Directors commentary for American Psycho

1. Directed by: Mary Harron

2. In the directors commentary for
American Psycho, Mary Harron talks
about the lighting in the scenes. Harron
talks about how she asked for the lighting
to be bright in the ‘living room’ and that
everywhere will be darker. In the
bathroom she uses theatre lighting to
have a ‘crazier’ performance from the
character (Bates). The lighting Is
important as of the ‘main’ genre of the
film (which is horror) you would expect
the lighting to be dark, but because of the
‘plot twist’ of the hybrid genre its going
against the stereotypical lighting as of the
different narrative of a ‘horror’ film. It
also emphasises Bates unstable mental
health as bright lighting signifies positive
and good things, when in this scene
nothing positive happens and Bates kills
his guest.
Bright lighting in the
scene
He theatre lighting/
darker lighting in the
scene.
Mary Harron, explains the setting of the scene, which is in bates
apartment. She wanted newspapers on the floor as it was in the script
and it also expresses bates ‘madness’ as of the obsessive compulsive
newspaper coverage that this neatness of the newspaper gives you.

3. According to Mary Harron this is ‘Bates happy
scene’. Christian Bale who plays Patrick
Bateman was said to do a ‘little dance’. This
shows that Christian really got into his
character, knowing what would make his
character happy, which is the thought of killing
someone. Every thing in the scene was chosen
carefully and by having a clean, sharp looking
axe is goes with Christians characters
personality. Everything is neat and clean.
Mary Harron explains that the costume makers
found a long and spooky looking see-through
coat which emphasises Harrons attempt on
getting in the mind frame of Patrick Bateman,
as she knows that this obsessive cleaner
wouldn’t want to get dirty.

4. Mary Harron tells us that they put a plastic bag over
the camera so that Christian could swing directly at
the camera, by making this choice Mary has created
an impressive scene on where you see the blood
splatter on his face and you can see his emotions all
through the scene. Harron has showed me that
there is always a way around this, for example some
scenes which wont work with the equipment that
you have.

5. It is explained to us that Mary Harron didn’t intentionally
have the blood on half of Christians face, but she says
that it works as it emphasises Christians characters
schizophrenia/ split personality. As you can see the
blood is on one half of his face then when Christians sits
down the other half is nearly ‘perfect’. This is taught me
that the best scenes are the ones that are unexpected.
Mary Harrons has demonstrated to me that directors
are inspired by other directors work, as in the scene
she was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock in this scene. This
has taught me that being inspired by other peoples
work is good as you can expand on a great idea and
concept to an even better one.