American Psycho is a savage account of a wealthy investment banker in the late 80s that commits heinous acts of murder, rape, and torture. Although on the surface, American Psycho seems as though it is just another horror story, it actually has a much deeper message. This story is a harsh critique of a superficial Wall Street society in the late 80s that was rampant with materialism and greed. This is the society in which the main character Patrick Bateman lives–where appearance, material possessions, and status define a person. This superficial existence leaves him hollow and dead inside and turns him into a psychopathic killer. A society such as this, devoid of any morality, inevitably creates psychopaths such as Bateman. The film shows an excellent portrayal of a vacant, nihilistic killer with no feelings or emotions. However, there is something more to the story that the film did not quite capture. The book seems to not only be a satirical take on this society, but a tragedy as well. Recreating the dinner scene with his secretary Jean shows that underneath the surface Patrick Bateman is, indeed, a human being with real feelings and emotions, and that it is a great tragedy that this superficial society has turned him into a monster.
The book, and to a certain extent the film, clearly convey the importance the characters place on appearance, material possessions, and status. The book is countlessly punctuated with descriptions of the designer clothing that Bateman and other characters are wearing. There are frequent descriptions of the latest high-tech equipment that he owns and wants. Bateman and the other characters eat exclusively at elegant five-star restaurants, and expect extremely high quality and elaborate dishes. Stat...
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...vey as well as the book the idea that perhaps there is a caring human being underneath the mask that is Patrick Bateman.
Bateman is not just a nihilistic killer devoid of feelings or emotions. There is something inside of him that yearns for something more than what is just on the surface. Admittedly, this wanting is severely misplaced through murder, rape, and torture. By creating a character like Jean, however, the author is able to show Bateman’s caring, sincere reactions to her–something the film does not quite convey. American Psycho is not just a satirical take on a superficial Wall Street society, but it is also a tragedy. Recreating the dinner scene with Jean shows that underneath the surface Patrick Bateman is, indeed, a human being with real feelings and emotions. Therein lies the great tragedy that this superficial society has turned him into a monster.
{ Hitchcock never explicitly referred to or mentioned developments of the period or the ongoing political machinations that made daily news; and while he hardly stove to substantiate David Lehman’s claim for the overriding theme in Hitchcock’s America, that “paranoia is sometimes a reasonable response to events in a world of menace” (qtd in Pomerance 12). As pointed out by Marshall Deutelbaum Hitchcock’s films were diligently faithful in their representation of the look and style of American everyday reality and it repeatedly focused on the
On a cold Halloween night in 1963, in the film Halloween, a six-year-old boy named Michael Myers was seen stabbing his older sister to death with a gigantic kitchen knife then leaving to stand outside the house with a blank expression on his face. As a result he was sent to Smith Grove’s Mental Hospital which he escapes from 15 years later to go after 17 year old Laurie Strode and her friends Lynda and Annie. Warshow’s essay, The Gangster as Tragic Hero, depicts American society’s need to show public cheerfulness and maintain a positive morale as well as its desire for something more sinister, something more brutal. This desire to indulge in the forbidden fruit of sadism and cruelty is what makes the gangster persona so appealing to the nation. He is the man of the city. He emerges from the crowd as a successful outlaw and his only aspiration is success through brutality.
...eam, as Romero showcases the fact that the flaws shown within the characters end up turning their situation into something far worse than it had been in the beginning. It shows just how depraved, violent and absolutely terrifying humans can easily become when put into situations without consequences. Romero’s film is dredged in cynicism towards the modern American Dream, the way he deals with symbolism towards how “just” the American system is during battles and war, and how incredibly messed up our generalized view on racism and the ever ongoing struggle for certain ethnic groups to survive is. “The negativity of the characters extends, in fact, into every facet of their lives; indeed, the film implies the deepest denial of the goodness of effectiveness of every facet of human life in general. Every kind of human relationship is ridiculed or negated in the film.” 4
Thesis: Even if you haven’t seen Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, you’ve seen it because it is apart of our collective unconscious and because of this, it has influenced a following that lead to the creation of the series Bates Motel. This prequel set in present day Oregon uses similar cinematic elements and monologue used in Psycho to explain why and how Norman Bates is a sociopath. Throughout the film and series jarring and uncomfortable scenes are accompanied by eerie string music, Norman spying on women undressing, as well as a fixation for stuffed animals. In addition to these similarities, Psycho makes the audience question Norman’s relationship with his absent mother while Bates Motel answers those questions for us.
