Case Study: American Psycho

American Psycho is a thriller/drama/black comedy which was released on April 21st 2000 worldwide. It was directed by Mary Harron and based on the book written by Brett Easton Ellis, the screen play was also written by Harron. It started with a budget of $7 million and ended up with a gross of $34,266,564, so it made a huge profit! On IMDB is has a rating of 7.2/10 so it is quite highly rated. It was followed up with American Psycho 2 which did not get a very good reception as it was straight to video, it currently only has a review of 11% on the review website 'Rotten Tomatoes'.

Christian Bale stars as Patrick Bateman, he is the main character in the story and his days are spent working for his fathers company on Wall Street making a great deal of money and a popular man in the office. It's set in the 1980's and the soundtrack includes music such as Phil Collins and Huey Lewsi & The News; both popular musicians from the 80's.
However, as night decends over New York he becomes a blood thirsty murderer, killing people to climb up the social heriachy and eliminating any who he dislikes. The film is quite dark and most of the shots are a night or in badly lit bars and restaurants, this makes it more sinister as it conceals people from the full picture.

The film is set as an 18 age limit which is very appropriate; this movie has scenes of a sexual nature, foul language, murders and gore. In my opinion no one below the age of 15-16 should watch it as it’s quite an adult film, a very good one, but slightly disturbed in places. The film is mostly aimed at males because it has mainly male characters throughout, so is dominated by them, the women in it are either sex objects or just meaningless people filling out the story. Of course some women will like it, such as myself; I find the storyline quite interesting and in places it is just so ridiculous it makes me laugh a little. Also, on the graphs of the ratings it shows that 72,908 men voted the film compared to the 11,270 women, so there is a very significant different there. A majority of the males were 18 or under voted for an average number of 8/10 so this just strengthens the fact that it is a more a film for men than women. 


There are hundreds of reviews for the film and most of them positive, such as this one; "This is not a slasher movie, indeed. It's a very deep, strange and delicate moment in satire. While it's serious, it's ironic and ridiculous. Great stuff! Funniest and the most (yes I dare say it) brilliant satire I've ever seen. Christian Bale's performance is unbelievable and if someone disagrees, they have to show me how to perform an emotional breakdown for 2 minutes on a phone. Just unbelievable. I've seen this 5 times now and it never gets boring."

Some people were not so impressed by the movie however, on IMDB one person said "one of the worst films I've seen in a long time. It's never quite hallucinatory enough to be surreal; never quite cartoonish enough to be funny; never plausible enough to be taken seriously; and the acting is the worst I've ever seen from Christian Bale. Sadly, this film also wastes the talents of Sevigny & Witherspoon. I guess this was meant to be a dark satire on the Reagan years, but it failed utterly."
          Many people have said the ending is not quite clear however which is a massive flaw in the movie, and also a majority of reviews say you should read the novel to really 'get' the film. I feel the same way, I have not got around to reading it myself yet but with most things the novels are normally a lot better than a film. 


As this film was shot 10 years ago and is a 'real-life' kind of film there is not much technology used it in, just very powerful emotive acting. I think this adds a real emphasis that someone really does live like that and that just makes it all the more thrilling.

Case Study: No Country For Old Men - Mise-en-scene

No Country For Old Men opens with a long shot of a desolate desert in America, the country is rural, arid and lonely. It shows nothing but emptiness stretching long into the distance and makes the viewer feel small and vulnerable. Looking right you see a few run down buildings surrounded by several dead trees and the desert is often associated with death. You can only see one car, or any for that matter which gives you the sense that nobody comes or leaves very often and as the buildings are quite run down not many people come along so there is no much point in keeping it looking clean and well kept.

Your eyes are drawn to the TEXACO sign at the bottom of the center of the shot, unlike anything else in the image it has colour. Red could stand for many things such as danger, anger, blood or even romance.
In the next scene it is in a small dark cramped room which adds an element of claustrophobia to the film. the man behind the till is framed in front of a window, everything is around him and the ropes above his head look like nooses as if he is about to be hanged.
This character wears brighter clothing, such as yellow shirt which may indicate he is a good character. All of the shots of them talking are over-the-shoulder so you always see both people at the same time. Behind him is a tractor/digger which does not appear in the first shot that shows you were you are, this can tell you that someone else has arrived and a new character may be introduced soon.

The second man appears quite menacing, he is dressed in all black which is quite sinister and makes you think of him as the bad guy. He puts down the scrunched up wrapper he was holding in his hand slams down the coin, this could perhaps show his strength as he did it quite roughly. He takes his hand away and reveals a shiny silver coin and it leaves you wondering what is it about this coin that is so special?

Case Study: Body of Lies - Mise-en-scene.

Body Of Lies was released in 2008 and was directed by Ridley Scott. It features famous actors such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe. Throughout its time in the cinemas it made a total of $39,380,442, which is less than what it cost to make (which was an estimated $70,000,000).

