and instead had a dictionary of the Nadsat slang spoken in both mediums. I think the first real US print of the 21st chapter was published in the early 90s.
I read the book in the nineties and when I heard it would be film I thought it would be a disaster. It is not. It is probably the best adaptation of a book to a movie ever, considering the difficulty of the task. It is not faithful as the book is very experimental and the narrative is complex, but the spirit is there
Even though it's not really a horror film and more of a dark comedy, the scene with the real estate agent is one of the most subtly eerie scenes I've ever seen in a movie.
@@matthi9384 Most of the interesting series are gone now, like earthling cinema. I think it's just more about the shift in the channel direction more than worrying about stereotyping.
SPOILERS FOR THE BOOK: The one thing about the cabbie scene though that hints to me that it's just Bateman's imagination is this: he has had full blown hallucinations before where characters are saying things that his mind has made up. Patrick Bateman is the definition of an unreliable narrator. The concert scene with Bono comes to mind, and the Tom Cruise scene. Especially the part where he states that Tom Cruise is living in his apartment building currently and yet he only runs into him a single time in the book, when he's riding the elevator with him. That could be just the reality of living in a big apartment building in New York, but Bateman has proven multiple times to make things up and so as the book goes on, his stories start to become less and less believable; especially the murders which get less and less inconspicuous. I'd almost say that past page 140, you almost can't trust anything that he says. One of the few things that IS reality is that one of Evelyn's neighbors is decapitated, but again there's no proof that Bateman actually killed her (even in his own mind). In fact, there's more proof that Bateman didn't actually kill her in the fact that he doesn't describe her death in gory detail, which he pretty much always does in the book as he loves to hyperfixate on every horrible detail of someone's murder. He may have attributed her death to himself after Evelyn told him about it. The scene with the realtor can also be attributed to him being extremely paranoid. In reality, she could have just been put off by a stranger showing up unplanned to a luxury apartment showing, and simply asking him to leave as she thinks he might be mentally unstable (which he very much is). So honestly I can believe that in reality, Bateman had a schizophrenic breakdown in the cab, thinking that the cabbie knows what he's done due to his own fear of being caught for what he thinks he did; then he imagines the cabbie robbing him, when in reality he just gave him his valuables and ran out of the car with no explanation. Let me ask you this: Does Bateman ever see his own wanted poster? Is there any evidence past what a character says? (or at least he thinks they say) No, no he doesn't. Again, you cannot trust a word that he says, since he clearly doesn't even know what's real anymore.
That's not in the book and it's anachronistic seeing as as the line was quoting T2 from 1991 and Bateman is recording that answer phone message in the late 80s
I have read some fucked up horror books and seen a lot of horror films but that was the closest to wanting to vomit I have ever felt while reading. It was deeply uncomfortable and I still don't know how I managed to get through the book. I still have a copy on my book shelf and I know I'm never going to read it again.
Yeah, the rat in the metal bucket held to a womans abdomen while a candle burns under it, forcing the rat to gnaw its way out though the soft abdomen. It is so completely messed up i had my doubts about Easton Ellis sanity after reading it
@@Madsovic999 That's... not quite what he did with the rat. In any case Ellis didn't invent the idea of rat torture. It may have been a historic torture method (jury is still out on the veracity of that), and variations can be found in other works of fiction such as Nineteen Eighty Four and Game of Thrones.
Yeah that was fecking horrific, I watched a Today I Found Out vid the other day on Ancient torture, and one was the Rat torture and I said NOPE NOPE NOPE!
I love the part where he mistakes a college student as a homeless person in the book and puts a dollar bill into her full cup of coffee and then just runs away while panicking 😂
For once i preferred the movie over the book: viewing bateman from outside his narrative perspective, harron really drew out how much of a pathetic loser he is rather than the cool suave professional he portrays to be
Yes indeed, having a perspective of his "wall street career" where his dad "almost owns the firm", this is really pathetic trying to "fit in". And this is the real face of Patrick Bateman - daddy's son. The problem is, that depictured Christian Bale as P.B. is too good for the role of a pathetic loser, so it's giving you a misleading perspective on his character.
