American Psycho: Print vs. Movie
By: Roberto Galvan and Jay Fontenot
Novel
Characters
- His secretary is Jean and he dreams of a normal life with her, as well as spends a lot of time with her outside of the office, and believes that she is in love with him. He thinks that he will "probably marry her some day."
- Evelyn, Patrick's fiancé, spends time with Patrick going out to dinners and spending the summer with him.
- Patrick Bateman is a man who is very self centered and superficial, caring about outward appearances to an extreme. He is easily made uncomfortable, likes to listen to music to distract himself, and enjoys to have sex with women, torture women after sex, and kill men and women. In reality, he despises the superficiality of the people he surrounds himself with, and also his own, and finds he can't bring himself to kill those that do show affection toward him, Jean and Luis.
Plot
Setting
Conflict (Society v Self) (Self v Self)
Theme
Film
Characters
- His secretary is Jean and they see each other in the office all the time, but only see each other once outside of the office and they do not leave Patrick's apartment, and it is never mentioned that he feels that she loves him or that he thinks he'll ever marry her.
- Evelyn, Patrick's fiancé, spends very little time with Patrick, only seen together in a taxi going to a dinner with friends, at the dinner, and at a club. All in which they barely talk to each other.
- Patrick Bateman's character is very similar to that of the novel, though his want or affection is less clearly demonstrated, as he never goes to dinner with Jean, and nearly kills her in his apartment. Bateman's encounters with Luis are also downplayed, which ultimately takes focus away from the value he puts on affection.
Plot
Setting
Conflict (Society v Self) (Self v Self)
Theme
What integral scene in the novel was removed from the film? How does this affect meaning?
In the original novel, Bateman actually did have dinner with his secretary Jean, and he even had brunch with her once more, and had expensive gifts delivered to her on Valentine’s day. All of this is cut from the film, and in the film the last scene they really have together is at his apartment, before they would have gone to Dorsia’s. He nearly kills Jean, but instead tells her to go home, possibly hinting at something the novel makes much more obvious, but is almost absent from the film. That is, Bateman hasn’t felt real affection from anyone lately, possibly not in a long time, and so he doesn’t really know how to deal with it, and possibly he wants it. It’s what stopped him from killing Luis Carruthers like he planned to, and it’s why he’s so awkward with Jean in all the scenes that were cut from the film. The dinner scene is integral to the novel because it establishes Bateman’s feelings about affection, and the possibly real relationship between him and Jean.
Why might the director have approached the film the way he did? Is it for the betterment of the work?
The director might have approached the film the way he did to make it more appealing to the audience. Even though the movie was very violent, gory, and sexual, the book was even more. Therefore, the director of the film, Mary Harron, decided to leave out and or tone down many of the very graphic and detailed sex scenes and murders from the book in order to bring it down to the hollywood level and to keep it appropriate for theatres and for the audience with still maintaining its initial touch to it. It is for the better of the work because it allows for it to not be too or extremely gruesome so that people are still willing to watch, because if it would have been exactly like the book, it would have been too much and the movie might have not been a great success getting an 85% user score and 67% critic score.