Psycho is a brilliant example of Hitchcock’s pure command of cinema, in which many different film techniques are used to great effect to instill terror and unease in the viewer. The mise-en-scene, in particular, is Hitchcock’s way of visually selling the terror in a way that dialogue and script never could on its own. The shower scene, in particular, is notable for demonstrating some of Hitchcock’s best use of mise-en-scene – the shower itself is bare, nondescript, with the translucent curtains that allow ominous silhouettes to be seen through it. In terms of costumes, Norman Bates’ equally nondescript clothing helps to sell the mild-mannered man he is ostensibly supposed to be, while the harrowing wig and dress he is eventually revealed
Inspired by the life of the demented, cannibalistic Wisconsin killer Ed Gein (whose heinous acts would also inspire THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, 1974 and DERANGED, 1974), PSYCHO is probably Hitchcock's most gruesome and dark film. Its importance to its genre cannot be overestimated. PSYCHO's enduring influence comes not only from the Norman Bates character (who has since been reincarnated in a staggering variety of forms), but also from the psychological themes Hitchcock develops.
Psycho is a 1960 thriller directed by the well-known filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock. The movie starts in Phoenix, Arizona were Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) and her boyfriend Sam Loomis (John Gavin) are having a romantic lunch. Marion wants to marry Sam, but he has to make too many alimony payments, leaving him out with the option to have enough money to support her. Marion returns to the real estate office where she works as a secretary. In this scene Alfred Hitchcock makes a “cameo” appearing outside the real estate agency were Marion works. As she’s coming in through the front door you can see him through the glass door standing outside with a dark color jacket and his hat.
The protagonists in both American Beauty and Chocolat challenge social constraint and the need to conform, in order to achieve individual freedom. Lester Burnham is a middle aged man who has encountered his mid-life crisis and has lost sight of beauty in the world, but after meeting his Daughter, Jane’s, ‘best-friend’ Angela, Lester falls for her, which challenges social constraint, but at first, Lester only fantasises about her. The director, Sam Mendes, shows that it is a fantasy through recurring techniques through the different fantasies, such as the background becoming black, a spot light on Lester and Angela, rose petals and close ups on both characters. After Lester met his new neighbour’s son Ricky Fitts, he began to see himself in Ricky and remembered a time when he lived without care and “had my[his] whole life ahead of me[him]”. Lester begins to relive his teenage years where he “flipped burgers … party and got laid”, but then defies social constraints to chase after the teenage girl, Angela to hopefully rekindle his youth. Lester’s actions through the movie demonstrates the social constraints on middle aged men showing that one that follows social expectation “sell[s] our[their] souls and work for Satan”. Vianne Rocher in Chocolat, is depicted as working for Satan in Father Reynaud’s eyes, but compared to American Beauty where “work[ing] for Satan” is following the status quo of society but in Chocolat is the opposite where it would be rebellious and one would be an outsider for doing so in the strictly Christian town of Lansquenet. Vianne, as soon as she moved into Lansquenet, was noticed as the outcast as her daughter, Anouk, was illegitimate and they were offering temptation to the town through chocolate during the ...
This paper has attempted to investigate the ways in which Alfred Hitchcock blended conventions of film noir with those of a small town domestic comedy. It first looked at the opening scenes of the film in which the two conventions were introdruced. It then went on to analyse the film with the aid of Robin Wood's article Ideology, Genre, Auteur. From these two forms we can see that film noir and small town comedy were used as a means of commenting on the contradictions in American values.
