Mise-en-scene elements in the opening scene of American Psycho

The opening sequence of this film is set in an apartment, which has a lot of daylight due to large windows, creating fill lighting in the room. The decor of the whole apartment is extremely sterile, which everything being white or black. The most colour we get is from a blue and red Les Miserables poster above the toilet, which is an odd thing to be in this room, but this could be an enigmatic clue to what his character is like, and the rest of the home is just for show, or this could imply that he has a hard exterior. This apartment belongs to a young man living on his own, so this sort of poster is an odd part. The brightness of the flat alongside the white furniture makes the whole place look and feel very sterile, especially when the main character Patrick moves to the kitchen, as this seems to be made completely of stainless steel. This makes it feel like there was a high production, as the apartment feels extremely real and lived in, and also looks very expensive.

In this opening sequence, the facial expressions portrayed by Christian Bale help us understand the type of character that he is playing. Even when looking at himself, he has an extremely dead pan expression, showing us that he is quite serious and it is probably his own choice to live on his own. He also looks at himself in all of the reflective surfaces in his house, showing that he is very vain and self absorbed.

From the opening sequence, we can tell that the main character is a white, American male, but this isn't well portrayed through his costume, but by his voice that we hear in his monologue. The only thing he wears in the sequence is white pants
, which continues the idea that he is a very vain character. This is an odd costume choice as it doesn't give us much information about where the character is from, his identity, his ethnicity or sexuality.

This institution manages to involve the audience in this opening, as it is the characters daily life with a monologue that introduces himself over the top of this. This makes the audience feel like that they know this character, which makes us more engaged in the story and finding out what happens to him next.