@@juliewestevents1567 I mean I don't know if I *understand* the man, but I do know that I'd rather read about twill and pantsuits and high society than gruesome, misogynistic murders. I have a strong stomach, but the cannibalism scenes in the book were really, really gruelling. Like, the movie -pardon the phrasing - was so much more palatable than the book. And I'm a person who actually giggled my way through the Hannibal books, because I found them cheesy and not really scary. American Psycho is one of the most difficult and unpleasant reads I've ever endured, but the descriptions of fabric weren't the problem! At least for me. Art's subjective, and all.
Yeah, this was one of my favourite books to read, and a big part of that was how in depth we get to know this character. Instead of gliding from beginning to middle to end, this novel gave us in-depth glimpses into how Bateman sees the world, thinks, acts. The book was also incredibly funny throughout, and not boring at all in my opinion. While I enjoyed the film adaptation, as most of the scenes are directly taken from the book (even if they are heavily reduced in length, cut, rearranged and merged) a lot of what made the book great, which is for me Batemans excessive inner monologues, was absent in the movie.
The Bret Easton Ellis novel was the only time the written word has made me feel physically ill… The description of the woman he nailed to his apartment floor and tortured with the rat…the words created such a visceral image in my head I had to put the book down
i read the book not along ago and i always tell my friends that movie bateman has some sort of likability for some reason... but the bateman in the book is literally inhuman
Sure, but let's nor forget it's hollywood we're talking about. A non-hollywood movie could have been way more faithful to the book. The movie is just a sanitised version of the story, that's all that it is, a fast-food-like entertaining spectacle with predigested morals, that don't work because they're second-hand(we don't actually see what he does), hence the people idolising him. Screen Bateman's violence is harmless, he's almost a Tom and Jerry cartoon character.
The book was one of the most disturbing works that I've ever read. I put it up there with 'Diary of a Rapist' and 'Lolita.' I was physically nauseous after reading it.
For me the biggest difference was his relationship with Jean.. In the novel, there's a chapter of his encounter with her outside work.. It's the only part of the book where Bateman is feeling something beside "greed and total disgust"..
I really liked the moment in the book where one of his friends try to escape the club they're in by running out of the tunnel (it's a deleted scene in the movie) and not be mentioned for half the book, just to show up later on with no reference to him being gone, especially at the end when Bateman is sitting under the sign of the restaurant that says 'No Exit'. As if the boring, insane Yuppie world is impossible to escape once you're in it which would have contributed towards him becoming the psychopath he is in the first place
I found the book really hard to read but at the same time it was brilliant. It is really well written from the perspective of a psychopath. All the thought patterns, all the seemingly unimportant things he thinks about (probably to cope with his lethal feelings). If you don't skip the endless paragraphs about designer clothes, you will notice some funny contradictions. But I can't say that it was a pleasure to read. It still is a masterpiece of art.
The book is far from boring, Patrick is much more insane in the book, the part in the book where he convinces the one girl to come home with him, the things he does to her are horrific, and it tells it in very graphic detail, in the book, it details his slow decent into total insanity, at one point he believes a park bench is following him, I love the book and recommend it.
Im late to this vid, but I completely agree. He’s far more insane and scarier in the novel. Im reading it rn, i just finished the chapter with the child in the zoo. The chapter where he convinced Bethany to come back to his apartment, and the things he does to her are just insane. The way the book goes into detail about everything he does to her is just wow. Obviously very grotesque but intriguing in a way💀 not to sound weird. I def do recommend the book as well
I’d love a comparison of the show “You” versus the novel. In the show even though Joe does some horrible things, we still kind of root for him. In the novel, it’s so interesting to hear 100% of that inner monologue and really hear how sick and twisted he truly is
@@simonblackwell3576 it’s worth a read for sure, the first book is almost page for page the events of the first season, the second book is where things get really interesting because it’s actually quite different, although still great. You see the show in a totally different way after reading the book, while we get tastes of Joe’s delusions in the show, in the novel we fully experience what an utter psychopath he is
@@andyn46 Him being so attractive and his voice being so seductive in the show definitely makes it easier to root for him. It says a lot about humanity: We forgive attractive, charismatic people for horrific behavior all the time.
It just occurred to me that Patrick might have been confused about Paul Allen's identity while they were having dinner and the rest of the evening, just as Paul Allen thinks he's someone else the whole time.
DiCaprio is a fantastic actor, but Bale's performance in this role is and was sublime. I couldn't imagine a single other actor on the planet would have done this role as much justice as Bale gave it!
