American Psycho (film)

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Movie
German title American Psycho
Original title American Psycho
Country of production USA , Canada
original language English
Publishing year 2000
length 102 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Mary Harron
script Mary Harron
Guinevere Turner
production Chris Hanley
Edward R. Pressman
Christian Halsey Solomon
music John Cale
camera Andrzej Sekuła
cut Andrew Marcus
occupation
chronology

Successor  →
American Psycho II: The horror continues

American Psycho is the cinematic adaptation of the book of the same name by Bret Easton Ellis . The film premiered in 2000 at the Sundance Film Festival . In addition to Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman , Jared Leto, Justin Theroux, Josh Lucas, Bill Sage, Chloë Sevigny, Reese Witherspoon, Willem Dafoe and Samantha Mathis also star in the lead roles .

action

The film describes episodes from the life of New York investment banker Patrick Bateman in the late 1980s. His life is determined by luxury goods , outward appearances and the desire to belong to the elite. In addition, he goes to great lengths to meet the ideal of beauty . His colleagues at the Wall Street investment firm "Pierce & Pierce" often seem to confuse him with colleagues.

Bateman feels struck in his self-worth when his own business card seems less representative than that of his colleague Paul Allen, which he compensates for by murdering him. Then he goes to Paul's apartment and stages his apparent departure to London. Some time later, Bateman is visited by Detective Donald Kimball, who is investigating the disappearance of Paul Allen. In the nights Bateman is driven by a greed for blood and violence to an increasingly excessive lifestyle. He and his friends roam the clubs at night and consume more and more drugs. His greed for blood begins to spill over into his days, so Bateman in the film. He indiscriminately kills homeless people and several prostitutes whom he summons to his home. Only with his secretary Jean can he not bring himself to kill her. Bateman later has sex with his friend Elizabeth and the prostitute Christie in Paul's apartment. He kills Elizabeth and later the fleeing Christie in the stairwell with a chainsaw.

After Bateman broke up with Evelyn, he went to an ATM. This shows the text "Feed me a stray cat". As he prepares to shoot the cat, a woman interrupts him and he shoots her. Bateman is then followed by the police, where he shoots four police officers. Bateman tries to escape to his office, but confuses the building where he murders a security guard and a janitor. In an office he believes belongs to him, he calls his attorney Harold and leaves a detailed confession on his answering machine, which reveals that the actual number of Bateman's victims must have been much higher than shown . However, Bateman realizes that Harold does not believe him. The lawyer who addresses him as Davis sees the whole thing as a joke and points out that Bateman could not have murdered Paul Allen because he himself met him for dinner a few days ago in London. When Bateman doubts his sanity and wants to check again after the victims he left behind in Paul Allen's apartment, he finds a newly renovated apartment that is being shown to interested parties. The realtor he is scary tells him to go and not come back.

Bateman then meets with some work colleagues who are discussing where to reserve dinner. They also discuss whether Ronald Reagan is harmless or a psychopath . In Bateman's mind it becomes clear to him that his actions have no consequences and that there can be no catharsis . For the viewer, this begs the question of whether the murders actually took place or only in Bateman's head.

synchronization

The German dubbing took place in the dubbing department of the Babelsberg studio . Sven Hasper , who played the role of Paul Allen, also wrote the dialogue book and directed the dialogue.

role actor Voice actor
Patrick Bateman Christian Bale David Nathan
Timothy Bryce Justin Theroux Charles Rettinghaus
Craig McDermott Josh Lucas Oliver Rohrbeck
David Van Patten Bill Sage Dennis Schmidt-Foss
Jean Chloë Sevigny Maud Ackermann
Evelyn Williams Reese Witherspoon Dascha Lehmann
Courtney Rawlinson Samantha Mathis Bianca Krahl
Luis Carruthers Matt Ross Marius Clarén
Paul Allen Jared Leto Sven Hasper
Det. Donald Kimball Willem Dafoe Wolfgang Condrus
Christie Cara Seymour Heidrun Bartholomäus
Elizabeth Guinevere Turner Gundi Eberhard
Harold Carnes Stephen Bogaert Till Hagen

Reviews

The Rotten Tomatoes website found the film to score 67% of trending positive reviews. In absolute terms, this value corresponds to 94 positive and 47 negative reviews, which means that the film is awarded a “fresh” seal according to internal criteria (from 60%) (as of December 6, 2012).

The lexicon of international films described the film as a “formally captivating adaptation of a bestseller, whose black humor and the ironic echoes of the production are overwhelmed by the equipment. What remains are more clichés than psychological motives or social criticism. "

The Dirk Jasper FilmLexikon described the thriller as "shocking" and "emotional".

JoBlo's Movie Reviews rated the film with 10 out of 10 points. He is one of a group of 39 films to date - out of a total of 2307 reviews - that have received this rating (as of December 6, 2012).

Der Spiegel wrote in a review that the film adaptation did not take the harshness of the "killing orgies of the literary scandal model", but was looking for explanations and thereby turned the gunman into a "comic-like joke." Above all, the director's strength lies in laying many small tracks that suggest that there must be a deeper reason why Bateman kills. However, these statements do not go very deep; American Psycho ultimately only depicts a “cold-feeling world of product and brand fetishism”. The camera work is praised, however, which with its numerous long pans creates a film aesthetic that takes the viewer back to the 1980s.

