psycho film review essay

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Protagonist Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), right, speaks to Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) in a still shot from the 1960 film "Psycho." (Image courtesy of Shamley Productions / Paramount Pictures)

Arts and Entertainment

Review: a literary analysis of alfred hitchcock’s ‘psycho’.

“Psycho ,” the 1960 horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, was considered to be both a classic and first modern horror film opening the viewers of cinema to the “slasher” genre.

The “slasher” or “psycho” is Norman Bates, and he takes on a complex role in the film, seen in the duality between him and Marion — the initial protagonist who he murdered.

Hitchcock skillfully portrays this idea in solo scenes as Marion driving to Bates Motel and the final scene as Norman sits in the police station, not as separate ideas, but rather a call and response to Marion’s pursuit for respectability.

Although their duality might be obscured by having opposing roles in the plot, Hitchcock relies on film techniques and symbolism to portray the doubling of Marion and Norman Bates to voice his opinion against a repressive society. This repression in the ’60s was a historically relevant factor in the acceptance of identity and is still relevant today in a contemporary context. 

The film initially follows Marion and her attempt to escape a repressed society to have a respectable relationship until she is killed by Norman, in which the protagonist becomes Norman. Hitchcock portrays these two characters alone to emphasize their exclusiveness and in their respective ways, estrangement from society.

As Marion escapes from the city, supposedly representing the society she runs away from, she ends up at the Bates Motel. Her journey to Bates Motel symbolizes the traversing from the public world into the private and from the restrictive world into the free one. As the conditions become stormy when she drives, the visual effect of the sign appearing out of the storm seems positive, a lifeline thrown to Marion in her distress, but the motel is only an illusion of freedom and not an escape.

The viewer continues to find out that Bates Motel is another place of repression, in which Norman is driven psychopathic because of his repressive mother. Marion gets killed by Norman, a murderer because he is repressed. Norman’s mother represents repressive authority as she was abusive and controlling of Norman during his childhood, so Bates Motel symbolically represents the society that Marion is running from.

Hitchcock first shows that Marion is unable to escape repression because she is killed, and similarly, Norman is unable to escape his mother’s oppressive control in her murder because she still lives in his mind as he is engulfed with this obsession with her.

Hitchcock is addressing the overlying societal pressures in Marion’s previous life through the duality between the characters. The house watches over what Marion initially sees as shelter (Bates Motel), and it symbolizes a smaller version of the repressive society.

In a pessimistic view, Hitchcock implies that there is no escape from society because as Marion runs away, she only finds Bates Motel and more repression.  The two characters are trying to escape from a repressive society to freedom — for Marion, respectability and for Norman, individuality — but ended in tragedy.

Hitchcock’s film hinges on a larger societal idea that people should be free from a repressive society but not to the extent where they become a danger to themselves or others. He addresses greater contemporary issues with repression seen in Norman revolving around unhealthy obsessions and desires that come from a lack of free will.

Although the film is from the ’60s, it addresses a timeless dilemma with inequality and the oppression that comes with it through the duality of these two characters.

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Home — Essay Samples — Entertainment — Alfred Hitchcock — The film ‘Psycho’ by Alfred Hitchcock

The Film ‘psycho’ by Alfred Hitchcock

• Categories: Alfred Hitchcock Film Analysis Horror

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Psycho (1960) Review

Psycho (1960) Director: Alfred Hitchcock Screenwrites: Joseph Stefano Starring: Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Janet Leigh, Martin Balsam, John McIntire

Some films enter cultural consciousness almost by accident. They might not be the greatest of cinematic spectacles, but something about them triggers a nerve. A snatch of dialogue, a specific shot, a particular character. Some films manage to somehow tip the scales the instant they’re released. For too many reasons to name, Psycho is considered one of the greatest films of all time, and it rightly deserves that honour.

Directed by the legendary Alfred Hitchcock (the Master of Suspense behind such films as Rear Window , Vertigo , North by Northwest , and dozens of others), the film takes Robert Bloch’s original novel and, with a few tweaks, in the words of This Is Spinal Tap , dials it up to eleven. Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) works as an estate agent, spending her lunch hours with her lover, Sam, whenever he’s in town. Asked to take $40,000 in cash to the bank, she makes the sudden decision to take the money and run across the country to Sam in a bid to start a new life. A storm hits and, lost in the rain, she winds up at the now legendary Bates Motel, with a sinister American Gothic mansion overlooking the motel, run by the shy Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) and his mother, who in his words, “isn’t quite herself today.”

The film was hailed as a masterpiece almost immediately after release, which when you consider the now well-documented troubles it took to get the film made (included in the 2012 biopic Hitchcock , starring Anthony Hopkins) is one of those incredible stories that happens only once in a blue moon. Using cheaper black-and-white film with his TV crew and funding it all himself, Hitchcock uses every ounce of cinematic mastery possible to keep us squirming in our seats from opening to end. Even before the film, Hitchcock made and released a six-minute trailer , a whole miniature documentary film in itself, to advertise Psycho . Film critics were not allowed to see the film ahead of time to keep the twists a secret, and audiences were not allowed in once a showing had begun, something now standard practice but radical at the time. Everything said that this was going to be an event movie, a sensation thriller, in the way that Wilkie Collins’s “The Woman In White” had created the now-called ‘sensation literature’ genre just over a century earlier in 1859.

What a film we are treated to. The tense opening score from Bernard Hermann, using only a string quartet for the whole film to match Hitchcock’s black and white shooting, grabs you from the opening bars and doesn’t stop. When the famous shower scene kicks in, with the violins shrieking at the top of their range, it is so incredible that Hitchcock immediately recognised its quality by doubling Hermann’s salary and putting him second billing in the credits only underneath himself. These strings follow incredible performances from Leigh, Perkins, and Vera Miles, through the city and out into the sticks of the Bates Motel, a sight now so famous we almost recognise it without consciously understanding where from.

Every shot is placed so delicately, with such expertise and control, that it’s impossible to detect a flaw. When a single shot is required, Hitch keeps it. When it requires 50 cuts in 45 seconds, he goes for it. When the angle needs to change, there it moves. It is the result of 35 years of directorial triumphs and failures to know with a guttural instinct exactly how the tale should be told. Auteur theory is often made a mockery of, but there’s no denying that Hitchcock’s fingerprints are in every frame of the finished product. His Oscar nomination for the direction is well-earned and well-deserved.