I didn’t find the lists boring but fascinating. This is where the true psychosis lies. His confusing Eponine with Cosette. The brand names of ties subtly changing without comment. The historiography of the West Side being undesirable. This is where Bateman’s fragmented reality comes to life and is thrilling. By contrast the helicopter scene is crazy over the top. It’s where I go-oh, this is just unreal. It’s all a dream. Of Heron wanted otherwise, she could have done with an edit.
@@phillipclay5287 Ngl this is hilarious but only two dudes out of eight that were in the band were on heroin, and that wasn't until after they got big so obviously they had a pretty solid philosophy before that otherwise they wouldn't have had a better life and career than most PEOPLE period. I know it was a joke but some people are stupid and might think you're serious so instead Im making myself look stupid by explaining something obvious that everyone could just google
17:26 Honestly the cab driver scene still makes me doubt reality. The guy knows Bateman killed his friend yet doesn't call the cops just because there's no reward? That makes as much sense as the real state agent covering up Paul Allen's death to sell the apartment
I've been obsessed with this movie for as long as I can remember -- in high school, I made my best friend and the two guys we were with watch it and needless to say that maybe wasn't the best first impression
The most important difference IMO is that in the book those detailed descriptions anchor the initial narrative and gradually go away, leaving the story more and more chaotic. You are not sure if the things are really happening AND you are not sure Patrick is getting more crazy or if you are entering more in his mind as the facade of normalcy is abandoned.
In the book, the part with the child and the part with the fluorescent light tube unsettled me in ways I cant begin to describe. The movie didn't really deliver any of the same extremes in emotions. Its a good film, just not the story I read.
You're totally right about the book and the movie being two special kinds of animal. I LOVED both but the book has this tendency to page after page of insignificant detail, the movie is a streamlined piece of magic, taking the best pieces from the book and concentrates on the satirical elements and as you said, the more 'Fun' elements. One is a companion piece for the other.
I'm one of the ones who thought the movie was all in his head when I saw the movie the first time in 2000. In retrospect it might just be that there where a lot of movies around that time with either ambiguous endings or that kind of plot twist, that completely change everything we thought we knew. Sixth Sense, Memento, Fight Club to name a few so the audience was primed into reading too much into that conversation in the end thinking there was a huge plot twist when there really wasn't. I might have to rewatch it, it's been 20 years (damn I feel old....).
The explicit violence of the novel is absolutely fundamental, along with the descriptive sections about music, clothing, furniture, etc. More than a satire about yuppie culture, the book is a commentary about 80s american pop culture in general, and about how frivolous, superficial, explicit, saturated, bombastic and even pornographic it really is. Patrick Bateman lives in a world of high-definition superficiality, he himself is nothing beyond surface. In order to fit in with humanity, he can only only rely on surface appearances, for it is the only thing he knows. This only exacerbates his own madness, leading him to ever greater brutalities against his victims, in an attempt to pierce these surfaces - and alas, finding only more bloody surfaces... Therefore, the violence serves not only as an exacerbated critique of "porno" culture, but it also represents the ultimate consequence of a purely superficial existence.
I can't remember much of the book because of his extensive rants on superficial things and I think that's kind of the point: he's completely, utterly empty. If I'm not mistaken, one of the characteristics of someone with anti social personality disorder is feeling constantly bored, so those monologues kinda put you in the mindset of being bored out of your skull precisely because that's how he feels all the time. His extremely gory murders are the closest he can get to excitement. It's an absolute hell inside his head. One part that really impacted me was that scene when he calls his secretary from a public phone, rambling and yells "just say no!" to some lunch appointment. In the book, the way it's written in such an anxiety inducing way, a few minutes that feel like they last for hours, feel so much like an actual panic attack, you feel like the entire environment is hostile and somehow gives you the feeling of depersonalization. I read that years ago but I remember having to do breathing exercises because I was almost having a panic attack. Overall, I think the author did a fantastic job of portraying the mindset of someone with severe mental issues.
@6:22 "in the book he's positively inhuman" *What about the Hamptons vacation with Evelyn, or the park bench chapter with Jean? *Not to mention the music critiques. .. Bateman might be the most ambiguous character in modern American literature: mind-numbingly materialistic and grotesquely sadistic - however not "inhuman" in the slightest way.
