Bret Easton Ellis on American Psycho, Christian Bale, and His Problem with Women Directors
Bret Easton Ellis has written six books (his seventh, Imperial Bedrooms, comes out next month), and all six have been optioned by Hollywood. Of those six, four were made into movies, and they run the gamut from iconic to underseen, acclaimed to lambasted. Each day this week, Ellis will tackle a different adaptation of his books for Movieline, giving his take on what worked, what didn't, and what went on behind the scenes.
American Psycho is by far the most controversial work that Bret Easton Ellis has written, and yet when it comes to the adaptations of his novels, Mary Harron's 2000 film is the most critically acclaimed and well-regarded. It went through a bumpy production process that attracted directors like Oliver Stone and David Cronenberg and actors like Leonardo DiCaprio and Johnny Depp, but the final result eventually became a calling card for both Harron and its star, Christian Bale, and it's only grown in public esteem since its release.
Still, is Ellis happy with it? Not quite. Yesterday, he shared his thoughts on the compromised movie adaptation of Less Than Zero, and today, he delves into the tortured backstory of American Psycho and how he feels about female directors in general.
In many ways, American Psycho is an extremely faithful adaptation. A lot of the dialogue and scenes are taken straight from the book. And yet, when I saw you last, you were sort of implying that you thought Mary Harron was hamstrung by it.
Oh yeah, I do. I think any director would have been.
How so?
Well, the book has this reputation and it has its following, and if you're going to take that material from one medium to another, you're just going to have to make some decisions about it. The book itself doesn't really answer a lot of the questions it poses, but by the very nature of the medium of a movie, you kind of have to answer those questions.
What questions do you think she answered that she shouldn't have? Whether or not this was all in Patrick Bateman's head?
Right. And a movie automatically says, "It's real." Then, at the end, it tries to have it both ways by suggesting that it wasn't. Which you could argue is interesting, but I think it basically confused a lot of people, and I think even Mary would admit that.
I feel like the film has become almost more iconic in the years since it's come out.
Oh, it totally has. Completely. It's insane.
Did you see the Miles Fisher video that drew from it?
Loved it. Love Miles Fisher.
Did you expect American Psycho to become so iconic?
Not at all. I mean, I did not think that was going to be a particularly popular book. I thought it was going to be very pretentious. No, I didn't have any idea.
At this point, it's probably the most well-known of the films adapted from your novels.
Totally, totally.
Are you OK with that?
I've gotta be.
It went through a lot of director-actor combinations before it eventually got made. The earliest one I could find was Stuart Gordon intending to direct Johnny Depp. What did you think of that?
Well, I don't know about Johnny Depp's feelings about it, but I talked to Stuart Gordon a lot, and I thought he was the wrong director for it. I expressed that, but I don't think [producer] Ed Pressman was necessarily listening to me.
And then David Cronenberg attached himself. Is that the point where you actually wrote a draft of the screenplay yourself?
I did write a draft. David told me, "I want to make this movie, but I don't want any scenes in restaurants, I don't want any scenes in clubs, I don't want to shoot any of the violence..."
Why no scenes in restaurants or clubs? That's half the movie!
Because he said they're very difficult to shoot. "They're static, they're boring, people are at a table, and you can't really do a lot with it." He said, "I don't want to shoot in restaurants and clubs, and I want the script to be about 65 to 70 pages long, because it takes me about two minutes to shoot a page. I don't do a minute a page, I do two minutes a page."
Wow.
I mean, these directions were insane. I just went off and wrote a script that I thought would be best for the movie. It did veer off a lot from the book, because I was kind of bored with the book. I'd been living with it for, like, three and a half years, four years. I invented some scenes.
Like a musical sequence?
There was a musical sequence at the end, yes.
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Comments
"Right. And a movie automatically says, 'It’s real.'"
I disagree, and I thought Harron had some fun playing (cinematically) with the notion of Batemand as unreliable narrator.
In general I think she elevated the material and added a certain perspective to it.
Blargh. I enjoyed the interview up until all of the horseshit about the male gaze. Women aren't aroused visually? I don't know how else to put it: that is completely untrue. Simply. Not. True.
Why isn't there a female Scorsese or Spielberg? You do know women couldn't even vote until 1920, right? I suppose you could say men had a few centuries' leg up on achieving their highest hopes and dreams. You expect sexual inequity to balance out in 90 years?
You know what will help create more successful female directors? Judgments like Ellis', that's for sure! And he's one of my favorite writers.... so disappointing. At least he said he's rethinking it.
I agree with Ellis in that for every Kathryn Bigelow or Sofia Coppola there are ten Anne Fletchers and Nancy Meyers. However, the same is true for male directors: for every Scorsese or Spielberg, there are 100 McGs and Michael Bays.
I agree that the changes to American Psycho, the movie, were kind of unflattering, and so I'm not really into that much. But...hm. People could write for days about that female director stuff. I 'get' what he's saying (not the same as endorsing it), but he'd really need to elaborate.
Agreed.
Ugh, what a disappointment. Hey fucknuts, get your misogynistic head out of your ass. Plenty of women have vision. It's men like you who keep them locked out of positions of influence. Go fuck yourself.
He seems to forget that movies are directed overwhelmingly by men. About 9 out 10 movies, actually. Naturally, the odds are much higher then that men would make "good" movies more so than women.
Though looking at the current state of film, you can say that men are mostly to blame for the sorry state of US cinema. Endless remakes of shitty TV shows, endless remakes of films that didn't need to be remade because they weren't that great in the first place, endless comic book hero movies ... Most men make shitty movies too.