The movie “American Beauty” is a drama film that depicts the inter-persona family relationships of repressed middle-class people, describes the process of rediscovering true values in life, and how personal changes affect inter-personal relationships (Cohen, Jinks, & Mendes, 1999). The Burnham family are the main characters of the movie, and the family consists of Lester Burhnam, Carolyn Burnham, and their daughter Jane Burnham. Lester is a desperate and frustrated man who hates his job, cannot confront his wife, does not have any respect from his daughter, and has no control over the events that occur in his life. However, Lester soon decides to leave the role of the victim and replaces his job at the magazine with a job at the fast food restaurant while blackmailing his previous boss to give him $60,000 dollars.
American History X (1998) illustrates how segregation is aggravated by missing father figures as well as the herd mentality of the characters in the film. German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of the herd mentality states that people need a concept or a worldview to adopt in order to give meaning to their lives. This herding of people who choose to adopt this certain ideal or ideals in effect causes the stifling of individual thoughts or creativity because everyone chooses to think a certain way (Floyd). This mindset that people are attracted to is not always chosen or forced but is rather seen as an obligation because of loyalties certain people have to others.
The major reason for the Babadook’s appearance in the film is the death of Amelia’s husband on the day of Sam’s birth, which has haunted her since the day it happened. Had the antagonist of the film been a male, it is likely that the character’s mental illness would be portrayed much differently, and the viewer would identify with the victims rather than with the antagonist. Even today, it is likely that a man with mental illness in a horror film would be portrayed as a violent killer. Although not necessarily considered a horror film, American Psycho provides an example in its main character, Patrick Bateman. Patrick Bateman portrayed by Christian Bale in the 2000 film, could be diagnosed with any number of mental illnesses, like antisocial personality disorder or borderline personality disorder. Of course, throughout the film, Bateman is a violent serial killer who derives pleasure from his kills. More often than not, women in modern horror cannot be like Patrick Bateman, but rather they are the victims or in the case of the Babadook, a grieving mother who cannot control her emotions. In the case of Patrick Bateman, we identify with his innocent victims. As both the victim and the antagonist, the viewer identifies with Amelia for most of the film, After, the viewer is again able to identify with Amelia as the “final girl” as she becomes a “badass” and is
Alfred Hitchcock has always been one of my favorite directors ever since I was little. My dad got me into his films at a young age and part of our bonding time revolved around watching his movies, famous or not. Psycho is a film that has always been a classic to me and one of all-time favorite Hitchcock movies. Hitchcock films present a vast of information and can be dissected and written about all based on his remarkable techniques such as his character development and his ability to create suspense and keep the viewer’s guessing. Hitchcock would use underlying messages throughout his films that completely turned the normal to twisted by his plot development. Psycho does this through having the audience suspecting a particular characters
Entrails torn from the body with bare hands, eyes gouged out with razor blades, battery cables, rats borrowing inside the human body, power drills to the face, cannibalism, credit cards, business cards, Dorsia, Testoni, Armani, Wall Street; all of these things are Patrick Bateman’s world. The only difference between Bateman and anybody else is what is repulsive to Bateman and what is repulsive to the rest of the world. Bateman has great interest in the upper class life, fashions, and social existence, but at the same time he is, at times, sickened by the constant struggle to be one up on everybody else. On the other hand Bateman’s nightlife reveals a side of him never seen during the day. Bateman is relaxed, impulsive, and confident while torturing and killing. He doesn’t have to worry about being better than anyone else. The only competition he has is his last victim. Torture and murder are the two true loves of Patrick Bateman.
American Psycho is a novel written by the American author Bret Easton Ellis. Ellis, as an author, has written and published seven literary works. American Psycho was written already in the 1980s, but it was published only in 1991. The novel had drawn a great deal of criticism even prior to its official release. When the novel was published in 1991 it was received with heavy criticism. Because of the novel’s dark nature Ellis had received death threats which suggested that Ellis should be dismembered as the victims of the novel’s fictional killer Patrick Bateman. The opinion on the novel among literary critics has changed ever since the novel had achieved cult status among readers. However, American Psycho still remains known primarily for the