I have to absolutely disagree with the book being boring. The whole point of why Ellis wrote Patrick Bateman’s inner monologue in that dry fashion was to show a true and stark contrast with the joy that he felt by the utter degradation of women and pure bliss he felt while destroying something, anything, himself. Psychopaths do not feel joy or titillation in the same way that everyone else does, so obviously their inner monologue is not going to be bursting at the brim with action, elation, depression, love, fear, etc. I was absolutely enthralled with how Ellis pulled you into the banal drudgery of a psychopaths everyday interactions. The book is SO ABSOLUTELY TRAUMATIZING in its depiction of violence and I was appreciative of the soothing lull that was Patrick’s bored outlook on humans and life in general. Honestly, that is the point I am trying to make is that the book wasn’t boring, we were sharing in Patrick’s boredom. Which…to be honest, I am sure a lot of us can relate with when it comes to our daily lives. 🤷🏼♀️
The ‘A glimpse of a Thursday afternoon’ chapter is a great indication in my view that Bateman committed every crime. It begins mid sentence in which Bateman seems to have no idea where he is an undergoes some sort of breakdown. The chapter shows that Bateman is capable of losing track of time, enduring these blackouts in which he essentially sleepwalks throughout the day. Therefore, what’s to say that he didn’t endure one of these blackouts, clean the apartment and then return to see the woman there, who is selling the apartment because Allen is presumed missing by the authorities and she wants to take advantage of this. At the same time though, it’s possible that the woman herself cleaned the apartment as in a certain chapter - I don’t remember the name - Bateman’s maid enters his apartment and cleans a bloodstain off the wall will little protest. Doesn’t really matter at the end of the day, but I’m certain that he committed all of the crime in the book at least.
I read this book, several times. I was fascinated and horrified by the ongoing theme of dissonance. There was no particular reason or rational, there was no 'worthy' to live . What I found most amazing is that the killer tries over and over to confess, even going so far as to leave a voice message on his colleges phone. The worst part of the book, for me , was when he killed an old man and the old man's dog, a shar pei. In conversation with the old man, he had just told brett that he was moving to Florida. That's when I realized how arbitrary all this slaughter really was, and it almost made me throw up. What did the poor dog do to deserve to be slaughtered so visciously?
Always found it interesting in the book where his brother is the only character Bateman doesn’t give a clothing or physical appearance description to. I don’t know what that means but I know it isn’t just because he hates him as he hates a few people and still gave their descriptions. Also almost every woman is blonde.
I read the book for a literature class when I was 19.. I dont think most students were comfortable or had the stomach for the material at hand. The book is way more graphic than the movie.
Oh my god thank you...it took so much for me to finish that book a few years back. It was gory as hell and also SO BORING. I just remember wondering why the hell there were album reviews as whole-ass chapters. SIR 👏🏿NO👏🏿ONE👏🏿CARES👏🏿
The book is boring right up until it’s not and then it makes you wanna throw up and cry at what you’re reading. Easton Ellis is truly one of the great modern writers.
They're both respectively excellent. In a few respects the film is superior, it's pacier and presents more characters with whom we can empathise such that we're more emotionally invested in what happens to them. However, the filmmakers understood that film is a different medium so they wisely toned down the violence and strengthened the connection between the materialism and the misogyny, mirroring the real-world dehumanisation that Ellis was critiquing. Both works are notable and worthwhile when taken on their own terms but I've yet to hear a compelling argument in favour of the novel over the film. Fact is some adaptations are superior to their source material, see also Batman: The Animated Series and The Godfather.
As a teacher of a HS course called Literature & Film, I am excited by this new series you have started. So far, though, the two choices--this and Fight Club...books and films--have a lot of similarities. I hope that there is more variety to come. Keep up the good work. (My personal favorite is 2001: A Space Odyssey)
I always liked how much more ambiguous the film is at the end cause it says more about how even when a severely mentally ill person is screaming out for help, telling everyone around they are going to or have hurt people, and no one takes them seriously. No one does anything to stop it or help a psychopath before they become violent because its too uncomfortable to address. The film definitely portrays a culture that couldn't address an underlying problem if it was dropped dead in front their noses
Dominic Noble has been doing "Lost in Adaptation" video essays for years... But to my knowledge he hasn't done American Psycho yet. So thanks for this!
I think the cab driver part in the book should have been a scene, it would probably be the most powerful scene in the entire movie and I think it would convey the message of the film best, especially because it doesn't come from a deranged psychopath, but a regular person.
