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Posted

I didn't understand the fucking end of that film at all, Steve, if it makes you feel any better. Was his lawyer trying to deny the protagonist was Patrick Bateman at all? Is he a multiple personality? I also felt I'd missed a crucial scene at some point.

 

I did think the film was a lot better than the book, in that the film wore its satire much more clearly whereas the book often felt like literary snuff porn.

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Posted
I didn't understand the fucking end of that film at all, Steve, if it makes you feel any better. Was his lawyer trying to deny the protagonist was Patrick Bateman at all? Is he a multiple personality? I also felt I'd missed a crucial scene at some point.

 

I did think the film was a lot better than the book, in that the film wore its satire much more clearly whereas the book often felt like literary snuff porn.

 

No, the bit with his lawyer is just showing that Patrick Bateman is so bland and dull and boring that the people he constantly looks to for acceptance don't even recognize him. The whole point is that Bateman is so filled with boredom, greed, jealousy and hatred of his isolated empty existance that he doesn't even know who he is anymore. He doesn't truly know whether he murdered all those people or if it was just something from his imagination but that he hates his yuppy life so much that at the end he doesn't even actually care if it was real or not and will continue down this path.

 

The book and the film are both great, in different ways but also getting across the same themes perfectly.

Posted

But doesn't his lawyer know what he looks like? They've never met? It just seems weird. The guy clearly recognises him but thinks he's someone else.

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Posted (edited)

It's because all yuppies are so conformist and so desperate to fit in that they end up being interchangeable and all looking the same. Individuality is completely supressed by their greed and desperation to fit in. Like how Jared Leto's character confuses him with someone else at the beggining of the film. Nobody knows who the real Patrick Bateman is so they just get him mixed up with other people.

Edited by LaGoosh
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Posted
But doesn't his lawyer know what he looks like? They've never met? It just seems weird. The guy clearly recognises him but thinks he's someone else.

I always just thought that everyone was so alike, shallow and ignorant, that they constantly got each other confused with other people in the industry. Like when Leto's character, Paul Allen, confuddles Bateman with somebody else and admonishes Bateman at the same time. I dunno, it's a very off the shit ending, but I do love that movie. It's ten times the value of the book, and there's a comedic charm in the movie that is sorely lacking in Ellis' novel.

Posted
I always just thought that everyone was so alike, shallow and ignorant, that they constantly got each other confused with other people in the industry. Like when Leto's character, Paul Allen, confuddles Bateman with somebody else and admonishes Bateman at the same time. I dunno, it's a very off the shit ending, but I do love that movie. It's ten times the value of the book, and there's a comedic charm in the movie that is sorely lacking in Ellis' novel.

 

Which I think Bale brings to the movie. When he's being zany and just rambles on about musicians and songs he likes (even to the point where he does a little moonwalk during 'Hip To Be Square' prior to killing Paul Allen, which was brilliant) he brings something a little extra to the character which I would assume would be a little difficult to get across in a book.

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Posted
Which I think Bale brings to the movie. When he's being zany and just rambles on about musicians and songs he likes (even to the point where he does a little moonwalk during 'Hip To Be Square' prior to killing Paul Allen, which was brilliant) he brings something a little extra to the character which I would assume would be a little difficult to get across in a book.

 

No doubt, the whole Hip to be Square scene is hilarious, and the goosing of the lasses to Sussudio is stuff of legend, but even Bale himself said that it was Harron who wanted him to perform that little bit cheekily and to the blackest ends of black comedy with his role. I've read the book twice, and given the subject matter, Ellis tends to take himself and his character's a little too seriously (He also does so in Rules of Attraction, Glamorama and, the absolutely atrocious, Lunar Park) to even attempt anything approaching black comedy. Even read Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk (Granted, it's far from his best) or What You Make It by Michael Marshall Smith, there's easy ways to convey humour and make light of sadistic subject matter.

Loki was bang on up there with his Literary Snuff Porn assessment of the novel.

Posted

I watched 'Bronson' at the weekend.

 

Well made, good performances, but I didn't get what the point of the film was?

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Posted (edited)
I watched 'Bronson' at the weekend.

 

Well made, good performances, but I didn't get what the point of the film was?

 

I don't know myself, but like Chopper and Kill the Irishman, I genuinely loved Bronson despite it's vacuity.

It's almost a clich

Edited by Scott Malbranque
Posted
It's because all yuppies are so conformist and so desperate to fit in that they end up being interchangeable and all looking the same. Individuality is completely supressed by their greed and desperation to fit in. Like how Jared Leto's character confuses him with someone else at the beggining of the film. Nobody knows who the real Patrick Bateman is so they just get him mixed up with other people.

 

Right! Ok, thanks lads, that makes sense. I did basically miss that whole subtext :laugh:

 

I tell you what though, it's the wrong film to try and have a crafty wank during.

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