Perkins’s naïve Norman is instantly endearing, and Perkins’s lack of an Academy Award nomination is inexplicable. Never mind that the other nominations that year were Burt Lancaster, Trevor Howard, Jack Lemmon, Laurence Olivier, and Spencer Tracy; Perkins’s performance has gone on to become immortal in cinema in a way that few other performances have done before or since. Leigh and Miles put in likewise iconic turns as the two Crane sisters, but it is Perkins that cinema will always remember. It is a trailblazing performance, masterful in its balance, looked to and imitated but never repeated, even by Perkins in future sequels.

All of these elements allow a masterful script to be put on screen in a blaze of glory. Never pausing, it always pushes on in a blood-curdling display of complex simplicity, helped by almost every scene ending with some kind of motion (a character leaving the room, driving off, etc) to allow a fluid surging forward from one scene to the next, and giving those that do not an extra punch to the subconscious gut. The dialogue is sublime, and the adaptation improves upon the novel by changing up Norman to be much more likeable from his literary counterpart, making the finale that much more devastating.

Cropping up in films such as Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and Michelangelo Antonioni Blow-Up , with even Francis Ford Coppola getting his start from Roger Corman with a pitched rip-off of Psycho , Hitchcock’s masterful thriller continues to influence writers, directors, and actors to this day. Not a slasher film in the world doesn’t look to Psycho in some way, not a thriller conceived doesn’t take a page from its book. A fairly blunt explanation at the end as an exposition dump doesn’t even begin to tarnish the film, leaving a legacy we have only begun to scratch the surface of, only just begun to see come to light.

Score: 24/24

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Psycho

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Psycho by Robert Kolker LAST REVIEWED: 28 January 2013 LAST MODIFIED: 28 January 2013 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791286-0051

Psycho (1960) is an endlessly intriguing film. At the height of his powers and having made his greatest film, Vertigo , two years previously, Alfred Hitchcock tried his hand at a low-budget horror film that would be made in the manner of his popular television series. Shooting quickly, decisively, and in black and white, he wound up not with a simple horror film but with a work that reflected the darkest recesses of the 1950s and even earlier. Psycho is formally and thematically astonishing. Each scene of the first part of the film builds, in the mind of the viewer, a growing discomfort that is released in the shock of the shower murder. The rest of the film is a slow descent into the mind of a madman, into the darkness of unknowable, malevolent violence. Psycho is a shocking experience for the viewer because of its explicit (very explicit for its time) violence, and it constitutes a treasure trove for the film scholar because of its formal economy. Every camera setup and every sequence expresses the anxiety of discontent, the bubbling up of incipient and actual violence. In collaboration with graphic designer Saul Bass, Hitchcock developed an abstract grid of horizontal and vertical lines and of circles and diagonals that sets up a visual template that locks his images in place. Bernard Herrmann’s score helps push the images into the viewer’s consciousness (and unconsciousness). No wonder, then, that there is a wealth of commentary and analysis about the film, including psychoanalytic, gender, cultural, and musicological approaches, that has touched the critical nerve as much as it has the nerve of the culture at large.

Full-length studies of Hitchcock, all of which have chapters on Psycho , are not listed here. These are available in the Oxford Bibliographies article on Hitchcock . Instead, this section focuses on books devoted to the film. Anobile 1974 provides a transcription of the film, shot by shot, while Kolker 2004 collects a variety of essays about the film. Rebello 1990 is a complete history of the film’s production and reception. Thomson 2009 places the film in a cultural context, while Durgnat 2002 and Naremore 1973 provide close analysis of the film. Leigh and Nickens 1995 is a memoir of the actress’s work on the project, while Skerry 2009 provides summaries and analyses.

Anobile, Richard J., ed. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. New York: Avon, 1974.

A complete transcription of the film with frame enlargements of every shot with accompanying dialogue.

Durgnat, Raymond. A Long Hard Look at Psycho. London: British Film Institute, 2002.

The book lives up to its title, and then some. Durgnat segments the film into its smallest narrative units. For each of these he provides frame enlargements with a summary of the action. These are in turn surrounded by a wide-ranging analysis that draws upon numerous methodologies and, even more important, on numerous other films. The result is that Psycho is put in its place in film history.

Kolker, Robert, ed. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho : A Casebook . New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Collects a number of essays, including Brown 1994 (cited under Psycho ’s Music ), Williams 2000 (cited under Essays in Books ), and Toles 1984 (cited under General Analysis ), as well as reviews and an original essay by Kolker on the film’s visual design.

Leigh, Janet, and Christopher Nickens. Psycho: Behind the Scenes of the Classic Thriller . New York: Harmony Books, 1995.

A combination memoir and history of Leigh and the film. Her recollections of Hitchcock’s working methods and the making of the shower scene are interesting. There is also some gossip and trivia.

Naremore, James. Filmguide to Psycho. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973.

Though there have been more up-to-date histories and analyses of the film, this remains a useful, nicely written introduction to Hitchcock the auteur and Psycho as an intricate exercise in cinematic form and emotional fright.

Rebello, Stephen. Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho. New York: W. W. Norton, 1990.

A complete history of the film from inception to reception. Full of detail, well written, and definitive in terms of production history.

Skerry, Philip J. Psycho in the Shower: The History of Cinema’s Most Famous Scene . London: Continuum, 2009.

Skerry writes: “I vowed to myself that my book would be different—less jargony and abstruse. It would be about the shower scene, of course, but it would also be about me” (p. 7). Memoir, interviews with key and lesser figures in the making of the film, and an excellent visual analysis mix in a reasonable companion to the film.

Thomson, David. The Moment of Psycho: How Alfred Hitchcock Taught America to Love Murder . New York: Basic Books, 2009.

Argues that the film is an act of “insurrectionary defiance” against the film industry and audience that failed to sufficiently appreciate him. Thomson reads the film sequentially, analyzing in critical detail its actions and events. He believes that after the shower murder the film is a “concoction.” But when not trying to rewrite Psycho , this is an excellent analysis of the film and its cultural contexts.

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The Greatness of “Psycho”

The cinematic man of the year, at least in prominence, is Alfred Hitchcock. Not only was his “Vertigo” named the best film of all time in the decennial Sight and Sound poll but he’s the subject of two bio-pics—“ The Girl ” (which ran on HBO last month), about the making of “The Birds” and “Marnie,” and now “ Hitchcock ” (opening this Friday), about the making of “Psycho.”

“The Girl,” directed by Julian Jarrold, has a hectic pulp briskness that’s apt to its subject (mainly, Hitchcock’s intense attraction to Tippi Hedren and the way he used his power to pursue her and, when she spurned him, to punish her), but “Hitchcock,” directed by Sacha Gervasi, is the better movie—first, thanks to Anthony Hopkins’s performance. Toby Jones, playing Hitchcock in Jarrold’s film, gets the slyness and the pain, the sophistication and the frustration, but Hopkins has the timing down better and also gives off a wilder creative drive, blending fierce energy with a loftily ironic perspective; his Hitchcock sees more and sees more clearly—and has the will to do something about it. In part, the directors’ differing approaches to the stories is responsible for the differing performances; Gervasi treats “Psycho” as the greater achievement, and he does a much better job with Hitchcock’s artistry, which he unfolds in its practical details and also—clumsily but cleverly and movingly—pursues in its inner recesses.

