🔍
AMERICAN PSYCHO: How a box office failure became the most important film of a generation - YouTube
Channel: Film Perception
[0]
Twenty years after its release, American
Psycho is still remembered and discussed.
[5]
The misadventures of Patrick Bateman,
a yuppie who is also a serial killer,
[9]
triggered lots of controversies and had a
production full of ideas, twists and stars.
[21]
The original mastermind behind the story
is Bret Easton Ellis. Born in 1964, he
[26]
grew up in a middle-class family in San Fernando,
California. He and his two sisters seemed happy,
[33]
in a home that never lacked anything. Inside,
however, the reality was different. Bret's father,
[39]
real estate agent Robert Martin Ellis, was a
tough —even violent— person with alcohol issues.
[45]
Little Bret learned to channel
his pain through writing,
[48]
and took the habit of wearing all black clothing.
Both traits would accompany him thereafter.
[53]
After finishing high school, he enrolled at
Bennington College, Vermont. There, he played the
[58]
keyboard in some bands, but soon turned completely
into literature. In those days, he wrote his first
[65]
novel: Less Than Zero. Published in 1985, about a
college student who returns to home in Los Angeles
[72]
for Christmas and gets together with people as
confused as he is. Criticism condemned the style,
[78]
especially when describing sexual situations,
drug use, and depravation. But the book became
[84]
a best seller. Youngsters felt identified
with the characters and loved what would be
[88]
a distinctive feature of the author: references
to the pop culture of the time, including brands,
[94]
films, and musicians such as David Bowie.
At just 21 years old, Ellis was the literary
[100]
equivalent of the new wave music genre. His level
of stardom, very unusual for a first-time writer,
[107]
led him to even introduce
some music-videos on MTV.
[110]
His next novel was The Rules of Attraction, about
a group of college students and their excesses.
[116]
It was not as successful as Less Than Zero,
although it established its reputation as
[121]
a voice for the so-called Generation X.
But Ellis' career and life reached another
[127]
level with his third book: American Psycho.
The author wrote it when he moved to New York.
[133]
It took him three years. Much of the delay was
due to the wild lifestyle he had undertaken
[138]
while living in the city. All the nightclubs,
casual sex, alcohol, and drugs were the source
[144]
for the new fiction he was working on.
In this environment of elitist decay,
[148]
he made contact with New York wildlife
and a major source of inspiration:
[153]
the yuppies. Young executives who earned a
lot of money to spend on expensive products.
[158]
True children of capitalism, rising thanks to
the policy of the then President, Ronald Reagan.
[165]
Once he finished writing the massive text, Ellis
brought the manuscript to those responsible
[169]
at Simon & Shuster publishing house, who had
published his previous novels. But American Psycho
[175]
disgusted them so much that they decided not to
publish it. The author went to Knoff publishing
[181]
house, which published it in 1991. The success was
immediate, generating both love and hate of equal
[188]
intensity. Many were surprised by how Patrick
Bateman, the protagonist, described the rapes,
[194]
the torture and the murders with the same coldness
with which he did with his favorite perfumes.
[200]
Fame and fortune increased for Ellis, and similar
to what happened to him with Less Than Zero,
[205]
his third book also captured the
attention of many movie studios.
[211]
The rights were bought in 1992 by Edward
Pressman, a producer who had been working
[216]
in films since the late 1960s, producing
titles such as Phantom of the Paradise,
[221]
by Brian De Palma. He established his reputation
with Oliver Stone on The Hand, Wall Street and
[227]
Talk Radio. He was also behind the creation of
The Crow. Pressman was responsible for much of the
[233]
adult-oriented productions of the 1980s and 1990s.
The first actor called to play Patrick Bateman was
[240]
Johnny Depp. For the director's role they looked
at Stuart Gordon. Movies like Re-animator and
[246]
From Beyond had established him as a specialist
in horror and dark humor. Gordon had the idea
[251]
to shoot the film in black and white, but still
be faithful to the novel. However, negotiations
[256]
did not went through with either Depp or Gordon.
Then, Pressman turned to David Cronenberg. In the
[263]
early '90s, the Canadian director had transcended
horror and science-fiction labels with bizarre
[268]
films like Dead Ringers and Naked Lunch. American
Psycho seemed to have concerns about bodies and
[274]
their transformations. Ellis himself joined the
project as a screenwriter, and for the role of
[279]
Bateman, the rising Brad Pitt came into mind.
But the working relationship between Cronenberg
[285]
and the writer was complicated, to say the least.
