Bret Easton Ellis

Bret Easton Ellis

Ellis at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, April 25, 2010
Born (1964-03-07) March 7, 1964
Los Angeles, California
Occupation Writer, novelist
Genre Satire, black comedy
Literary movement Postmodernism
Website
www.breteastonellis.com

Bret Easton Ellis (born March 7, 1964) is an American novelist, screenwriter, and short story writer. His works have been translated into 27 languages.[1] He was at first regarded as one of the so-called literary Brat Pack,[2] which also included Tama Janowitz and Jay McInerney. He is a self-proclaimed satirist, whose trademark technique, as a writer, is the expression of extreme acts and opinions in an affectless style.[3][4] Ellis employs a technique of linking novels with common, recurring characters.

Though Ellis made his debut at 21 with the controversial 1985 bestseller Less Than Zero, a zeitgeist novel about wealthy amoral young people in Los Angeles, the work he is most known for is his third novel, 1991's American Psycho. On its release, the literary establishment widely condemned the novel as overly violent and misogynistic. Though many petitions to ban the book saw Ellis dropped by Simon & Schuster, the resounding controversy convinced Alfred A. Knopf to release it as a paperback later that year. Four of Ellis's works have been made into films. Less Than Zero was rapidly adapted for screen, leading to the release of a starkly different Less Than Zero film in 1987. Mary Harron's adaptation of American Psycho was released to generally positive reviews in 2000, and went on to achieve cult status. In later years, Ellis' novels have become increasingly metafictional. 2005's Lunar Park, a pseudo-memoir and ghost story, received positive reviews, and 2010's Imperial Bedrooms, marketed as a sequel to Less Than Zero, continues in this vein.

Life and career

Ellis was born in Los Angeles, to a middle class California household, and was raised in Sherman Oaks in the San Fernando Valley. His father, Robert Martin Ellis, was a property developer, and his mother, Dale (Dennis) Ellis, was a homemaker.[5] They divorced in 1982. Ellis stated, during the initial release of his third novel American Psycho, that his father was abusive and he became the basis of that book's most well-known character Patrick Bateman. Later, Ellis claimed that the character was not in fact based on his father, but on Ellis himself, saying that all of his work came from a specific place of pain he was going through in his life during the writing of each of his books. Ellis claims that while his family life growing up was somewhat difficult due to the divorce, he mostly had an 'idyllic' California childhood.[6] Ellis was educated at The Buckley School; he then attended Bennington College in Vermont, originally studying music, then gradually gravitating to writing, which was one of his passions since he was a child. Here he met and befriended Donna Tartt and Jonathan Lethem, who both would later become published writers. Bennington College was also where Ellis completed a novel he had been working on for many years. That book would be Less Than Zero and would go on to be published while Ellis was just 21 and still in college- thus propelling him to instant fame.

After the success and controversy of Less Than Zero in 1985, Ellis became closely associated and good friends with fellow Brat Pack writer Jay McInerney: the two became known as the "toxic twins" for their highly publicized late night debauchery. The writer became a pariah for a time following the release of American Psycho (1991), which later became a critical and cult hit, more so after its 2000 movie adaptation. It is now regarded as Ellis's magnum opus and is favorably looked upon by academics. The Informers (1994) was offered to his publisher during Glamorama's long writing history. Ellis wrote a screenplay for The Rules of Attraction's film adaptation which was not used. Ellis records a fictionalized version of his life story up until this point in the first chapter of Lunar Park (2005). After the death of his lover Michael Wade Kaplan, Ellis was spurred to finish Lunar Park and inflected it with a new tone of wistfulness.[7]

Ellis was approached by young screenwriter Nicholas Jarecki to adapt The Informers into a film; the script they co-wrote was cut from 150 to 94 pages and taken from Jarecki to give to Australian director Gregor Jordan, whose light-on-humor vision of the film was met with unanimously negative reviews when the film was released in 2009.

Despite setbacks as a screenwriter, Ellis teamed up with acclaimed director Gus Van Sant in 2009 to adapt the Vanity Fair article "The Golden Suicides" into a film of the same name, depicting the paranoid final days and suicides of celebrity artists Theresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake. The film, as of 2014, has never been made. When Van Sant appeared on The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast on February 12, 2014, he stated that he was never attached to the project as a screenwriter or a director, merely a consultant, claiming that the material seemed too tricky for him to properly render on screen. Ellis and Van Sant mentioned that Naomi Watts and Ryan Gosling were approached to star as Duncan and Blake, respectively. Ellis confirmed that he and his producing partner Braxton Pope are still working on the project, with Ellis revisiting the screenplay from time to time. As of April 2014, radical filmmaker Gaspar Noé was officially attached to direct if the film went into production, but he proved troublesome to work with due to his erratic behavior.[6]

In 2010, Ellis released Imperial Bedrooms, the sequel to his début novel. Ellis wrote it following his return to LA and fictionalizes his work on the film adaptation of The Informers, from the perspective of Clay. Positive reviews felt it was a culmination of the themes begun respectively in Less Than Zero, American Psycho and Lunar Park. Negative reviews noted the novel's rehashed themes and listless writing.