“Hitchcock” isn’t a great film, but it tells a great story and caps it with a couple of very fine and memorable moments—and the story it tells is one that rises from deep in the heart of the movie business and remains central to the industry today. A couple of months ago, the talk here turned to the studios—whether their emphasis on franchise films is causing a decline in the artistic quality of Hollywood movies. I don’t think so, and wrote then that the rise of independent productions gives directors a freer hand to pursue even more distinctive work (whether “Moonrise Kingdom” or “Magic Mike,” “Hugo” or “Tree of Life,” “Black Swan” or “Somewhere”). This has always been the case, as in the late forties and nineteen-fifties, when the wave of wildly original films by such directors as Nicholas Ray, Otto Preminger, Sam Fuller, and Ida Lupino were made largely by independent producers who gained sudden influence in the wake of antitrust suits.

The story of “Hitchcock” is simple: looking to strike out in a new direction after making “North by Northwest” (which, by the way, I’ve always considered one of Hitchcock’s weaker and stodgier films), he chose (on the recommendation by his longtime assistant, Peggy Robertson—played, in Gervasi’s film, by Toni Collette) Robert Bloch’s novel “Psycho.” But his studio, Paramount, refused to finance it—so Hitchcock made the movie with his own money, even mortgaging his house to do so. As it turns out (and as “Hitchcock” shows), “Psycho” made him a fortune; it was also, however, a flop with critics. In the Times , Bosley Crowther damned it with faint praise, writing that “Hitchcock, an old hand at frightening people, comes at you with a club in this frankly intended bloodcurdler”; he found it “slowly paced” and referring to its “old-fashioned melodramatics, however effective and sure.” In The New Yorker , John McCarten wrote , “Hitchcock does several spooky scenes with his usual éclat, and works diligently to make things as horrible as possible, but it’s all rather heavy-handed and not in any way comparable to the fine jobs he’s done in the not so distant past.” Pauline Kael didn’t review it (even when it ran in revival) but, in 1978, complained about it as “a borderline case of immorality… which, because of the director’s cheerful complicity with the killer, had a sadistic glee that I couldn’t quite deal with,” and she condescended to the shower scene as “a good dirty joke.”

Its great rave came from Andrew Sarris, who, in his first piece for the Village Voice , called Hitchcock “the most daring avant-garde film-maker in America today” and added:

“Psycho” should be seen at least three times by any discerning film-goer, the first time for the sheer terror of the experience, and on this occasion I fully agree with Hitchcock that only a congenital spoilsport would reveal the plot; the second time for the macabre comedy inherent in the conception of the film; and the third for all the hidden meanings and symbols lurking beneath the surface of the first American movie since “Touch of Evil” to stand in the same creative rank as the great European films. In a 2001 interview with Richard Schickel, Sarris said that this review proved controversial:

The Voice had all these readers—little old ladies who lived on the West Side, guys who had fought in the Spanish Civil War—and this seemed so regressive, to them, to say that Hitchcock was a great artist.

It’s not so controversial anymore, because the times have long since caught up with his obsessions—and with the notion of the popular as art. If anything, now inflation has set in regarding the praise of popular films as art (as with raves for “Lincoln,” “Silver Linings Playbook,” and “Anna Karenina”); critics are all too ready to extol any mass-market movie with the merest glimmer of personal concern, stylistic idiosyncrasy, or intellectual substance and to crown their directors as auteurs. One of the great changes in critical perception in the past fifty years—and perhaps in society at large—is the view of insidership; as the boundaries between pop and high culture have (rightly) fallen, a sort of populist or demagogic reversal has occurred—the desire and the ability to reach broad audiences has become a virtue in itself rather than an incidental and inconsequential artistic epiphenomenon. It doesn’t matter whether “Psycho” was a bigger hit than “North by Northwest” or whether “The Wrong Man” and “Marnie” were flops, although, of course, it mattered to the director. One of the noteworthy things about “Hitchcock” is that it illustrates how Hitchcock’s decision to work in a pulp vein was, above all, a change in artistic gears—as well as one that he thought through to its very release in order to make his investment good and turn the movie into a hit.

“Psycho” remains a demanding and disturbing movie; it conveys the thrill felt by a murderer as well as his torment, and it shows the proximity of sex—and of restrictive sexual morality—to violence. It’s ultimately an existential conundrum that blames nature itself as the source of deadly madness, and even the scene that Kael called “arguably—Hitchcock’s worst scene,” the psychiatrist’s explanation at the end—has a profound place in the schema: the doctor can diagnose and explain a phenomenon that he’s seemingly powerless to foresee or cure. There’s no redemptive ending, no love story that conquers all, no promise that such ills won’t be repeated.

Yet, for all its philosophically revelatory drama and symbolism, “Psycho” remains a movie made with Hitchcock’s own money—but not a movie about himself. The modernistic version of “Psycho” would be Hitchcock’s own story of mortgaging his house to make “Psycho”—and making clear the personal significance of the story of “Psycho.” That’s where Gervasi goes out on a shaky but bold artistic limb, presenting a strangely enticing set of scenes in which Hitchcock imagines, or is visited in dreams by, the serial killer Ed Gein, whose crimes were the basis for Bloch’s novel. Gervasi rightly suggests that Hitchcock is no mere puppet master who seeks to provoke effects in his viewers; he’s converting the world as he sees it, in its practical details and obsessively ugly corners, into his art, and he’s doing so precisely because those are the aspects of life that haunt his imagination. Gervasi had the audacity to consider the filmmaker’s realized visions to be reflections of an inner life that documented behavior hardly conveys. For Hitchcock, bloody evil and the danger of sex are a sort of music that forces itself to the fore unbidden from the depths of his being. A few others—such as his characters and their real-life models—are even more deeply in the grip of such obsessions and in less control of their behavior; millions of others, when confronted with the evidence, find the secret stirrings deep within themselves, too; it’s the difference, of course, between psychopaths and viewers, as well as the connection.

