American Psycho

Directed by Mary Harron

United States, 2000 (fiction, 102 minutes, colour, Cantonese / English / Spanish)

Also known as "Americké psycho", "Amerikan psyko", "Psicópata americano"

Film Description:
"A young, handsome man with a Harvard education and success on Wall Street has terrible urges that take him in pursuit of women, greed, and murder."
-- WorldCat (source)

Film Credits (partial):
Written by:	Mary Harron, Guinevere Turner
Based on:	American Psycho, a novel by Bret Easton Ellis
Produced by:	Christian Halsey Solomon, Chris Hanley, Edward R. Pressman
Principal Cast:	Christian Bale, Justin Theroux, Josh Lucas, Bill Sage, Chloë Sevigny, Reese Witherspoon, Samantha Mathis, Matt Ross, Jared Leto, Willem Dafoe, Cara Seymour, Guinevere Turner
Cinematography:	Andrzej Sekula
Film Editing:	Andrew Marcus
Music:	John Cale
Production Company:	Am Psycho Productions, Edward R. Pressman Film, Lions Gate Films, Muse Productions, P.P.S. Films, Quadra Entertainment, Universal Pictures

(sources)

Notes about American Psycho

Filmed in Toronto.

(sources)

Quotes about American Psycho

"American Psycho is much more than a translation of a story from one medium into another. It is a feminist reinterpretation that uses the specific characteristics of film as an audio-visual medium to dissect the story's content and wider social significance. The film is an example of gendered metafiction and uses its experimental dissection of the boundary between fiction and non-fiction to interrogate cultural representations of violent masculinity."
-- Coco d'Hont (source)

"[In American Psycho Mary] Harron replaces much of the book's endless lists of consumer products and minute descriptions of Bateman's murders with dark-humored social satire. The connection between 1980s Yuppie consumerism and serial murder is vividly established during the film's titles when what appears to be blood dripping is actually drops of red berry sauce drizzled onto elegant cuisine on a dinner plate."
-- Mary G. Hurd (source)

"[Mary] Harron emphasizes the film's [American Psycho's] feminist critique through Bateman's interrelationships with women, particularly in supposedly romantic places such as restaurants, with contant closeups on his face."
-- Karen Oughton (source)

Bibliography for American Psycho

Book Chapters

d'Hont, Coco. "'I Like to Dissect Girls': Mary Harron's American Psycho as Gendered Metafiction." In ReFocus: The Films of Mary Harron, edited by Kyle Barrett, 74-88. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022.
Oughton, Karen. "The Home, the Body and Otherness: Canadian Representations of Identity and Feminism in Mary Harron's American Psycho, Sarah Polley's Away from Her and the Soska Sisters' American Mary." In Celluloid Ceiling: Women Film Directors Breaking Through, edited by Gabrielle Kelly and Cheryl Robson, 54-76. Twickenham, U.K.: Supernova Books, 2014.
Schott, Gareth. "Death to Disposal: Echoes of American Psycho in The Rainbow of Her Reasons (Six Feet Under)." In ReFocus: The Films of Mary Harron, edited by Kyle Barrett, 125-139. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022.

Brief Sections of Books

Barrett, Kyle. "Dream of the '90s: Mary Harron in Indiewood." In ReFocus: The Films of Mary Harron, edited by Kyle Barrett. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022. (pp. 63-67)
Caoduro, Elena. "Sartorial Interventions: When Fashion and Film Collide in Armani (Mary Harron, 2012)." In ReFocus: The Films of Mary Harron, edited by Kyle Barrett. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022. (pp. 144-146)

Web Sites about American Psycho

"IMDb: American Psycho." Internet Movie Database, Inc. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0144084/combined.