The film starts with a quote from W.H Auden then fades out and tells you the location (Manchester, England). The black then slowly fades onto a foreign man and half his face is hidden in the shadow whereas the other half is lit up by sunlight. He is facing piratically facing towards the camera and addressing other people in the room, he is gesturing his fingers at them which makes him appear more important. The camera angle makes you feel as if you are one of the people he is talking to.
The camera pans out and shows more of the room, then switches to the camera moving down the corridor of what looks like a small, clustered flat. It shows a room with a lot of light coming in from the window, because its so bright it makes everything else appeared darker and with more shadows.
There is a man sitting at a table in there with lots of strange pots and pans surrounding him and smoke coming out of one of them. He looks hard at work (and very stressed) like he is building something (a bomb).

You then move into another room where a different man is standing watching television which has the first man talking on it. Another man is then brought into the scene, he is asleep in a dark room which light shining on him which makes his body and muscles appear big, this makes him look very powerful. He also has a book on his stomach and he is holding it with his hand; this can also mean he is clever as he can read. The second man appears with smoke around his face.

The next scene cuts to a street view of Manchester, just outside the building. Police and Swat Teams are everywhere and smoke is also coming from somewhere. A milk truck clatters down the road and the police let it through. All the swat team are now running into their positions and breaking into the flat. Its very busy and there is a lot of movement and things going on as they rush around. There is one part that is filmed from behind a fence which makes you feel imprisoned or as if something is trying to be kept in and you aren't meant to be there.
The milkman appears at the door of the flat and everyone is eagerly watching him as he puts the milk down outside. He is a distraction for the swat team as they break the lock on the door and sneak inside.

The people upstairs in the flat realize something is wrong and alert each other and wake up the sleeping man.
The room that the swat team is in is very dark and slightly smokey,all you can really see of them are their silhouettes (you cant see their faces as they are in masks). The others upstairs talk to each other in their own language and there are no subtitles on screen to tell you what they are saying and the camera switches between them. You never really see any of their faces because they are concealed by the shadows. The man at the table says something then blows up the building with the bomb. It quickly cuts to a shot of one member of the swat team and flashes yellow because of the explosion, then goes to a long shot of the exploding building and the road, you can still see the milk truck.
People everywhere in the street are panicking and screaming and its all a scene of confusion, bits of the building are falling down among them. It shows the explosion from another shot and more bits of building flying everywhere.
The scene then ends here.

Case Study: Kick Ass

Kick Ass was directed by Matthew Vaughn who also co-produced it with Brad Pitt. It was released in the UK on 26 March 2010 and 16 April in North America.Filming took place in several places but mainly in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and various locations in the UK, including Elstree Studios.
The film made a final gross of $48,071,303 in the U.Sand $47,960,570 outside of the U.S, so was a massive hit worldwide! It has also been said that they have the green-light to go ahead and make a sequel of it.

The film was set as an 15 when released at the cinemas and on DVD, so that is the age it is targeted at. I think people into their 30's may also like it, but I can't see many parents wanting to que up to see it, as it is quite disturbing and upsetting in parts of it so they may not want to see it or for their children to either. I think that it should in fact be set as an 18 because it uses obscure language throughout and also features a sex scene in it. Looking at the whole film I think it's more aimed at males, most the characters are male and it is quite violent. However, I think it is a great film, one of the best I have seen, so it can still apply to females.
It seems a bit of a cult classic at first, it was an acquired taste but then people starting recommending it to others and it all took off and millions of people have seen it world wide and love it!
Many people thought it was too harsh and out-there though so it put people off and many even complained about the disturbing scenes featured in it.
On IMDB it has a high rating of 8.1/10 and has had over 90,000 votes.
One user comment has said "It's Superbad meets Kill Bill." which I think is quite a good description of the film and most of the 500+ reviews all give it nearly 10/10 stars!

However some people are not as impressed, one person says "I cannot believe the undeserved high rating of this film, by way of balance I must therefore award it a 1.
The storyline starts out promising enough as a lighthearted comedy but it quickly runs out of steam and it becomes apparent it actually has nothing new to say."
So as you can see, it's not to everyones taste.

New technology has increased the intensity of this film by using computer animation to give it a more cartoon feel in places as the film was based on a comic, lots of CGI shots, Red Mist had a very cool and gadgetry car and Kick Ass also promotes many huge companies, such as Apple (an iPhone was used), myspace.com (Kick Ass and co had a website with myspace) and youtube was also featured in the film.Throughout the film it features many different camera shots, a lot of them are long shots because there are a lot of establishing shots and action shots of explosions etc, so a long shot is the best for this so you can see the explosion in all its glory. Hit Girl also has a POV experience in the film, she is wearing night vision goggles and you see from her perspective as she pans around the room looking for villans (this looks and feels slightly like you are in a computer game).