Methods used in practice

American psycho,2000

Narrative

American psycho follows Patrick Bateman a wealthy man who surrounds himself with equally powerful and narcissistic individuals. But Patrick is a special case as he indulges in his violent fantasies against people, he deems disgusting. As the audience follows the main characters, it's revealed that Patrick is an unreliable narrator and the movie ends with the audience questioning what was real, and what were just fantasies. The unreliable narrator is an important part of this film as it gives a new context to almost all the scenes for first-time viewers. Some scenes become darker and other scenes are questioned about even existing like when Bateman kills Paul Allen. It encourages the audience to watch again to learn more. For these reasons this one of the features that interest me the most about American psycho’s narrative.

This is in the first 10 mins of the movie. Bateman is surrounded with light sterile colors. The only dark color is the suit he is wearing. Setting him apart from the rest of the shot.it also shows how different he is from his surroundings.

This scene is closer to the end of the film and color palettes have completely reversed. In this scene Bateman is indulging his dark fantasies by murdering some girls. He is covered in blood and surrounded by black. The light colors and lighting of the scene is all on Bateman. In this scene he reflects his mental state as he looks as unhinged as he feels.

Mise en scene

American psycho mise en scene matches the characters emotions. In the beginning, it's clean and sterile, with light colors surrounding the character. Patrick Bateman is dressed in prim business clothing that is generic but expensive enough that shows how materialistic Patrick Bateman is. Once Bateman starts becoming more unhinged, the gets darker, and the use of blood starts dirtying his pristine appearance

 

Edit

The editing of American psycho creates suspense throughout the movie. The movie doesn't have a fast-paced edit, its slow edit makes scenes longer than what they feel comfortable time.

Cinematography

American psycho cinematography is slow, still and weirdly angled. A unique thing is that during chase scene, with Patrick Bateman running through different location the cinematography is all static shots, with cameras far removed from the character. This causes the audience to feel separated from the action of the character as he starts losing mental stability, causing them to feel more surreal.

 This scene depicts both the cinematography and editing of American psycho well. How they both intertwined to create the deserted effect. During this film Bateman is running away from something that the audience doesn't see. This running isn't like other scenes of similar natures as the the shots are long and the editing is slow. The camera is either static away from character angled like a security camera or slowly tracking the character. In conventional chase scenes the camera usually fast and close to the characters, the editing is quick and the shots are quicker to give a sense of movment and tension. Yet this scene accomplishes all of this without any of those techniques.

Sound design

American psycho uses diegetic 80s popular music that the character listens to. Its Pop music highly contradicts to the main characters personality and action causing a dichotomy for the audience. American psycho uses narration from the character throughout the movie, giving a deeper look into what the character is thinking.

Conclusion

Watching American psycho from an analyst point of view as it was helpful to figure out some of the aspects I wish to bring to my film. For examples I liked the wide shots far away from the character which makes the character feel isolated in their actions. I will implement the use of diegetic music to characterize the character in my movie. There are also some things that I figured out that I won't use like narration, as I want to make the audience infer and feel before being told. Using my research knowledge to put it into practice was helpful. Though I know a lot of these ideas in theory, seeing them being done helped me realize if this is the movie I wanted to make
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