Whether something is a commercial success or not is irrelevant to its artistic merit; but, nonetheless, things succeed for reasons, and Hitchcock’s success arose from his lucid understanding that, in these obsessions, he’s far from alone. Despite critical and even medical outcries at the time of the film’s release (as in a 1960 letter to the Times from a doctor who wished that Hitchcock had self-censored), it was clear that Hitchcock tapped into ugly elements of the unconscious at a time when lots of people were ready to become conscious of them. In Gervasi’s conceit, Hitchcock is both terrified and amused by the play of his own mind (which makes sense—so are viewers). I have no idea whether Hitchcock gave very much thought to Gein, but it doesn’t matter; if it wasn’t Gein that obsessed him, it was surely much that was Gein-like.

There’s a great line from Norman Mailer to the effect that the one kind of character no novelist can conceive is a greater novelist than himself. Gervasi’s visions fall far short of Hitchcock’s phantasmagoria—but they at least suggest that the inner mysteries are there, and that Hitchcock’s art arose from much that the doughy and sybaritic ironist’s observable behavior may not, and need not, put in evidence. Hitchcock’s meticulous attention to practical details served his radical subjectivism; he didn’t hesitate to fill his films with plenty (from inner voices to dream sequences) that assert of characters what can’t be seen from fly-on-the-wall observation. Gervasi—albeit in a narrower range and slighter realization of artistic imagination—does the same, and this already puts him ahead of many.

As an object of adulation, “Vertigo” is also an object of nostalgia, an allegory for the very cinematic manipulations of the grand studio era, of which Hitchcock was a master (albeit a master in thrall). Voting it the best film of all time was also voting for classic Hollywood. “Psycho,” in its dark and sordid extravagance, remains utterly contemporary, in its subject as well as in its production.

P.S. In his biography of Rossini, Stendhal makes clear that, in the early nineteenth century, opera spectators were in the habit of wandering noisily in and out of the theatre while the production was going on. So it was with movies, as I recall from my childhood in the sixties—people went to the movies casually, not hesitating to take a seat in the midst of the movie and then staying through to the beginning of the next show to see what they missed. That now-obsolete habit gives rise to scenes in “Hitchcock” that reveal the skill of Hitchcock the showman—and make clear his deep understanding of the essential experience of cinema. He insisted that “Psycho” be watched from the start, and that no viewers be allowed into the theatre once the lights went down—and theatres screening it had to enforce these rules. There’s documentary footage, as an extra on the DVD release of “Psycho,” showing the effect of these rules: the invention of a ticket-holder’s line, separate from the line at the box-office, where viewers waited to enter the theatre at the start of the show. Next time you wait in one, remember that this, too, was Hitchcock’s doing.

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By Nick Paumgarten

By Isaac Chotiner

By Richard Brody

By Sinéad O’Sullivan

Film Review: ‘Psycho’

By Variety Staff

Variety Staff

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Anyone listening hard enough, might almost hear Alfred Hitchcock saylng, “Believe this, kids, and I’ll tell you another.” The rejoinder from this corner: Believability doesn’t matter; but do tell another.

Producer-director Hitchcock is up to his clavicle in whimsicality and apparently had the time of his life in putting together “ Psycho .” He’s gotten in gore, in the form of a couple of graphically-depicted knife murders, a story that’s far out in Freudian motivations, and now and then injects little amusing plot items that suggest the whole thing is not to be taken seriously.

Hitchcock uses the old plea that nobody give out the ending — “It’s the only one we have.” This will be abided by bere, but it must be said that the central force throughout the feature is a mother who is a homicidal maniac. This is unusual because she happens to be physically defunct, has been for some years. But she lives on in the person of her son.

Anthony Perkins is the young man who doesn’t get enough exorcise (repeat exorcise) of that other inner being. Among the victims are Janet Leigh, who walks away from an illicit love affair with John Gavin, taking with her a stolen $40,000, and Martin Balsam, as a private eye who winds up in the same swamp in which Leigh’s body also is deposited.

John McIntire is the local sheriff with an unusual case on his hands, and Simon Oakland is the psychiatrist who recognizes that Perkins, while donning his mother’s clothes, is not really a transvestite; he’s just nuts. Vera Miles is the dead girl’s sister whose investigation leads to the diagnosis of what ails Perkins.

Perkins gives a remarkably effective in-a-dream kind of performance as the possessed young man. Others play it straight, with equal competence.

Saul Bass’ titles are full of his characteristic trickiness, Bernard Herrmann’s music nicely plays counter-point with the pictorial action and editing seems right all the way.

1960: Nominations: Best Director, Supp. Actress (Janet Leigh), B&W Cinematography, B&W Art Direction

• Production: Paramount. Director Alfred Hitchcock; Producer Alfred Hitchcock; Screenplay Joseph Stefano; Camera John L. Russell; Editor George Tomasini; Music Bernard Herrmann; Art Director Joseph Hurley, Robert Clatworthy. At DeMille Theatre, N.Y., June 16, 1960.
• Crew: (B&W) Available on VHS, DVD. Original review text from 1960. Running time: 109 MIN.
• With: Norman Bates - Anthony Perkins Marion Crane - Janet Leigh Lila Crane - Vera Miles Sam Loomis - John Gavin Milton Arbogast - Martin Balsam Sheriff Chambers - John McIntire Dr. Richmond - Simon Oakland

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Summary and Study Guide

Psycho (1959) is a horror novel by Robert Bloch and the inspiration for filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock’s film of the same name, which came out one year later. While Hitchcock’s adaptation has largely eclipsed Bloch’s original in the public eye, fans of the film will recognize the basic plot and the major twists in Bloch’s novel. However, Bloch’s Norman Bates is (physically) unrecognizable from the version Anthony Perkins played on screen. Psycho is a slasher thriller that evolves into a work of psychological horror as the revelations about Norman Bates’s relationship with his mother, criminal acts, and mental health condition come to light. It is important to note, however, that Psycho is a product of its time and relies on disproven approaches to mental health that are out of favor among mental health professionals and experts. Specifically, Psycho tends to correlate mental health conditions with criminal behavior, particularly violent crime, while in fact, people with mental health conditions are far more likely to experience violent crime than to perpetrate it.

This guide references the Overlook Press paperback edition, published in 2010.

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Content Warning: This guide describes and analyzes the source text’s treatment of trauma, abuse, and mental health. The novel contains stigmatizing depictions of cross-dressing and an individual with a mental health condition, which relies on outdated and offensive tropes that connect mental health conditions with violence.

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Norman Bates is a timid, middle-aged man running the Bates Motel on the rural outskirts of a small town called Fairvale. Norman’s mother, Norma, is a domineering and puritanical woman who still governs Norman’s life, even though he is 40. Norman blames his mother for not selling the motel before the state built a new highway, leaving the motel starving for business. On a stormy night, Norman argues with Norma, who berates him for being spineless and taking no initiative in life. Feeling deflated, Norman puts his mother to bed and turns on the motel’s sign to attract passing travelers.