In the book the book his family owns the Company he works for, also his brother is a spook or cia, so he could have stuff covered up even though he hates him. Big wealthy family, mummy says look after Patrick??
The book is literally 10x more disturbing than the film. I totally forgot he kills a boy at the zoo, and Paul Owen's (Allen) death scene is way more graphic. He also hooks up jumper cables and battery pack to a hooker's boobs and cooks her alive and eats another hooker's brains (one of many). He doesn't KILL the homeless dude like in the film but he does gouge his eyes out and later we see the same dude with a sign saying he was in Vietnam and Bateman whispers "you weren't in Nam". Oddly enough, Bateman's role in The Rules of Attraction novel actually shows him as a man who is sad about his father being a vegetable and sad that his brother doesn't care about anything.
I finished the book recently. I was surprised to see that there is a clothing line inspired by the character. Then I learned it’s based off the character in the movie. The character in the book is much more brutal than the movie and not someone to be inspired by in any way. I also skipped some of the chapters, like the Whitney Houston and the Huey Lewis chapters. I understood why they were in the book, but they were just boring haha
I totally disagree with your read on Evelyn. She is portrayed as shallow in the movie too. In the scene where Patrick breaks up with her she starts bawling to make a scene and after Patrick leaves she shuts it off immediately, giving us a look like "Well that didn't go like I wanted it to". You guys literally played the clip in this video!
"Choke" would be an interesting one to cover.... one of the few times I've ever seen a movie try to be too loyal to the book and have it backfire. Great book, cluttered movie.
I am currently reading the book after seeing the movie a few times over the years, and I gotta say it is much more disturbing. The way the reader is just constantly in Bateman's psychotic, overly descriptive mind simply cannot be replicated via film and makes for some twisted shit.
I feel like this guy is just reading a script. It's staged. He has no real passion for this. That's why mainstream is dying and a lot of independent creators are gaining steam.
What I love so much about this channel is that no matter which video I click, whether I know about the themes or media it deals with or not, I am guaranteed to find an entertaining, very-well made, highly interesting and even educational dive into the topic. And no matter who presents it to me, I always enjoy it. Great work guys, thanks so much for all your content. A few weeks back when I first found you I commented you might become my favorite channel, and here you are, already firmly holding in a place in my un-ranked, all-time top three. Thank you!
The book more effectively does what Easton Ellis set out to do, but this also makes it much less enjoyable. It's effective at making you hate Bateman but it's really a slog at points. Also, the sheer depravity of the violence committed against women in the novel really makes you question Easton Ellis' views on women, questions that are only reinforced by a lot of his public statements
I think the movie is more relatable whereas the book is terrifying, everyone has thought about killing someone, not everyone thinks about eat someone or ripping out their eyes.
I don't remember thinking the book was boring. Actually I laughed out loud more reading that book than any other I've read. The digressions where he reviews Whitney Houston or Huey Lewis are satire gold. As for whether the murders happened or not, I think the ambiguity is the point. For Bateman, killing in real life and killing in his head are no different, since he feels nothing for his victims either way. It's yet another way of pointing out how the materialist yuppie culture leads to solipsism and nihilism.
Gotta' be honest, as much as the movie was interesting, I feel like I just didn't get it, at least enough to enjoy watching the movie as a whole. Even if the Huey Lewis and the News scene was great.
@@anjiwhatever5644 - Yeahh, I mean I think I got what it was trying to say and everything, but I just didn't get the appeal of the movie itself enough to enjoy the experience watching it. Even if it was touch and go every so often like you said.
@@biketickler65 - Yep, I got those parts of the movie, but honestly I just feel like I've personally seen so much of that that it's hard to see something I can get out of it personally, apart from it reiterating the 'don't be a douche like this dude' rule. For me, films that explore the human experience are so much more engaging, movies like Her are just absoltely masterpieces. Not that all movies have to be that, just that I feel like those movies do much more when exploring the personal and cosmic ideas of just being a human being. All that to say, I guess American Psycho just isn't my kinda' film.
I have Asperger's, and as a result I find it very difficult to keep track of names in books and movies, so as a result the theme of 'everyone of these people are the same' was enhanced tenfold
AMERICAN ICON Reese Witherspoon. You describe her with the same banality the book does any other person or commodity, and I'm not sure you guys had the same satirical approach.