He just has issues with women.
I agree. Very well said Alice.
What an ignorant-uniformed entitled arse you are Mr. Ellis. Go investigate some world cinema before you spout your Kindergarten thought processes. A single stone throw past your closed mind there are actually Woman with soul and sensuality, walking upright, using opposable thumbs and an innate cinematic sense toward storytelling, intricately guiding their vision from the inside-out; with or without male DP's thank you. Such exceptional ignorance, I thought at first your comments on female directors, was in jest. No one can seriously be this shut off from global perspective and reality. A present day hunt would find a female Scorsese/Spielberg in any given country; ignored, under-resourced and unsupported churning gems--in spite of "all knowing thinkers" like you. Give it a few more years...the ole playing field is about to be levelled and how!
"Women"/Woman (I was so pissed off reading this article, I let a typo...)
As others have pointed out it's kinda hard to make a blanket judgement about women directors when the vast majority of movies are directed by men and most are not that good frankly.Men have way more opportunities to make good movies because there are much more of them and from what I hear its very hard for most female directors to get a job directing a film in a genre that traditionally appeals to men, probably thanks to ignorant SOB's like Bale, so there options are much more limited.
"Blargh. I enjoyed the interview up until all of the horseshit aboutthe male gaze. Women aren't aroused visually?"
I know. Thats a load of B.S. What are we? blind? I'm a women and I'm a very visual person. And really: "Cinema requires the male gaze"? Do I even have to explain what is wrong with that statement? What a load of sexist crap.Plus most directors(most of whom are male) are not particularly good with visual style or storytelling and not all films even require that. And isn't Julie Taymor known for her visual style and sense? Granted I don't know if she is a particularly good director but she at least possesses something that Bale claims all women lack.
I also disagree with his idea that there needs to be a neutrality towards emotion. It depends on the film. Some movies fail badly if the director keeps you at arms length emotionally. And whose to say that women are not capable of restraining themselves when it comes to sentiment. The Hurt Locker was hardly some sentimental sap fest.
"He just has issues with women."
Probably. This is a guy who has difficulties with some female members of his family so its not surprising that he has such stereotypical and limited views of women and what movies are for.
Oops. I only read the part about women directors. For some reason I thought it was an interview with Bale not Ellis. I was referred to here from somehwere else. Now I feel like an Idiot. Forget the last part. Either way the guy's still a tool.
Before we get all angry, let's remember this isn't a Christian Bale interview.
This is a great series of interviews (so far). Thanks.
I have to return some videotapes.
It seems cunning that he misappropriates the term "male gaze", which was coined through feminist critique of film-making in an attempt to describe why depictions of women are so distorted from reality, and tries to convince us that it actually describes a crucial component in film that justifies why women are not equipped to make film.
It's obvious he has thought about what he wants to say, and his comments are an outrageous and deliberate attack on all female directors (with two exceptions) - but I'm sure they are all accustomed to this attitude from men in other powerful positions in the entertainment industry by now.
Fuck Bret Easton Ellis. So the male visual perspective is so "superior" that everyone, including females respond better to it?? Someone hand me a chainsaw.
Well said, I agree entirely
Also to Kyle Buchanan, I don't believe that from reading your previous work over the last couple of years that you endorse these views, but by publicising them you are somewhat implicated. Yes, this guy baits the media for attention by saying provocative things, but his views are shamefully widely held and reproducing them in print probably just validates the narrow worldview of many of the many readers at movieline who are not critical thinkers. (all those ones that follow links from AOL or google and post weird comments.)
what kind of crack was that?
oh i get it. the dumb ass thought it was bale.
who is the tool?
Bale? because he has family trouble?
or Bret Easton Ellis is misogynist?
Years from now on, people will read his statements about women directors and just laugh at the prejudiced bigotry of it all, much like we laugh about the racists who thought African-Americans could not be doctors, lawyers, scientists, historians or presidents.
I would never say that Ellis is a hack writer because he is a man. He is just a hack writer because his writing isn't any good.
The question in the air about Ellis even as “Less Than Zero” became a phenomenon was, “great book, but can he write?” His career since has answered that question with a “no” even more emphatic than Jay MacInerny’s.
First there was the dashed-off collection of “stories.” When pressed for another novel, you can almost see the need to make a splash battling it out with his lack of craft or vision before arriving at the only place that can lead: Hyper violence! Serial killers! I’ll say it’s satire, or something; it sure is easy.
Then it’s another batch of “stories”...a quasi autobiography... another inchoate “novel” about another attention-grabby subject (“models!”) And now the inevitable sequel to his one actual accomplishment, which itself has since been revealed by all of the above to have come less from any talent than mere good fortune to have come of age at the heart of a marketable place/time nexus.
Still the absence of ability is unfortunate but perhaps beyond one’s control. What’s so damning about Ellis‘ output though is the glaring laziness of it all. At least MacInerny took the occasional big-swing with things like big-miss “Brightness Falls.”
Maybe men just shouldn’t be novelists. They’re always out seeing things when they should home with their offspring.
Wow, when I read this shitck about the female directors I thought it was Patrick Bateman talking. Oh wait. it WAS. Creepy.
You ARE an idiot for thinking that of Bale. You're the tool here.
Bale is great as an actor and as a person, it's not his fault that he has stupid family members...
I pity Ellis, he looks like a real Patrick Bateman.
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