Lost after taking a wrong turn off the highway, Mary Crane stumbles upon the Bates motel. Mary is on the run after stealing $40,000 from her boss, Mr. Lowry. Mary spent her young adulthood caring for her ailing mother, while her sister, Lila, went to college. After their mother’s death, the sisters moved in together, and Mary went on a cruise. On the ship, Mary met Sam Loomis , and the two fell in love and became engaged. However, Sam will not marry Mary until he pays off the debts he inherited from his father, which should take two more years. In the meantime, they live far apart. Mary plans to use the stolen money to pay off Sam’s debts so they can start their life together. As Mary drives, her resolve begins to waver and she decides to take a room at the Bates Motel to think things over.

Norman is awkward, yet friendly. He does not seem threatening, so Mary accepts his invitation to dinner at his house, which is behind the motel. Mary is astonished by the house’s interior, which looks frozen in time from the previous century. Norman describes his difficult relationship with his mother, and when Mary suggests he take control of his life and get his mother psychiatric help, Norman loses his temper. He insists his mother is sane, blaming himself for ruining her mother’s life and feeling indebted to her. Norman apologizes for his outburst, and Mary excuses herself back to her room, which is next to the office. While Norman watches her through a peephole in the office, Mary resolves to return the stolen money. With this weight off her conscience, she takes a shower. An old woman enters the bathroom, but Mary doesn’t see her until it is too late. The intruder kills and decapitates Mary with a knife.

Norman’s conversation with Mary leaves him shaken. In the hotel office, he gets drunk, recalling how his mother threatened to kill Mary when he put her to bed that night. Norman passes out from the whiskey. When he wakes up, he discovers Mary’s body. He contemplates turning Norma in to the police but decides against it. Norman puts Mary’s body in her car and submerges it in a nearby swamp. He cleans the crime scene as thoroughly as he can. He finds one of Mary’s earrings but not its mate and assumes the other is still in Mary’s ear.

Sam Loomis sits in the office at his hardware store in Fairvale, calculating sales and thinking about Mary. A visitor knocks at the door, and Sam kisses her, mistaking her for Mary. He realizes his error: The visitor is Lila Crane , Mary’s sister. Lila explains that she has not heard from Mary since she left home without warning a week ago. The conversation is interrupted by the arrival of Milton Arbogast, a private investigator that Mr. Lowry’s firm hired to investigate the missing $40,000. Arbogast grills Sam and Lila until he is convinced they are not accomplices to the theft. Lila wants to report Mary missing, but Arbogast asks for 24 hours to follow up on final leads. Lila and Sam spend an anxious day waiting for Arbogast to call, wondering how well they really know Mary. Arbogast calls, saying he followed Mary’s trail to the Bates Motel. He plans to question the old woman he saw in the house’s window. They do not hear from him again.

Norman shaves, thinking of his relationship with his mother. Sometimes he feels like two people, reduced to a child when confronted by Norma. Norman has had to act as an adult to keep them both safe. He spends an uneventful afternoon in the motel office until Arbogast arrives. The detective questions Norman, tricking him into admitting he had dinner with Mary. Arbogast declares that he saw Mrs. Bates in the window and pressures Norman to allow him to question her about Mary. Reluctantly, Norman goes to the house to warn his mother. Suspiciously calm, Norma prepares to meet Arbogast. After she lets him inside, she kills him with Norman’s razor. Norman cleans up his mother’s mess, waiting until dark to roll Arbogast in a rug and dispose of him the same way he did Mary, rolling his Buick into the swamp. Norman locks Norma in the fruit cellar for her own protection and concocts a story to cover for Arbogast’s absence.

The next morning, Sam and Lila go to Sheriff Chambers, who listens to their story and guesses that Arbogast had found another clue about Mary and left town. He calls Norman, who tells him that Mary indicated she was heading to Chicago and that Arbogast left upon learning this. Further, Arbogast must have been lying about seeing Norman’s mother, who has been dead for 20 years, since she and her new husband, Joe Considine, died by suicide together. Norman was so traumatized that he spent several months hospitalized in a mental health facility. Lila discovers that Arbogast checked out of his hotel and intended to return for his bags but never did. She and Sam return to the sheriff to request a formal inquest. Chambers goes to the Bates Motel, and Norman allows him to inspect the property, but the sheriff finds nothing amiss. Unsatisfied, Lila wants to go to the motel herself. She suspects that the woman Arbogast saw in the window might have been Mary, held hostage in Norman’s house.

Sam and Lila check in to the motel under phony names as a married couple. Norman, drinking again, sees through this façade but makes no objections, even allowing them to rent the room where Mary died. Norman watches through the peephole as Lila finds Mary’s missing earring behind the shower stall, along with what Sam thinks is dried blood. Sam convinces Lila to go to the sheriff while he keeps Norman busy.

In the lobby, Norman offers Sam a drink while they talk. Sam tries to keep calm as Norman’s conversation becomes increasingly disturbing. He claims that Norma is still alive; he exhumed her body, which was in a state of suspended animation, and revived it with something akin to magic. Norman reveals that he saw Lila park the car up the road and walk to the house. Before Sam can react, Norman bashes his head with the whiskey bottle. Lila searches for Mary in Norman’s house, which is like an antique time capsule, eventually discovering the door to the fruit cellar. Inside, she finds Norma’s mummified body. Lila screams. Norman, dressed in his mother’s clothes, with makeup on his face, attacks her with a knife. Sam arrives just in time to wrest the knife from Norman’s hands.

Sam visits the psychiatric hospital sometime later for an interview with Norman’s psychiatrist and relays the information he gleaned to Lila, admitting he does not fully understand it. Norman has dissociative identity disorder, Sam reports, which splits his psyche between his child and adult selves and his mother. He adopted his mother’s persona after he murdered her and Joe Considine. “Norma” surfaced whenever Norman felt threatened. This seems to give Lila closure; she believes that Norman has suffered more than any of them. Later, in Norman’s cell, Norma’s personality assimilates into Norman’s other personalities. Norma sits perfectly still to show she is harmless; she blames Norman for the murders. She lets a fly crawl on her. Norma would not even hurt a fly.

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It's just as well a woman directed "American Psycho." She's transformed a novel about blood lust into a movie about men's vanity. A male director might have thought Patrick Bateman, the hero of "American Psycho," was a serial killer because of psychological twists, but Mary Harron sees him as a guy who's prey to the usual male drives and compulsions. He just acts out a little more.