Ellis expressed interest in writing the screenplay for the Fifty Shades of Grey film adaptation. He discussed casting with his followers, and even mentioned meeting with the film's producers, as well as noting he felt it went well.[8][9][10] The job eventually went to Kelly Marcel, Patrick Marber and Mark Bomback.[11]

In 2012, Ellis wrote the screenplay for the independent film The Canyons and helped raise money for its production.[12] The film was released in 2013 and although critically panned, was a small financial success, with the performance of Lindsay Lohan in the lead role earning some positive reviews.

Personal life

When asked in an interview in 2002 whether he was gay, Ellis explained that he does not identify himself as gay or straight. He explained that he is comfortable to be thought of as homosexual, bisexual, or heterosexual and that he enjoys playing with his persona, identifying variously as gay, straight, and bisexual to different people over the years.[13]

In a 1999 interview, the author suggests that his reluctance to definitively label his sexuality is for "artistic reasons." He commented "if people knew that I was straight, they'd read [my books] in a different way. If they knew I was gay, 'Psycho' would be read as a different book."[14] In an interview with Robert F. Coleman, Ellis refers to his sexuality as an "indeterminate sexuality," and said "any other interviewer out there will get a different answer and it just depends on the mood I am in."[15] In a 2011 interview with James Brown, Ellis again states that his answers to questions about his sexuality have varied from interviewer to interviewer, citing an example where his reluctance to refuse the label "bi" had him labelled as such by a Details interviewer. "I think the last time I slept with a woman was five or six years ago, so the bi thing can only be played out so long," he clarifies. "But I still use it, I still say it."[16] Responding to Dan Savage's It Gets Better campaign, aimed at preventing suicide among LGBT youth, Ellis tweeted "Not to bum everyone out, but can we get a reality check here? It gets worse."[17] In a 2012 op-ed for The Daily Beast, while apologizing for a series of controversial tweets, Ellis identified himself as a gay man.[18]

Lunar Park was dedicated to his lover, Michael Wade Kaplan, and Ellis's father, Robert Ellis. Robert Ellis died in 1992. In one interview, Ellis describes feeling a liberation in the completion of the novel that allowed him to come to terms with unresolved issues regarding his father.[19] In the "author Q&A" for Lunar Park on the Random House website, Ellis comments on his relationship with his father, and says he feels that his father was a "tough case" who left him damaged. Having grown older and having "mellow[ed] out", Ellis describes how his opinion of his father changed since 15 years ago when writing Glamorama (in which the central conspiracy concerns the relationship of a father and son).[20] Even earlier in his career, Ellis based the character of Patrick Bateman from American Psycho on his father.[21] In a 2010 interview, however, he claims to have "lied" about this explanation. Explaining that "Patrick Bateman was about me," he confesses "I didn't want to finally own up to the responsibility of being Patrick Bateman, so I laid it on my father, I laid it on Wall Street." In reality, the book had been "about me at the time, and I wrote about all my rage and feelings."[15] To James Brown, he clarified Bateman was based on "my father a little bit but I was living that lifestyle; my father wasn't in New York the same age as Patrick Bateman, living in the same building, going to the same places that Patrick Bateman was going to."[16]

Work

Ellis's first novel, Less Than Zero, is a tale of disaffected, rich teenagers of Los Angeles written and re-written over a five-year period from Ellis's sophomore year in high school, earlier drafts being "... more autobiographical and read like teen diaries or journal entries—lots of stuff about the bands I liked, the beach, the Galleria, clubs, driving around, doing drugs, partying", according to Ellis.[22] The novel was praised by critics and sold well (50,000 copies in its first year). He moved back to New York City in 1987 for the publication of his second novel, The Rules of Attraction - described by Ellis as "... an attempt to write the kind of college novel I had always wanted to read and could never find"[22] - which follows a group of sexually promiscuous college students. Influenced heavily by James Joyce's Ulysses and its stream-of-consciousness narrative technique, ... Attraction sold fairly well, though Ellis admits he felt he had "fallen off" after the novel failed to match the success of his debut effort, Ellis reflecting in 2012 " I was very obsessive, very protective about that book, perhaps overly so."[22] His most controversial work is the graphically violent American Psycho, which Ellis states "...came out of a place of severe alienation and loneliness and self-loathing. I was pursuing a life—you could call it the Gentlemen's Quarterly way of living—that I knew was bullshit, and yet I couldn't seem to help it."[22] The book was intended to be published by Simon & Schuster, but they withdrew after external protests from groups such as the National Organization for Women (NOW) and many others due to the allegedly misogynistic nature of the book. The novel was later published by Vintage. Some consider this novel, whose protagonist, Patrick Bateman, is both a cartoonishly materialistic yuppie and a serial killer, to be an example of transgressive art. American Psycho has achieved considerable cult status.