Andreas Borcholte criticized in another review in the Spiegel that Harron was able to "unfold the illustration of a nightmare" with the film adaptation of the controversial novel, but that the American Psycho memorial was also shrunk to the size of a cinema screen. If the material could not be filmed, the director would “make every effort to revive the aesthetics of the previous decade meticulously described by Ellis, and lead actor Christian Bale also delivers his best work so far with an expressionless expression and a smooth performance. And yet the beast is clearly tamed. "The thrill of the book was a completely different one," a much deeper thrill than those cinema effects that belong to the well-known horror and shock repertoire of better horror films. "

backgrounds

Director Mary Harron , who previously directed Andy Warhol's I Shot , co-wrote the script with Guinevere Turner . There were three alternatives for the script, one of which came from Bret Easton Ellis himself. According to Turner, Ellis' script version ended with an elaborate musical interlude. When she asked Ellis about it, he confessed that he couldn't think of a decent ending to the script.

Many names were associated with the film during the early stages of film production. Mary Harron was originally intended to direct and Christian Bale to lead, but Leonardo DiCaprio also expressed an interest in the lead. The production company Lions Gate issued a press release stating that DiCaprio would star in the film. Mary Harron then left the production because she was not involved in this decision and wanted to cast the lead role with Christian Bale. It was then Oliver Stone brought by directing combined. However, when DiCaprio, whose interest in the film had been overrated, and Oliver Stone left the project, Harron and Bale came back.

Possible other constellations

marketing

While the film was being promoted, one could subscribe to a mailing list to receive emails from Patrick Bateman allegedly directed at his therapist. The emails describe Bateman's life after the events in the film. In the emails, he discusses topics such as his marriage to his former secretary Jean, his adoration for his son Patrick Bateman Jr., and his efforts to triumph over his business competitors. These emails also mentioned interactions with other people in the novel, including Timothy Price (in the movie Bryce), Evelyn Williams, Luis Carruthers, and Marcus Halberstam.

Trivia

  • In the film, Patrick Bateman claims he lives in the American Gardens Building at 81 West Street. There lived Tom Cruise once. The producers originally planned Cruise to play Patrick Bateman. In the book, Bateman has a brief encounter with Cruise, which suggests that he lives in the penthouse of this building.
  • While Bateman is exercising, his television is showing Blood Court in Texas .
  • Some of the events that Bateman mentions in the phone call with his lawyer towards the end of the film only appear in the novel, not in the film.
  • In the last shot you can see a wooden door in the background with a sign that reads: “This Is Not An Exit”. These are the last words of the novel that represent the endless cycle in which Patrick Bateman finds himself.
  • Some of the paintings in Bateman's apartment are by Robert Longo .
  • The quote attributed by Bateman to Ed Gein , about his relationship to women, actually comes from Edmund Kemper .
  • Filming began on February 28, 1999 and took place in New York and Toronto .
  • In 2002 the sequel American Psycho II: The Horror Goes On , u. a. with William Shatner ; In this direct-to-video work , however, Patrick Bateman only appeared dead and masked in a flashback.
  • In Season 1 of Dexter , Dexter used the pseudonym “Dr. Patrick Bateman ”to get M99 (a very strong narcotic).
  • The actor and musician Miles Fisher caused a sensation in 2009 with an adaptation that serves as the music video for his cover version of the Talking Heads title "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)".
  • Members of the Trump family are mentioned several times by the protagonist, such as the current US President Donald Trump or Ivana Trump , whom he apparently envy of their wealth (car) or position (reserved restaurant table).

Soundtrack

  1. Monologue 1 - John Cale
  2. Something in the Air (American Psycho Remix) - David Bowie
  3. Watching Me Fall (Underdog Remix) - The Cure
  4. True Faith - New Order
  5. Monologue 2 - John Cale
  6. Trouble - Daniel Ash
  7. Paid In Full ( Coldcut Remix) - Eric B. & Rakim
  8. Who Feelin 'It (Philip's Psycho Remix) - Tom Tom Club
  9. Monologue 3 - John Cale
  10. What's On Your Mind (Pure Energy Mix) - Information Society
  11. Pump Up The Volume - M | A | R | R | S
  12. Paid In Full (Remix) - The Racket
  13. Monologue 4 - John Cale

The song Hip to Be Square by Huey Lewis and the News was originally supposed to appear on the soundtrack album, but had to be removed from the album due to a lack of publishing rights. Whitney Houston also disagreed with the use of the song "The Greatest Love of All", which is why an instrumental version was used. 100,000 copies of the soundtrack had to be destroyed and re-produced.

Songs from the film that don't appear in the soundtrack

  1. Walking on Sunshine - Katrina and the Waves
  2. I Touch Roses - Book of Love
  3. Hip to Be Square - Huey Lewis and the News
  4. The Lady in Red - Chris de Burgh
  5. If You Don't Know Me by Now - Simply Red
  6. In Too Deep - Genesis
  7. Sussudio - Phil Collins
  8. Secreit Not - Mediæval Bæbes
  9. Red Lights - Curiosity Killed the Cat
  10. Simply Irresistible - Robert Palmer
  11. The Greatest Love of All (Instrumental Version) - Whitney Houston
  12. Al Mirar Tu Cara - Santiago Jimenez Jr.
  13. Enjoy the Silence - Depeche Mode

Awards

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ German synchronous index: German synchronous index | Movies | American Psycho. Retrieved March 5, 2018 .
  2. ↑ American Psycho at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
  3. ↑ American Psycho. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  4. ↑ Dirk Jasper FilmLexikon ( Memento from February 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ JoBlo's Movie Reviews ( Memento of the original from April 25, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.joblo.com
  6. ↑ Mary Harron: "American Psycho" - stockbroker rampage . In: Der Spiegel , February 18, 2000. Retrieved June 24, 2014.
  7. ↑ A muzzle for the beast ; Spiegel Online from September 6, 2000; accessed on January 11, 2020
  8. ^ Filming Locations for American Psycho In: IMDb . Retrieved July 27, 2019.
  9. ↑ 19 YEARS OF AMERICAN PSYCHO OST THE SOULLESS 90S AND THE INSPIRED 80S popmonitor.de, April 14, 2019