American Psycho [Analysis]: Worth the Hype? the Controversy?

The age of this movie approaches a quarter of century--its silver anniversary. It is probably in the top 10-20% of films--worth rewatching. But it was hard for me to buy into it.

I remember spotting the book by Bret Easton Ellis in the bins and my being attracted to the title yet put off. I have a recollection of some claiming it was overrated, a must-read by others. My experience of the film must have been similar, hearing opposing opinions, and running into the show in the late beginning and sensing jarring double tones. 

It is not a movie you can pick up anywhere. You must start at the beginning with the opening credits:

Feel the contrast of tones. Yet feel how they meet, collide, slide past one another, compliment and negate. It's all well done.

The opening title and the knife create one expectation, then serve up another. But both exist together with the elegant yet playful music, set against plates decorated as much for design as for taste. The laundry list of foods is probably outside most people's checkbook, let alone taste buds.

We come upon the men gathered at a table with crude joking contrasted with serious business discussion, adding a dash of confusion over who and where Paul Allen is.

Now Paul Allen was a real person, one of the wealthy who helped Bill Gates forge the early PC revolution. So there's that play going on here as well since the Paul Allen discussed here is fictitious and has nothing to do with the early PC revolution. But this play, this contrast, this misdirection, this confusion--all play into the story.

Stop here if you haven't seen the film and you plan to do so. Spoilers lie ahead--thematic along with suggestive ones.

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The book was apparently accused of being "overly violent and misogynistic." [Wiki] I can't form an opinion of this, without having read the book yet. As for violence, well, it's been outdone (before and even more so after). 

 

As for misogyny, the movie is written and directed by women. It piques my curiosity about the work of these two ladies due to the risks they took here. 

 

I did read the novel opening and it has a quite different feel from either it's detractors or even the director and the screenwriter's rendition here. But I will have to revisit this at a later date.

The theme is interesting, rather blatant -- for those who are seeking such things. At no point did I view it as an attack on women. Maybe? There is misogyny, but it's part of a greater blindness to people. Such a viewing would have to leave out the rest of the film. It's strange to mistake design for flaw.

 

A better theme? Capitalism kills? Or, at least, it makes you want to. It is cleverly played not just in the dialogue and scenes, but also in the music lyrics themselves. I thought the theme was going to hang itself (the same kind of problem that people have there being real vampires), but it pulls its head out of the noose in the nick of time. So that the theme ends up being a bit more ambiguous towards its theme. It explains some luck, but the 90 degree turn is a bit too fast. It might be worth planting clues and making it a bit more realistic. However, because of that turn, a whole new question has to brought to the table. Is the movie about what it seems to be?

Note, too, how the film plays with what the actual genre of the story is. It starts in one place, suggests the primary one suggested in the title, shifts naturally into the detective, and then becomes...

Check it out if you haven't already. Watch it again. Rich, nuanced (despite initially appearing anything but), it repays multiple viewings.

The British TV Mystery -- Successes, Drawbacks

 

The British are known not just for their rich literary history but also for their mysteries: Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, Hercules Poirot. It's their most common export to American television.

My parents used to stay up to watch British mysteries--a highlight of their Sunday evenings--preferring their intellectual engagement over the American variety although they watched American variety as well. Dad, despite or because of having been in the FBI, never lost his penchant for police investigations.

Mom, however, has become a powerful story-telling barometer. If the story is good enough, she'll stay awake. If not, she sleeps. It's not that she does this intentionally, but a good story will keep her up. Show her a literary adaptation, and she'll remain rapt.

Now why should she still love British mysteries if half lull her to sleep? One thing they're selling is their culture. What is ordinary life in England like? They often will show a pub, a committee meeting, a family home, a school house, a police department. Whatever. How aware they are of this? Keenly? Or not so much? Americans at least recognize it as one sponsor is a cruise line that briefly advertises at the beginning and end of a show. So the mystery is a vicarious travelogue.

