Textual analysis of the opening 2 minutes of "American Psycho"

"American Psycho" was directed by Mary Harron in 2000. "American Psycho is a thriller with a horror sub-culture and based on a middle class business man who slowly turns to madness.

In terms of Mise-en-scene the audience are shown many references to murder and blood for example it portrays the splats of raspberry sauce as dripping blood along with the butchering of a piece of cooked meat with a fairly big knife being hacked into it as if it was a stabbing but it is actually all just food being prepared in a fancy restaurant.

In terms of camerawork the audience are shown many extreme close ups of the food being prepared to first hide the fact it's actually food and make the audience question whether it is blood or not. we are then shown a pan across a table of food and around the shape of the round table which is a long shot then leading to a tilt up the menu but through all this all faces are unrevealed until the last few seconds of the two minutes where the main characters are revealed this makes the audience ask questions through out most of the opening but also gives the suggestion that these people are fairly rich and well brought up into a traditional well mannered society.

In terms of sound the audience hear violin strings being plucked as the drops of raspberry sauce hit the plate which connects the music to the image and draw the audience more into the thriller. The sauce is then dribbled over the plate and the music connects to the way in which the raspberry sauce is dribbled over the plate in a swirl. The music is also unconventional for a thriller or a horror as it is upbeat and happy music which may suggest the idea of the main character being a psycho as it is sick to see murders as upbeat and happy.

In terms of editing and lighting there are mainly straight cuts through out the opening 2 minutes and slow editing which is also unconventional of a thriller as they normally show fast pace editing to get the audience on their toes and really thrill them. The lighting tends to be naturalistic but I think it's a bit brighter then natural lighting to suggest to the audience that all the fancy food is just all a bit fake for the main characters life, like an act put on, a mask.

Me and Sam analysed this see if it would inspire our Thriller but we decided to stick to the conventional thriller music and we didn't want to make our piece have a horror sub-genre so we learnt from this that the style of music is really important in creating moods and different styles of thrillers and also makes the audience preserve something in a different way.