The movie American Psycho..now about that ending

[spencerforhire]

So those who already seen the movie, did it really happened or were they fantasy? Classic film.
I had no idea Jared Leto was in that movie He was just as cold and superficial as Bale.

Having heated exchanges over tanning booths...

 

[Milk N Cookies]

No. It didn’t happen. But the author wanted it to be left as an open ending. I guess to any persons interpretation.




Either way, my favorite Bale movie. The quotes are infinite. Hey Paul, AAAAHHHHH!!!

 

[Patrick Kane]

Read the book if you get a chance. The movie is a classic and one of the better depictions of film/books but the book is an absolute gem. You get to delve much deeper into the chaotic mind of Patrick Batemen. As for your question, I would say No. He did not commit the crimes and it was a figment of his imagination where he would slip in and out of those thoughts of murder because he was obviously troubled himself. I would say Patrick himself wanted to believe he was committing these crimes but the beauty of the book/film is that none of it is truly clear.

 

[Gil Scott-Heroin]

No. It didn’t happen. But the author wanted it to be left as an open ending. I guess to any persons interpretation.

As for your question, I would say No. He did not commit the crimes and it was a figment of his imagination where he would slip in and out of those thoughts of murder because he was obviously troubled himself. I would say Patrick himself wanted to believe he was committing these crimes but the beauty of the book/film is that none of it is truly clear.

Straight from the horse's mouth -

One thing I think is a failure on my part is people keep coming out of the film thinking that it's all a dream, and I never intended that. All I wanted was to be ambiguous in the way that the book was. I think it's a failure of mine in the final scene because I just got the emphasis wrong. I should have left it more open-ended. It makes it look like it was all in his head, and as far as I'm concerned, it's not.

 

[basedlawd]

I always preferred to believe he did it but as things went on his psyche went more and more out of control leading to the unreal parts at the end. I think thinking that way emphasizes how careless and self-absorbed everyone around Bateman was to not notice what a psychopath he was.

 

[Gil Scott-Heroin]

If you go by the source material (which Harron admits herself she got wrong in the film), I think one misses the point if you're trying to work out if it "really happened", or if it was just a "fantasy". Bateman is a product of his environment; his self exists in the world that he's gestated, and therefore his experiences are real - if you look at it through that window, you'll see the point.

 

[MartyMcFly]

If you go by the source material (which Harron admits herself she got wrong in the film), I think one misses the point if you're trying to work out if it "really happened", or if it was just a "fantasy". Bateman is a product of his environment; his self exists in the world that he's gestated, and therefore his experiences are real - if you look at it through that window, you'll see the point.

Yeah I agree with this. I don't think whether it happened or didn't is the point of the movie or even what matters. What matters is the commentary on the 80s and what he thinks of the world and what the world thinks of him.

 

[Patrick Kane]

Straight from the horse's mouth -

But that's not the author of the book, where the original source material for the movie comes from.

Bret Easton Ellis (the author) actually says this:

Bret Easton Ellis: How are they going to do this with this book? Why are they going to do this with this book? I mean the book was conceived as a piece of…as a novel. It was conceived as a novel. It wasn’t conceived as a script, it wasn’t conceived as a movie, it was a novel thing. It was 400 pages in the mind of this guy and he’s a completely unreliable narrator. You don’t know if some of these things happen or not. You don’t even know if the murders happen or not. Which to me is interesting. To me it’s much more interesting not to know than to definitely know.

Marc Maron: Do you know it?

Bret Easton Ellis: I don’t know it. No. I don’t know it. But, so, what the movie is going to do, regardless, is going to answer it. He’s going to have done them because we’re watching it happen.

Bret Easton Ellis Admits A Truth About Patrick Bateman That 'American Psycho' Fans Might Not Want To Hear

In the movies he DID it because we see it happen so I guess that answers that question but that wasn't the intention of the author to convey.

Either way, it's dope to think about and to watch and read closely.

 

[re'up]

One of my least favorite Bret Easton Ellis novels, though by far the best adaptation of his work ever on the screen, compared to the disasters that were Less Than Zero, and The Informers, though I may like Rules of Attraction more, Psycho is clearly the better movie.

What is fascinating and irritating to me, is that many people just worship the movie, and it's character without realizing it's a satire, and indictment of the 80's and "me culture". They look at like a blueprint. Also, missing the fact he's bisexual, at a minimum, which is clear in the book.

 

[Gil Scott-Heroin]

But that's not the author of the book, where the original source material for the movie comes from.

Except my response was to you was based on what you perceived to be 'in his head' from the film; the director said that was never her intention to convey the novel in that manner, because as far as she's concerned it wasn't all in his head. Therefore, I don't think one can claim "he did not commit the crimes and it was a figment of his imagination" because there's no cause nor point to believe so.

In the movies he DID it because we see it happen so I guess that answers that question but that wasn't the intention of the author to convey.

Again, just because we see him do it, doesn't mean that it actually happened in reality - it's just the visual form of Bateman's perspective, just as his words of what happened are the literary form in the novel.

 

[Dr. Narcisse]

His brother

 

[GoddamnyamanProf]

the beauty of the book/film is that none of it is truly clear.

The beauty of the story is that it isnt clear. The point of the story is that it doesnt matter.

 

[Killigraphy]

Ugh, some authors are just too pretentious for their own good. The movie is heralded as a classic. And the ending is still the same, we don't know whether Bateman did it or not. Ultimately it ends how it began, we simply don't know who Bateman is; a no name rando at a firm or a psychopath.

 

[Mr. Manhattan]

Classic movie

 

[Zero]

Ugh, some authors are just too pretentious for their own good. The movie is heralded as a classic. And the ending is still the same, we don't know whether Bateman did it or not. Ultimately it ends how it began, we simply don't know who Bateman is; a no name rando at a firm or a psychopath.

"I am simply not there"