Clearly, this alone, however, won't hold one's attention

There's almost always a status quo scene, which American shows may skip. But it plays a vital part of setting up the story. Now if done right, the status quo scene(s) can hold one's attention. An episode of Midsomar Murders Spanish dance scene at a local dance hall that held fairly strong tension as people displayed their attitudes. This led into the first murder. 

These status-quo scenes can be rich and powerful opportunities not just for culture, but also character, which can make the mystery memorable. But sometimes the British mysteries trudge a bit too slowly--I'd qualify this "for American taste" but how is that we remain rapt for the British literary adaptation? 

Beside tension and characters, another powerful draw is the unraveling through-thread that provides a pull throughout the story. It is the scaffolding that allows us to cobble together the story from the investigation. Take the compelling game of the power of attorney in "Sauce for the Goose." While the murder itself may be absurdly improbable, the unraveling of this game of power is riveting.

I'll come back to this topic again later.

The Art of Telling --> [Case Histories: Olaf Stapledon, Molly Bloom, Jack Williamson, H. P. Lovecraft]

Sometimes the explanation, the As-you-know-Bob is the jewel most worthy of study

Of course, we have the famed "Show, Don't Tell" phrase--a useful tool for writers to remember.

And then people say, "No, we need both!" and proceed to show when showing is useful (in the moment) and telling is useful (summarizing).

But sometimes the telling is the only only thing. Take Olaf Stapledon. Here's a guy whose ideas remain fresh a full century after he shed them like a dog's fur coat in the spring. What he writes in one sentence, others would whittle out a whole novel about.

The problem with Stapledon is that he's a chore to wade through--if you want narrative. One cannot read it as fiction but as a highly concentrated dose of speculation. Here's an interesting example, if not his most remarkable [from The Starmaker]:

The universe in which fate had set me was no spangled chamber, but a perceived vortex of star-streams. No! It was more. Peering between the stars into the outer darkness, I saw also, as mere flecks and points of light, other such vortices, such galaxies, sparsely scattered in the void, depth beyond depth, so far afield that even the eye of imagination could find no limits to the cosmical, the all-embracing galaxy of galaxies. The universe now appeared to me as a void wherein floated rare flakes of snow, each flake a universe.

The final sentence is the icing that the cake has been building up to, layer by layer, sentence by sentence. What does it mean? Since a universe is a universe, it's probably metaphorical, not unlike the phrase "worlds within worlds": a droplet of pond water containing an abundance of microbiological variety. Here, though, what looks like a star is an entire galaxy, full of star systems.

Clearly, though, whatever's said in telling has to be interesting. Interesting to whom? There's some subjectivity, of course, especially for those seeking confirmation bias. But to those who seek it, novel syntheses. Accumulating ideas and building something intriguing about them.

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The opening to Molly's Game is a mini-essay within a larger narrative essay. Does it belong to the larger essay? 

Sort of--one could argue against it--but it's characterizing and setting the stage, not to mention delivering the best part of the movie. The character voice-overs analyzing the situation is actually some of the best stuff in the movie--as well as the final delicious morsel, which circles back to the opening if only to touch base. 

Note the similarity between the Molly's Game opening monologue and the above quote from Olaf Stapledon:

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Addendum:

I forgot to add two other key examples of telling, that lift what might be ordinary tales to another level. One is Jack Williamson's Darker Than You Think, an admirable cross-contamination of the horror novel and the SF novel. There's a chapter about 3/4s of the way in, that makes the novel remarkable, out of the ordinary, unforgettable. And it's all done in telling.

Likewise, the best part of H. P. Lovecraft's At the Mountain of Madness is another explanation also located about 3/4s of the way in (rough guessitmate). In the above link, I mostly discuss style for some reason, probably meaning to discuss Olaf Stapledon comparison but forgetting to do so. So this is my belated rectification. Here's a link to the actual story.