Hoop Dreams and American Psycho are two films that seemingly have absolutely nothing in common. One's a three-hour-long epic of a documentary following two African American high schoolers in Chicago, the other is a snappy 105-minute horror film with a comedic undertone focused on a 20-something banker. There are, however, some similarities -- exactly two things. The first is that both premiered at Sundance Film Festival -- Hoop Dreams in 1994, American Psycho in 2000. The other is a focus on the American Dream, which makes them the two finest examples I have ever seen of the 'Great American Film'.
The Great American Novel
When I say 'Great American Film', I'm interpolating a phrase commonly found in literature: The Great American Novel (GAN). One of the great debates in literature, I have commonly discussed this topic with my friends who, like me, took American Literature in high school and have experienced a vast array of American works.
There is, of course, no true consensus on what the GAN is. It is a purely subjective debate that you can perhaps whittle down to a handful by determining what is important to the national psyche and working either backward to find works that have represented that brilliantly, or working forwards and trying to find works that have made a significant cultural impact in a way that has affected the culture of the nation as we stand today.
When I think of the GAN, I think of The Great Gatsby and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Written in the 'Roaring 20s', The Great Gatsby represents The American Dream in its most lavish and most empty state through the character of Jay Gatsby. Fitzgerald himself coined the term 'Jazz Age' and the majority of his most recognized works feature these themes of wealth, excess, and unfulfillment. There are many, many, other examples of great candidates for the GAN: Moby Dick, The Catcher in the Rye, The Grapes of Wrath, the list goes on-and-on. But there are two things that I think The Great Gatsby does best of any work of American literature -- highlighting in bold letters that American Dream and showcasing the emptiness you can have despite having obtained it. Which takes us to our two films.
Hoops Dreams: The American Dream
If you attempt to talk about Hoop Dreams, it is next-to-impossible to carry on a conversation about it without the context of our setting. Our two high school basketball stars, William Gates and Arthur Agee, both hail from poor neighborhoods that are predominantly African-American in Chicago. They begin their high school careers at St. Joseph's High School in Westchester. To emphasize the contrasts of location, Gates was from West Garfield Park, a community that was over 99% African American according to the 1990 U.S. Census. Westchester, on the other hand, was 96% White in 1990, again, according to U.S. Census data (pg. 116).
The racial divide is seen throughout the film and it manifests in different ways, both in clear and obvious ways and more coded ways. Whether it's the obvious physical divides in race in the school, or the underlying tensions between William's white coach and William, or the school and Arthur's family, it is always there. Perhaps the only more obvious sociological factor present in the film is class. Neither William nor Arthur are particularly well-off. However, because he remained at St. Joseph's while Arthur had a combination of being unable to pay for the school's tuition and being a lesser as an underclassman, he received far greater opportunities in internships/work, health care, and basketball exposure than Arthur did.
As a whole, though, what makes Hoop Dreams great; how it's a reflection of trying to achieve the American Dream by working hard and eventually succeeding. By the end of the film, our two protagonists are in (somewhat) active competition against one another by way of wanting to win a state title, but we never root for one over the other, we root for both. While viewing Hoop Dreams, I wanted Arthur and John Marshall High School to win because it would prove that Arthur being shunned by St. Joseph's was a mistake. At the same time, though, up until they were knocked out of the tournament I was also rooting for St. Joseph's and for William to play well.
Part of the charm attached to the idealized version of the American Dream is the idea that working hard brings success to one's own self. That is, essentially, what sport is all about. As we spend close to three hours with William and Arthur, we see the hard work they put in to better themselves. We see them both pushing to get closer to this idealized version of that dream. And when they ultimately get some form of it (both men eventually graduate from university and play at least two seasons of NCAA Division I basketball) we feel glad for them.
If Hoop Dreams shows the glamour of the American Dream, then American Psycho is the dark side of that idealization.