According to Ellis, the director refused to shoot
[291]
in restaurants and clubs, which were crucial in
the novel. At the same time, Ellis was so fed
[296]
up with his own script that he wrote an ending
atop the Twin Towers with the song "Daybreak"
[301]
by Barry Manilow. As a result, Cronenberg called
another screenwriter, Norman Snider, with whom
[307]
he had worked on Dead Ringers. However, it did
not work either, and he abandoned the project
[312]
to direct Crash. Curiously, in 2012, he directed
Cosmopolis, based on the novel by Don DeLillo,
[319]
which has a concept similar to American Psycho.
While dealing with directors and potential actors,
[324]
Pressman was trying to pre-sell abroad and try to
find a company interested in financing the film.
[329]
The controversial content of the story
caused rejection from big studios. In 1996,
[335]
he found positive responses from Lionsgate, a
small company that was willing to take risks.
[341]
Also at that time, Pressman found director
Mary Harron. Canadian-born Harron studied at
[347]
Oxford University and created Punk Magazine,
the first American magazine devoted to punk
[352]
rock. From there, she went on to direct
documentaries for the British channel BBC.
[357]
Her feature debut was also linked
to pop culture and public figures:
[361]
I Shot Andy Warhol, released in 1996, it focuses
on Valerie Solanas, the radical feminist who
[369]
wanted to assassinate the famous artist. The film
caught public attention at festivals like Sundance
[374]
and received mostly positive reviews.
Harron read American Psycho and knew
[379]
what she had to do. While her vision would show
Bateman torturing and murdering, she also wanted
[384]
to dig deeper into his narcissistic personality
and the '80s New York consumerist environment.
[389]
She wrote the script with Guinevere Turner,
who would have a victim role in the film.
[394]
When the time came to choose the main character,
Matthew McConaughey and Christian Slater came
[399]
into mind. The role was even offered to
Billy Crudup, who turned it down. Finally,
[403]
Harron chose the Welsh Christian Bale. Born in
1974, he made his cinematographic debut at age 13
[411]
in Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun. He played
supporting roles in Henry V and Little Women.
[417]
The offer to play Patrick Bateman amused
him, especially after his agent warned him
[422]
that the role would be a professional suicide.
In addition to Bale, actors such as Jared Leto,
[428]
Justin Teroux, Reese Witherspoon, and Willem
Dafoe became part of the project. In the case
[433]
of these last two, Lionsgate had requested the
addition of two other strong names in the cast.
[438]
Leto was also considered to play Bateman.
In 1997, everyone seemed ready to start
[444]
shooting. It would be a low budget
production, in order to have the
[448]
creative freedom while shooting such a bold film.
During pre-production, Lionsgate decided to bet
[453]
higher and suggested a famous actor for
the lead. The first one was Edward Norton,
[458]
who had just been nominated for an Oscar for
Primal Fear. Then they went for Leonardo DiCaprio,
[464]
who was at the top of his career because of
Titanic's success. To the surprise of the company,
[469]
DiCaprio was interested in playing Bateman. Harron
hated the idea, thinking he was too young for the
[475]
role. Ellis was the most excited about the
news: he thought the new star would make the
[479]
film more perverse, even as a cultural event.
DiCaprio's arrival generated tensions between
[485]
Harron and Bale. Bale was mad because this was
the third time DiCaprio took a role away from him.
[491]
Both were previously cast for the leading role in
Romeo+Juliet and also in Titanic. To make matters
[497]
worse, Lionsgate allowed DiCaprio to choose a new
director. The candidates were Martin Scorsese,
[503]
Danny Boyle, and an old acquaintance of Pressman:
Oliver Stone, who had shown yuppies on Wall Street
[509]
and criminals in Natural Born Killers. Harron
hated this change, thinking that the director
[514]
of Platoon would make the character friendlier
and move away from the tone proposed by the book.
[519]
With DiCaprio and Stone aboard, they also
added Cameron Díaz, replacing Whiterspoon,
[524]
and James Woods in the role of
Kimball. This addition of A-List
[528]
celebrities increased the budget to 40 million.
However, the excitement of the celebrities lasted
[534]
shortly. Stone had several discussions with
DiCaprio and soon abandoned production. The
[540]
actor followed the same path. One of the
reasons could be related to Gloria Steinem,
[544]
a radical feminist who pressured him not to
make the film, arguing that his fan base was
[549]
mostly teenagers who could be badly influenced.
Cameron Díaz and James Woods also stepped out
[555]
of production. The cost of the film
became again less than 10 million.
[560]
This situation allowed the return of Harron
and Bale, who were rejecting many films because
[566]
they were sure that DiCaprio would not last
long in that project. Bale was so committed,
[571]
that when Lionsgate offered the role to Ewan
McGregor, he convinced him not to accept it.
[576]
Witherspoon and Dafoe also returned to the film.
A particular case was that of Chloë Sevigny,
[582]
who played Jane, Bateman's secretary. She had been
cast by Stone, and Harron decided to keep her.
