American Psycho
Mary Harron, 2000
Patrick Bateman is handsome, well educated and intelligent. He is twenty-seven and living his own American dream. He works by day on Wall Street, earning a fortune to complement the one he was born with. At night he descends into madness, as he experiments with fear and violence.
Tuesday, 28 February 2012
The Talented Mr Ripley
Anthony Minghella, 1999
The 1950s. Manhattan lavatory attendant, Tom Ripley, borrows a Princeton jacket to play piano at a garden party. When the wealthy father of a recent Princeton grad chats Tom up, Tom pretends to know the son and is soon offered $1,000 to go to Italy to convince Dickie Greenleaf to return home. In Italy, Tom attaches himself to Dickie and to Marge, Dickie's cultured fiancée, pretending to love jazz and harboring homoerotic hopes as he soaks in luxury. Besides lying, Tom's talents include impressions and forgery, so when the handsome and confident Dickie tires of Tom, dismissing him as a bore, Tom goes to extreme lengths to make Greenleaf's privileges his own.
Anthony Minghella, 1999
The 1950s. Manhattan lavatory attendant, Tom Ripley, borrows a Princeton jacket to play piano at a garden party. When the wealthy father of a recent Princeton grad chats Tom up, Tom pretends to know the son and is soon offered $1,000 to go to Italy to convince Dickie Greenleaf to return home. In Italy, Tom attaches himself to Dickie and to Marge, Dickie's cultured fiancée, pretending to love jazz and harboring homoerotic hopes as he soaks in luxury. Besides lying, Tom's talents include impressions and forgery, so when the handsome and confident Dickie tires of Tom, dismissing him as a bore, Tom goes to extreme lengths to make Greenleaf's privileges his own.
Codes & Conventions of Psychological Thrillers
The 8 primary elements of the Thriller genre are:
The central protagonist/s faces death, their own or someone else's.
The force/s of antagonism must initially be clever and/or stronger than the protagonist.
The main storyline for the protagonist is either a quest or the character who cannot be put down.
The main plotline focuses on a mystery that must be solved.
The film's narrative construction is dominated by the protagonist's point of view.
All action and characters must be credibly realistic/natural in their representation on screen.
The two major themes that underpin the Thriller are the desire for justice and the morality of individuals.
One small but significant aspect of a great thriller is the presence of innocence in what is seen as an essentially corrupt world.
In addition to the traits of a regular Thriller, a Psychological Thriller incorporates elements of drama and mystery film. The suspense in this sub-genre comes from the mind, rather than from a psychical threat.
The protagonists in Psychological Thrillers must rely on their mental resources to solve the situation. Because of their nature, many Psychological Thrillers cross over into the Horror genre.
The central protagonist/s faces death, their own or someone else's.
The force/s of antagonism must initially be clever and/or stronger than the protagonist.
The main storyline for the protagonist is either a quest or the character who cannot be put down.
The main plotline focuses on a mystery that must be solved.
The film's narrative construction is dominated by the protagonist's point of view.
All action and characters must be credibly realistic/natural in their representation on screen.
The two major themes that underpin the Thriller are the desire for justice and the morality of individuals.
One small but significant aspect of a great thriller is the presence of innocence in what is seen as an essentially corrupt world.
In addition to the traits of a regular Thriller, a Psychological Thriller incorporates elements of drama and mystery film. The suspense in this sub-genre comes from the mind, rather than from a psychical threat.
The protagonists in Psychological Thrillers must rely on their mental resources to solve the situation. Because of their nature, many Psychological Thrillers cross over into the Horror genre.
Wednesday, 22 February 2012
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