Most men are not chain-saw killers; they only act that way while doing business. Look at the traders clawing each other on the floor of the stock exchange. Listen to used-car dealers trying to dump excess stock on one another. Consider the joy with which one megacorp stock-raids another and dumps its leaders. Study such films as " In the Company of Men ," " Glengarry Glen Ross ," " Boiler Room " and the new " The Big Kahuna ." It's a dog-eat-dog world, and to survive you'd better be White Fang.

As a novel, Bret Easton Ellis' 1991 best seller was passed from one publisher to another like a hot potato. As a film project, it has gone through screenplays, directors and stars for years. It was snatched up for Oliver Stone , who planned to star Leonardo DiCaprio , before ending up back in Harron's arms with Christian Bale in the lead. (To imagine this material in Stone's hands, recall the scene in Ken Russell's " The Music Lovers " where Tchaikovsky's head explodes during the "1812 Overture," then spin it out to feature length.)

Harron is less impressed by the vile Patrick Bateman than a man might have been, perhaps because as a woman who directs movies, she deals every day with guys who resemble Bateman in all but his body count. She senses the linkage between the time Bateman spends in the morning, lovingly applying male facial products, and the way he blasts away people who annoy him, anger him or simply have the misfortune to be within his field of view. He is a narcissist driven by ego and fueled by greed. Most of his victims are women, but in a pinch, a man will do.

The film regards the male executive lifestyle with the devotion of a fetishist. There is a scene where a group of businessmen compare their business cards, discussing the wording, paper thickness, finish, embossing, engraving and typefaces, and they might as well be discussing their phalli. Their sexual insecurity is manifested as card envy. They carry on grim rivalries expressed in clothes, offices, salaries and being able to get good tables in important restaurants. It is their uneasy secret that they make enough money to afford to look important, but are not very important. One of the film's running jokes is that Bateman looks so much like one of his colleagues ( Jared Leto ) that they are mistaken for each other. (Their faces aren't really identical, but they occupy empty space in much the same way.)

The film and the book are notorious because Bateman murders a lot of people in nasty ways. I have overheard debates about whether some of the murders are fantasies ("can a man really aim a chain saw that well?"). All of the murders are equally real or unreal, and that isn't the point: The function of the murders is to make visible the frenzy of the territorial male when his will is frustrated. The movie gives shape and form to road rage, golf course rage, family abuse and some of the scarier behavior patterns of sports fans.

You see why Harron has called the film "feminist." So it is--and a libel against the many sane, calm and civilized men it does not describe. But it's true to a type, all right. It sees Bateman in a clear, sharp, satiric light, and it despises him. Christian Bale is heroic in the way he allows the character to leap joyfully into despicability; there is no instinct for self-preservation here, and that is one mark of a good actor.

When Bateman kills, it is not with the zeal of a villain from a slasher movie. It is with the thoroughness of a hobbyist. Lives could have been saved if instead of living in a high-rise, Bateman had been supplied with a basement, a workbench and a lot of nails to pound.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

American Psycho (2000)

Rated R For Strong Violence, Sexuality, Drug Use and Language

100 minutes

Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman

Willem Dafoe as Donald Kimball

Jared Leto as Paul Allen

Reese Witherspoon as Evelyn

Samantha Mathis as Courtney

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Directed by

• Mary Harron
• Guinevere Turner

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Psychological Disorders in “American Psycho” Movie Essay (Movie Review)

Introduction, summary of the film, psychopathy, narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, accuracy of bateman’s disorder’s portrayal.

Films are good examples and portrayals of human behavior in different citations. Many movies show characters with a specific mental disorder and how this condition impacts the actions and perceptions of individuals. Although one should watch these portrayals with caution because they are not always representative of real-life psychological illnesses, films can serve as suitable study materials. American Psycho, directed by Harron, follows a life of a complex character, named Patrick Bateman. Bateman suffers from several disorders, including narcissistic personality disorder and antisocial disorder. In order to present potential diagnoses properly, criteria developed by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) should be used. This paper will briefly summarize the plot of American Psycho and analyze Patrick Bateman’s psychological disorders.

American Psycho is the director’s view of the modern culture of earning more and spending more and the dynamic work environment of the corporate organizations. The main character, who will be the basis of this paper’s analysis, is Patrick Bateman, who is a young and successful individual (Harron, 1999). Bateman has a steady job and a fiancé, but his behavior consistently points out a lack of connection with reality. From the beginning of this movie, Bateman is preoccupied with superficial things, such as his appearance, the fact that he only wears Versace suits, the business cards he has, dinner reservations, and other things (Harron, 1999). The plot shows Bateman’s day-to-day life, his meetings with colleagues, interactions with his fiancé, and other routines.

In this movie, Patrick Bateman is a young professional working a corporate job. For the public, he is a handsome and successful man. However, Bateman also has a secret life since he is also a serial killer (Harron, 1999). He manages to conduct the killings despite the fact that he has a mistress and a fiancé since some of his crimes happen at his apartment. This shows the nature of some psychological disorders and the fact that even the closest relatives and friends can be unaware of the individual’s condition.

Over the course of this movie, Bateman kills several people in different circumstances, including a homeless man at the beginning. The latter was murdered because Bateman became upset due to the fact that his colleague had a better business card (Harron, 1999). Moreover, the movie shows some unusual events, such as Bateman reading “feed me a stray cat” on the ATM (Harron, 1990). Bateman is shown to invite prostitutes into his apartment, as well as attempt to murder one of them with a chain saw. In the end, Bateman tries to confess his crimes to his colleagues and his layer, but these individuals dismiss his words by stating that one of the victims Bateman claims to kill, Paul Allen, is still alive.

In summary, this movie intends to show the dangerous nature of some disorders, which cause people to lose connection with reality. In the end, this film reveals that the killings and the character’s confession can be his hallucinations as nothing confirms the reality of these events. Despite this possibility, it is clear that Bateman is disconnected from reality and preoccupied with himself and superficial things he considers essential, which points to the potential diagnosis of a narcissistic disorder.

Patrick Bateman is a complex character, and his behavior points to several potential personality disorders. Although the movie title suggests that Bateman should be diagnosed with a psychopathic personality disorder, this character’s behavior is not always consistent with the characteristics of this illness. However, his behavior on a daily basis, priorities, and attitudes toward others allow diagnosing Patrick with a narcissistic personality disorder and antisocial disorder.

DSM-5 is the most recent publication of the manual that contains criteria that allow diagnosing a person with a psychological disorder. Typically one has to show symptoms of at least several factors described in DSM to be eligible (APA, 2013). The main criteria that define Bateman’s personality are the fact that his viewpoint does not reflect the objective reality. For example, he is driven by consumerism, overly concerned with the street name he lives on, and his killings are most likely a result of his imagination (Harron, 1999). Additionally, Bateman has no close relationships because he constantly lies and manipulates people, which are also traits that allow to diagnose him.