American Psycho: The American Nightmare
Originally a novel itself, Mary Harron directed and co-wrote, with Guinevere Turner, this work for the screen. I have, admittedly, not read the novel, however, what Harron and Turner bring to the table with this film is a biting satirical tongue mixed with a gleeful sort of horror that comes from Christian Bale's performance as Patrick Bateman.
We view the events of the film through Bateman's eyes. Through his lens, he is a psychopathic, sociopath, and a narcissistic monster. Bateman, though, is an incredibly unreliable narrator and we never know what is real or what is not. It is an interesting take on the 'unreliable narrator' because we so vividly see these things that Bateman seems to be fantasizing over, like the chainsaw murder or the police shootout in the office building, but we also get bizarre little moments like an ATM flashing 'FEED ME A STRAY CAT'. By the end, Bateman's entire world is held together by the finest thread of sanity, but it is an incredibly strong thread. Bateman confesses to his crimes out of guilt to his lawyer but he denies Bateman this catharsis by claiming he just had lunch with one of the men he claimed to have killed. He is forced to continue on with the hellish life he imagines himself to lead.
This life that Bateman has is also a form of the American Dream. Bateman is a well-paid banker in a plush New York City apartment, he has nice clothes and expensive watches, eats at incredible restaurants, and he has a lovely fiance (played by Reese Witherspoon). This is the stereotypical 'Yuppie' lifestyle that was so prominent in the 1980s and ultimately received backlash against and taking on a negative connotation.
At its heart, the satire of American Psycho is simple. Bateman's life is interchangeable with every other male character in his workplace or that is his friend. The American Dream in the sense of getting a nice job and wealth beyond your wildest dreams is empty and meaningless if you have no pleasure in your own life. Bateman, throughout the film, is never able to gain a reservation to Dorsia, the hottest restaurant in New York City, we are told. He is also called a loser to his face by more than one person mistaking him for someone else. Despite the outside appearance, Bateman is nothing more than just another person in a high-paying job that is unhappy with his life. He is part of the machine that implores workers to make money, and lots of it, with no regard to one's own sense of fulfillment in life. He tells us outright at the outset of the film, he is not really there, and that's due to the complete emptiness that he still has in his life despite having "made it" according to our capitalistic society's ideals.
A key part of understanding the message of the satire is looking at the scene where Bateman rattles off problems in the world at dinner, then kills a homeless man and his dog walking home. Bateman clearly does not care about the homeless of New York City if he is so cold to even think about pretending to offer a man money before murdering him instead. This, too, is part of the American Dream and is interwoven with that idea in Hoop Dreams about succeeding because of the self. Once you "get yours" it is difficult to acknowledge others having it harder than you. It is the idea that if you make it, why can't the homeless man on the street pick himself up by the bootstraps and go get a job? Bateman has the American Dream, and now he has lost his perception of others while slowly losing grip on his own sanity.
Wrapping Up:
I am sure that the idea of these two films sharing anything with one another seems bizarre on the outside, but when talking about the GAF (Great American Film), I believe these two both are 1 and 1a on that list for me.
Each of these films is uniquely American. You can make a documentary about a basketball-playing teenager in another nation, and you can make a darkly comedic slasher about an unsatisfied businessman anywhere else in the world. But you could not make either of these specific films in a different country. What makes these films so brilliant is how specific they are to the United States and in their deconstruction and critiques of the power structures in this country.
Plenty of films made in the U.S. tackle issues and topics that are specific to the country. What makes this pair of films stand out among the rest, like The Great Gatsby with other American novels, is that sensitivity to how the American Dream is not all roses. In Hoop Dreams, it is difficult to achieve that the 'hoop dreams' themselves undergo transformations throughout the documentary. In American Psycho, Patrick Bateman has anything he could ever want, except the feeling of being alive in his everyday life, a warning signal to those who wish to pursue the American Dream by any and all means. Thus making for two of the greatest American Films not just of the past 20-30 years, but in the history of film.
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