[587]
To replicate Patrick Bateman's physique, Bale
hired a personal trainer and underwent a rigid
[593]
diet. A routine that wasn't too different
from that of the character. As for acting,
[598]
he studied interviews with Tom Cruise and Nicolas
Cage's performance in Vampire's Kiss, which also
[603]
satirized the world of Wall Street. And as if that
wasn't enough, he also watched many porn movies to
[609]
embody the attitudes of the sadistic executive.
Filming began in March 1999 in Toronto. The
[616]
problems during pre-production ended, but others
came up. The scenes in the office were supposed to
[622]
be filmed in Canadian banks, but the bank owners
changed their minds after many Canadian feminist
[628]
groups started protesting the film. To top it off,
a copy of the book had been discovered in the home
[630]
of local murderer Paul Bernardo at that same
time. With no chance of using actual locations
[633]
in Canada, the production had to invest 700,000
dollars in the construction of office sets.
[639]
The inconveniences did not end there. In the
novel, Bateman mentions countless brands. But
[646]
many companies denied permission to be in the
film. Some examples include American Express
[651]
and Calvin Klein. For Harron, this aspect
was detrimental to being loyal to the book.
[656]
Something similar happened with the rights for the
songs, which were essential to the plot. And many
[661]
of them were too expensive. For “Sussudio”, by
Phil Collins, the production had to pay $120,000
[668]
dollars for the rights. with "Hip to Be Square"
by Huey Lewis & The News, things became even more
[674]
complicated. Lionsgate dropped $150,000 dollars
for the song's rights, and it was also included
[680]
on the film's official soundtrack album. But the
album was later withdrawn and edited without that
[685]
song. Although the reason had to do with rights,
some say that Huey Lewis himself hated to see his
[691]
song playing during one of Bateman's massacres.
After filming was finished, post-production was
[696]
next. They had to return to the editing room
several times: the Motion Picture Association
[702]
of America gave it an NC-17 rating. This forced to
take out some of the most daring scenes, like when
[708]
Bateman has sex with two prostitutes. Ultimately,
it was only necessary to cut 18 seconds.
[714]
Lionsgate did not have a big advertising budget,
but managed to do some creative publicity stunts.
[720]
On the official American Psycho website, users
could sign up to receive the messages from
[724]
Bateman to his therapist. That way, people could
find out about the experiences of the character
[730]
and his relationship with colleagues and lovers.
The messages were written by an anonymous author,
[735]
later approved by Ellis himself.
The film had its premiere at the 2000
[740]
Sundance Film Festival, generating mixed comments
and discussions about violence in movies.
[746]
It had better luck with the critics: newspapers
like the New York Times and celebrity critics
[751]
like Roger Ebert praised Bale's performance
and the film's satirical black comedy tone.
[756]
But everyone knew that the harshest critic
would be Ellis. The author was not very happy
[761]
with some ideas he previously heard, but when
he saw the movie, he praised Harron's work.
[767]
In 2014, he talked about the film again: he said
that maybe it was not necessary to make a movie
[771]
about his book, but he appreciated the fact that
the director had clarified that excess of violence
[776]
was part of the satire and not pure misogyny.
The film was not a massive box office success,
[783]
but the producers were satisfied. They knew that
there would be a small but powerful audience among
[788]
fans of the novel, and there they found a niche.
DVD editions appeared in the subsequent years,
[794]
now with the censored cuts included.
The movie became a cult phenomenon.
[798]
As of today, fans continue to analyze
the film and come up with theories as
[802]
to whether Bateman's crimes were real
or just a fiction in his twisted mind.
[806]
In 2002, Lionsgate released American Psycho
2, a sequel starring Mila Kunis. Neither
[813]
Bale nor Harron were part of the project.
Ellis came as far as suing the producers,
[817]
and Kunis revealed that when she joined the
project, it had nothing to do with the 2000 film.
[823]
American Psycho boosted the career of Christian
Bale, who then began to show his talent and acting
[829]
commitment with leading roles in larger films. He
took the leading role in the Dark Knight trilogy,
[834]
playing none other than Batman. In a way, Patrick
Bateman and Batman have quite a bit in common,
[840]
including their phonetic similarity.
Mary Harron directed other films,
[844]
but without the same scope. As for Ellis,
he returned to the Patrick Bateman universe
[848]
with the novel Lunar Park, where the author
himself is stalked by his sinister character.
[854]
The film adaptation of American Psycho started
with a lot of controversy and created many new
[859]
ones. But above all, it became the first career
step for one of the best actors of this time,
[865]
and made it clear that serial killers do not cease
to exercise a morbid but unavoidable fascination.
Most Recent Videos:
You can go back to the homepage right here: Homepage