‘American Psycho’ under its mask of murder and gore, It has another meaning. It can also be viewed as an examination of superficial, self-obsessed, and materialistic bankers in wall street in the 1980s. These men were referred to ‘yuppies’ and Patrick Bateman was one of them. In the movie, we can see how the director's used dialogue and imagery to convey some of the themes. To converse about the politics of the time – the everlasting war on drugs, street violence, pro-capitalism, Reaganomics etc. It focuses on a very specific group of people during a very specific time in New York. This movie can be seen as a secondary source since it is fictional, and the film represents the filmmaker’s perspective/argument about the key elements of the historical topic discussed. …show more content…
The opening lines of a character's dialogue can be very important, especially to scenes like this. This short piece of dialogue can give us a first impression on what Bateman and the people he represents are like. By stating where he lives before his name, Bateman's dialogue implies that he believes that it's not who you are that defines you but instead it's your possessions. It may also suggest that Bateman understands the way people like him think and knows that in order to impress and be accepted by the sector of society that he belongs to, he needs to show off his excessive wealth and power. He knows that all people really care about is how powerful and richer they are compared to everyone else. In order to assert his dominance, show his power and wealth, Bateman chooses to tell people where he lives first as a symbol of his
This view is portrayed though two main aspects of the novel. Firstly theme - you must live in a world as it is, not as you would like it to be. Holden can’t seem to accept the world as it is and finds New York extremely “phoney”. Holden has a great disliking for the movies, he finds them the phoniest of them all “I hate the movies like poison” and he cant believe that people actually make time to go to the there.
{ 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
In the film, American Psycho, Patrick Bateman was a wealthy investment banker who also happened to be a serial killer. He was highly intelligent and was charming which attracted many of the women who came his way. Unlike most people in the world, he lived in constant pain. He was rarely happy with himself, and also hated everyone around him. He felt that he needed to inflict his pain on others in violent ways. He always had something disgusting to say such as, “I like to dissect girls; I am utterly insane.” It is outside of the norm to speak in this way, therefore he would be considered deviant. He displayed feelings of distress as he became frustrated very easily with himself and others. Everything
He comments: "Getting you into America is going to be hassle enough, baby, let's not rock the boat. Besides, New York is full of alley cats. And alleys" (Baldwin
...’s habitual lying relates back to times where he is hypocritical about his environment being full of phonies. Salinger provides these small details of deceitfulness in order to further advance Holden’s character and the work as a whole.
American Psycho (2000) offers a devastating social satire of the 1980s materialistic and hedonistic high society. Ironically, the film's monsters-in-hiding become increasingly evident even as the cinematography attempts to obscure most of the victims of Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) with the dark hues of the nighttime. Additionally, the point-of-view (P.O.V.) editing in relation to Patrick Bateman illustrates his frustrations to the audience and shows his struggle to not only become the best in his society, but also prevent others that are either not fit for his society or those with particularly annoying idiosyncrasies from being a part of that society. The character study depicts the daily activities of Patrick Bateman, a young New York stockbroker working for Pierce and Pierce, as he hides the murder of Paul Allen (Jared Leto) from Detective Donald Kimball (Willem Dafoe). As the film progresses, Patrick's mask of sanity slowly slips as he finds out that he is not the idea of Patrick Bateman that he reflects himself of being throughout the film and realizes the disconnection that he has from the world around him.
bank. Marion went home there was a close up shot on the money then on
The film Psycho, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, is a psychological thriller that was created in 1960. The main theme of this film revolves around psychological illnesses. The film focuses on the main character, Norman Bates, and his psychological problems which include a split personality, voyeurism, sadism, guilt and self-punishment, and anal fixation. Throughout the movie you can see Bates exhibit these traits at different points; however, some traits are not as clearly evident as others. This film takes an in-depth look at how someone who possesses a mental illness might behave or think.
In film, many times the auteur often uses the medium to convey a moral or make a social commentary. In the case of Howard Hawkes’s original version of Scarface, there is more being portrayed through the characters then merely the story. Hawkes makes a statement about the façade of organized crime, and the farce of the American Dream.
For this paper I chose to explore Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho because it has remained the only horror movie I’ve seen to date. I went into a couple others but immediately left; let’s just say horror is not my favorite genre of film. People may or may not always call Psycho a horror film, it may be more of a thriller to people nowadays, but I still believe the correct genre analysis is horror because it should always refer to the genre at the time the film was created and released. I chose Psycho because I spent multiple weeks in high school studying Hitchcock, and Psycho specifically, so I feel comfortable writing on it. I also thoroughly enjoy the film, its backstory, and the character development. Plus, it’s been roughly adapted into one of my favorite shows: Bates Motel, which I will also briefly explore.
Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho Psycho, by Alfred Hitchcock, was shocking for its time. Made in the 1960's when film censorship was very tight to today's standards, Hitchcock pushed the limits of what could be shown and did with psycho things that had never been done before. The cinematic art, symbolism and sub-conscious images in this film were brilliant for the time and still are now. Realised for this, psycho has been copied in many ways and the things that made it great have become very clichéd. From the very first scene in psycho, it is clear that the viewer will be sucked into the world of Marion Crane and Norman Bates.
PSYCHO is a unique film because it is a black and white film in the
Alfred Hitchcock’s favorite subject was the superficial placidity of American life, whose clean, bright surfaces disguised the most shockingly moral, political, psychological and sexual aberrations. For Hitchcock, the most striking, funny, and terrifying quality of American life was its confidence in its sheer ordinariness. Beneath the surface, ordinary people and normal life were always ‘bent’ for Hitchcock.
Psycho is a suspense-horror film written by Joseph Stefano and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. This film was loosely adapted from Robert Bloch’s 1959 suspense novel, Psycho. A majority of the movie was filmed in 1960 at Universal Studios in Los Angeles. Psycho is about Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), a secretary from Arizona who steals $40,000 from her employer’s client. She takes that money and drives off to California to meet her lover Sam Loomis (John Gavin) in order to start a new life. After a long drive, she pulls off the main highway and ends up taking refuge at an isolated motel owned and managed by a deranged Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). In Alfred Hitchcock’s film, Psycho, symbols, character and point of view are three literary aspects used in the film to manipulate the audience’s emotions and to build suspense in the film.
The two films Psycho and The Birds, both directed by Alfred Hitchcock, share similar themes and elements. These recurring themes and elements are often prevalent in many of Hitchcock’s works. In Psycho and The Birds, Hitchcock uses thematic elements like the ideal blonde woman, “the motherly figure”, birds, and unusual factors that often leave the viewer thinking. Hitchcock’s works consist of melodramatic films, while also using pure cinema to help convey messages throughout the film.