Examining a Scene Blog Post

           The scene I chose to examine was from one of my all-time favorite films American Psycho. This is the scene in which the main character, Patrick Bateman, murders Paul Allen, a somewhat rival of his. The scene does so many small things to both build up to the murder and hint at Bateman’s insanity. First off, there is a close up shot of Bateman’s Huey Lewis album as he goes on a rant about why he likes the album. What this small detail does effectively is that it sets up our expectation as to why the Huey Lewis song is relevant. The next interesting shot is when Bateman goes into his bathroom. We get a close up shot of Bateman’s medication, indicating he is not an all right man. After some more examination, we can see that the shot here is of Bateman looking into a mirror. This is important because it ties into the larger narrative of Bateman’s struggles with his identity and persona, a theme that is explored through stylistic shots of Bateman’s face. This is expanded later in this same scene.

            The next important close up is of the blade on Bateman’s axe. The three close ups so far; the Huey Lewis album, Bateman’s medication, and the axe; are all leading up to what is about to happen. The album is commenting on Bateman’s motive for killing Allen, which has to do with his need to fit in amongst his social group. The medication close up tells us that Patrick is not a sane human being and the axe close up hints at what exactly he is about to do with the axe. Patrick turn on the song, “Hip to Be Square” which plays loudly and bounces in between a form of diegetic and non-diegetic music. As Bateman begins to chop Allen apart and blood splatters over his face, the song gets louder and becomes a sort of score over Bateman’s murder.

            Again we get a very important shot of Bateman’s face, this time we see half of it covered in blood, the other half almost clean. As Bateman removes his coat, the camera only shows one half of his face at a time. This is exploring the themes of Patrick’s persona by showing that half of him is this blood thirsty murderer, while the other half of him is this upper class yuppie. The final medium shot showing his entire face establishes that both of these personas exist in one person and are inseparable from each other within Bateman’s psyche.