The name of this film, which is American Psycho, suggests that the main character has a psychotic disorder. Individuals with this diagnosis have an impaired perception of reality, which is evident with Bateman, who is unsure whether he committed murders in real life or not. Additionally, under DSM-5 criteria, psychopaths are fearless, their behavior is bold, and they feel invulnerable (APA, 2013). While this is true with Bateman, who kills a man on a street, shoots a woman, and chases one of the prostitutes down the staircase with a chainsaw, at the end of this film, the character’s behavior changes. Although he does not feel remorse for his actions, he confesses his crimes to several people, which is not typical for this diagnosis (Harron, 1999). Hence, it appears that either Bateman should not be diagnosed with a psychopathic personality disorder or that the movie’s portrayal of this disorder is inaccurate.

Notably, there are several misconceptions about psychopathy that this film supports. According to Martinez-Lopez et al. (2019), “psychopathy appears to be a complex, multifaceted condition marked by blends of personality traits reflecting differing levels of disinhibition, boldness, and meanness” (p. 4761). The main characteristic of psychopathic traits is a history of violent behavior. However, Martinez-Lopez et al. (2019) also suggest that many misconceptions about psychopaths have been dismissed in recent years, for instance, an assumption that they are born in a certain way, and their environment plays a small role in the development of pathological traits. Moreover, recent research has shown that psychopaths can be treated successfully with specific methods. Based on the complex nature of this condition and the fact that close observations and clinical experience are necessary to diagnose it accurately, one can conclude that Bateman should not be diagnosed with psychopathy.

In addition to psychopathy, the main character of this film demonstrated the traits of a narcissistic personality disorder. For example, one of the criteria under the DSM manual diagnostics is the increased interest in self. In the movie, Patrick has a conversation with two prostitutes, and he expresses the desire to discuss his work. When the two women sigh and show a lack of interest, he becomes annoyed, which suggests that he is interested in talking about himself. Next, the second criterion is a strong focus on personal aesthetics (APA, 2013). In the beginning, Patrick is shown to groom himself, looking in the mirror and stating that he could look better and be thinner (Harron, 1999). He is shown to put an icepack on his eyes to remove the puffiness and his morning routine appears to be excessive (Harron, 1999). Moreover, in the later scenes, Patrick compares his appearance to that of another college, who wears the same brand of expensive suits and glasses and has a similar haircut. These scenes hint at his strong interest in the way he looks and the way his appearance may be perceived by others.

People with a narcissistic disorder select their group of friends carefully, only choosing individuals who they perceive to have a similar social status to themselves. Moreover, these individuals desire admiration (APA, 2013). In Patrick’s case, his circle of friends consists primarily of Timothy, his fiancé, which are all elements of the character’s social status. Moreover, the scene after which Patrick kills a homeless man depicts others looking at the business card of Patrick’s coworker, which causes the former to feel extreme frustration. Hence, this scene points out the idea that Patrick requires admiration and feels annoyed when others do not pay attention to him. This also supports another DSM criteria, which is a feeling of envy towards others.

Apart from this, Patrick shows some common traits of a narcissist personality, such as a lack of emotions. He is unable to express them and understand the feelings of others. For example, when his friend Courtney comes to talk to him about her problems, she is extraordinarily agitated and looks worried. Instead of noticing this, Bateman compliments the woman on her looks by stating that she looks marvelous (Harron, 1999). This evident lack of compassion and emotional intelligence is what causes narcissists to behave arrogantly and dismissively towards others since they do not recognize or understand their feelings and cannot be empathic towards other people.

An initial assumption about the behavior of people with antisocial personality disorder would be that they altogether avoid any contact with other human beings. However, Bateman maintains communication with his colleagues, for example, Paul Allen, his job requires him to communicate with clients and other employees, and he has a fiancé (Harron, 1999). However, upon closer analysis, one can conclude that Bateman’s relationships are superficial. None of the other characters can be considered his friends, and he never has deep conversations with his colleagues or fiancé. Moreover, he never shares his actual feelings or frustrations with others, and for example, when he sees that someone has a better business card, he avoids admitting directly that this fact upsets him (Harron, 1999). Therefore, although Bateman does not avoid social life altogether, his lack of close relationships points to a potential diagnosis of an antisocial disorder.

Under the DSM-5 manual, there are ten characteristics that allow for identifying an antisocial personality disorder. Criteria 9 and 10 require the abnormal behavior to begin at the age of 15 and the person being at least 18 at the time of the diagnosis (APA, 2013). Harron (1999) never shows or mentions Bateman’s behavior during childhood, hence it is difficult to determine if his character traits are inherent to him or not. Another criterion is questionable since it implies breaking the laws repeatedly (APA, 2013). Although Bateman is shown to kill several people in different ways and hide their bodies over the course of the movie, it is not clear whether these are hallucinations or reality. Additionally, in this movie, Bateman never breaks other laws or policies.

Lies and manipulation are the other two criteria that make one eligible for the diagnosis. Some examples of Bateman lying include his relationship with his fiancé. Evelyn is a wealthy woman, and this appears to be the only factor that interests Patrick. He cheats on Evelyn, for example, with two prostitutes that he eventually murders (Harron, 1999). Other examples of this behavior include the scene at the beginning when Patrick is asked about stains on his sheets. When he is at the dry cleaners, he yells at the personnel and states that his sheets were stained by cranberry juice. Later he becomes frustrated because the cleaning did not remove the traces (Harron, 1999). It is probable that these stains are, in fact, traces of blood, and Patrick chose to hide this fact from the dry cleaning’ personnel.

Bateman can be easily irritated by minor things, and he is often portrayed as aggressive. Irritability and aggression are also criteria of DSM-5 for antisocial disorder (APA, 2013). The scenes of aggression are mainly the ones where Bateman murders people. However, he is also irritated on multiple occasions, for example, during the scene with business cards and when talking to the two prostitutes. This is linked to another factor, which is impulsivity, shown when Bateman calls Dorsia to get a reservation for a table. Instead of planning ahead for a reservation in advance, which is what people usually do, he chooses to disturb his acquaintance because he made an on-the-spot decision. This also suggests that he does not plan ahead and instead lives in the moment, and he does something the second he decides to do this.

Other traits of Bateman include his lack of responsibility, no regard for his safety or that of others, and having no remorse. For example, although he is a successful investment Banker, over the course of the movie, there is no scene where Patrick is actually working. Instead, even when he is at the workplace, he listens to music, makes reservations for lunch, or talks to his colleagues. Apart from this, he has a drug addiction and engages others in this dangerous behavior. This is shown when Bateman and Timothy take drugs in bathroom stalls (Harron, 1999). Finally, although Bateman has a long relationship with Evelyn, they are even engaged. He quickly breaks up with her and shows no remorse or desire to support his ex-partner. Hence, The analysis of Patrick Bateman’s behavior shows that the majority of his actions and character traits are consistent with the diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder.

The film American Psycho is an artistic work, which means that the nature of psychological disorders, the symptoms, and their portrayal may be different from what a therapist encounters during their professional practice. One factor complicating the analysis is the lack of definite answers in the movie, and mainly, it is unclear if Bateman’s killings are only his imagination. However, the grandiose behavior, preoccupancy with material things, and connections with wealthy and successful people match the description of the narcissistic behaviors.

Secondary characters in this movie also display narcissistic traits. Bateman behaves in a manner similar to that of others in his social circle. For example, at one business meeting, he is confused with another employee because they have the same hairstyle, glasses, and suits (Harron, 1999). Moreover, these characters are preoccupied with getting a reservation at a high-end restaurant. Their appearance and behavior suggest that most secondary characters in American Psycho are also accurate portrayals of narcissism.

Bateman’s behavior in the film is also consistent with the way a psychopath behaves in real life. According to the analysis by Permata (2020), under Hare’s theory of psychopath disorder, Bateman matches the criteria for high intelligence, superficial charm, lying and manipulations, having no remorse for one’s actions, impulsive behaviors, and antisocial behaviors. The intellect is shown through Bateman’s high-paying position, which requires good knowledge of finance and a degree in this field. His impulsivity is evident in each episode that presides over the killings. For example, when a lady on the streets confronts him about a stray cat Bateman tries to push into an ATM, the latter pulls out a gun. His antisocial behavior is evident from the lack of close friends, and even his fiancé and Bateman do not have a close and trustworthy relationship. However, as was mentioned in the discussion of cratered for the psychotic disorder diagnosis, at the end of the film, Bateman realizes that even though he confessed, no one around him cared (Harron, 1999). In contrast to this, psychopaths in real life do not have a sense of remorse and do not regret or care about the consequences of their actions.

The portrayal of the antisocial personality disorder in this film is good since it provides an understanding that event through a person has connections and contact with others, they may be eligible for this diagnosis. Bateman is a charming individual, and he is well-spoken and good-looking. These traits allow him to find contact with others and maintain good conversations. However, those are often superficial. For example, during a scene at his apartment, he describes an album by Hue Lewis, but he uses standard phrases he read from magazines critiquing this music. Hence, he does not have any real interest in the conversation topic but only uses his intelligence to make an excellent impression to manipulate others into something. This scene also points out the fact that Bateman never develops a real relationship with anyone, neither a friend nor his partner Evelyn. He always uses his charm and superficial things he has to impress people but never acts as real Patrick Bateman. Considering the DSM-5 creature discussed before, it appears that despite Bateman’s public persona, he, in fact, maybe diagnosed with an antisocial disorder. Moreover, this movie excellently portrays the traits of people with this condition since Bateman’s behavior is always consistent and proves his disregard for others in multiple scenes.

Overall, this paper examines the movie American Psycho and explains the diagnosis of the main character, Mr. Bateman. Despite the name of this film, the disorders that Bateman suffers from are consistent with narcissistic disorder and antisocial personality disorder. However, over the course of the film, Bateman murders several people, although it is unclear whether these killings happened in real life or were only his fantasies. Hence, there are some hints that support the diagnosis of a psychotic disorder as well. Therefore, this character is complex and demonstrates evidence of several psychological illnesses co-occurring. Considering that this is a movie, some aspects of mental health disorders are not portrayed accurately.

American Psychiatric Association (APA). (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). American Psychiatric Association.

Harron, M. (1999). American Psycho [Film]. Lions Gate Films.

Martínez-López, J., Medina-Mora, M. E., Robles-García, R., Madrigal, E., Juárez, F., Tovilla-Zarate, C. A., Reyes, C., Monroy, N., & Fresán, A. (2019). Psychopathic disorder subtypes based on temperament and character differences. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16 (23), 4761. Web.

Permata, A. D. (2019) Psychopathic disorder reflected in Patrick Bateman in Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho [Unpublished thesis]. Universitas Teknokrat Indonesia.

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IvyPanda. (2022, July 12). Psychological Disorders in "American Psycho" Movie. https://ivypanda.com/essays/psychological-disorders-in-american-psycho-movie/

"Psychological Disorders in "American Psycho" Movie." IvyPanda , 12 July 2022, ivypanda.com/essays/psychological-disorders-in-american-psycho-movie/.

IvyPanda . (2022) 'Psychological Disorders in "American Psycho" Movie'. 12 July.

IvyPanda . 2022. "Psychological Disorders in "American Psycho" Movie." July 12, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/psychological-disorders-in-american-psycho-movie/.

1. IvyPanda . "Psychological Disorders in "American Psycho" Movie." July 12, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/psychological-disorders-in-american-psycho-movie/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Psychological Disorders in "American Psycho" Movie." July 12, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/psychological-disorders-in-american-psycho-movie/.

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‘Film Geek’ Review: A Cinephile’s Guide to New York

The director Richard Shepard details his lifelong obsession with movies in this enthusiastic video essay.

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By Calum Marsh

Richard Shepard, the director of the black comedies “Dom Hemingway” and “The Matador,” is a lifelong cinephile with a voracious appetite for movies.

“Film Geek,” a feature-length video essay composed primarily of footage of films that Shepard saw growing up in the 1970s in New York City, delves deep into his obsession. In a voice-over, he recounts his childhood, when he was “addicted to movies, to watching them, to making them.” He is enthusiastic, and the movie aspires to make that enthusiasm infectious.

I appreciate Shepard’s affection: I also grew up loving movies, and I found his wistful reminiscences of being awed by “Jaws” and “Star Wars” relatable. But Shepard’s level of self-regard can be stultifying. For minutes at a time, he simply rattles off the titles of various movies that he saw as a child. I appreciate that seeing “Rocky” made a strong impression on him. I did not need to know that he lost his virginity in the apartment building where John G. Avildsen, the director of “Rocky,” once lived.

“Film Geek” has been compared to Thom Andersen’s great documentary from 2003, “Los Angeles Plays Itself,” and on the level of montage, they share a superficial resemblance: “Film Geek,” like Andersen’s essay film, is brisk and well edited.

But “Los Angeles Plays Itself” is also a thoughtful and incisive work of film criticism, whereas Shepard describes movies in clichés, when he describes movies at all. More often he is talking about himself, a subject of interest to far fewer viewers.

Film Geek Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. In theaters.

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