Ellis's collection of short stories, The Informers, was published in 1994. It contains vignettes of wayward Los Angeles characters ranging from rock stars to vampires, mostly written while Ellis was in college, and so has more in common with the style of Less Than Zero. Ellis has said that the stories in The Informers were collected and released only to fulfill a contractual obligation after discovering that it would take far longer to complete his next novel than he'd intended. After years of struggling with it, Ellis released his fourth novel Glamorama in 1998. Glamorama is set in the world of high fashion, following a male model who becomes entangled in a bizarre terrorist organization composed entirely of other models. The book plays with themes of media, celebrity, and political violence, and like its predecessor American Psycho it uses surrealism to convey a sense of postmodern dread. Although the reactions to the novel were mixed, Ellis holds it in high esteem among his own works: "... it's probably the best novel I've written and the one that means the most to me. And when I say "best"—the wrong word, I suppose, but I'm not sure what else to replace it with—I mean that I'll never have that energy again, that kind of focus sustained for eight years on a single project. I'll never spend that amount of time crafting a book that means that much to me. And I think people who have read all of my work and are fans understand that about Glamorama—it's the one book out of the seven I've published that matters the most."[22] Ellis's novel Lunar Park (2005), uses the form of a celebrity memoir to tell a ghost story about the novelist "Bret Easton Ellis" and his chilling experiences in the apparently haunted home he shares with his wife and son. In keeping with his usual style, Ellis mixes absurd comedy with a bleak and violent vision.

In 2010, Ellis released a follow-up to Less Than Zero entitled Imperial Bedrooms (2010). Taking place 25 years after the events of Ellis' debut novel, it combines the postmodernism of Lunar Park with the unaltered ennui of Less Than Zero. The book was met with disappointing sales.

For writing the original screenplay for the Paul Schrader directed film The Canyons, Ellis won the 'Best Screenplay' award at the 14th Melbourne Underground Film Festival, with the film also winning 'Best Foreign Film,' 'Best Foreign Director' for Schrader and 'Best Female Actor' for Lindsay Lohan.

Fictional setting and recurring characters

Ellis often uses recurring characters and settings. Major characters in one novel may become minor ones in the next, or vice versa. Camden College, a fictional New England liberal arts college, is frequently referenced. It is based on Bennington College, which Ellis himself attended, where he met future novelist Jonathan Lethem and befriended fellow writers Donna Tartt and Jill Eisenstadt. In Tartt's The Secret History (1992), her version of Bennington is given as "Hampden College," although there are oblique connections between it and Ellis' Rules of Attraction. Eisenstadt and Lethem, however, use 'Camden' in From Rockaway (1987) and The Fortress of Solitude (2003), respectively. Though his three major settings are Vermont, Los Angeles and New York, he doesn't think of these novels as about these places; they are intentionally more universal than that.[23]

Camden is introduced in Less Than Zero, where it is mentioned that both protagonist Clay and minor character Daniel attend it. In The Rules of Attraction (1987), where Camden is the setting, Clay (referred to as "The Guy from L.A." before being properly introduced) is a minor character who narrates one chapter; ironically, he longs for the Californian beach, where in Ellis' previous novel he had longed to return to college. On "the guy from L.A.'s door someone wrote "Rest in Peace Called"; R.I.P., or Rip, is Clay's dealer in Less Than Zero; Clay also says that Blair from Less than Zero sent him a letter saying she thinks Rip was murdered. Main character Sean Bateman's older brother Patrick narrates one chapter of the novel; he would be the infamous central character of Ellis' next novel, American Psycho. Ellis includes a reference to Tartt's forthcoming Secret History in the form of a passing mention of "that weird Classics group ... probably roaming the countryside sacrificing farmers and performing pagan rituals." There is also an allusion to the main character from Eisenstadt's From Rockaway.

In American Psycho (1991), Patrick's brother Sean appears briefly. Paul Denton and Victor Johnson from The Rules of Attraction are both mentioned; on seeing Paul, Patrick wonders if "maybe he was on that cruise a long time ago, one night last March. If that's the case, I'm thinking, I should get his telephone number or, better yet, his address." Camden is referred to as both Sean's college and the college a minor character named Vanden is going to. Vanden was referred to (but never appeared) in both Less Than Zero and The Rules of Attraction. Passages from "Less Than Zero" reappear, almost verbatim, here, with Patrick replacing Clay as narrator. Patrick also makes repeated references to Jami Gertz, the actress who portrays Blair in the 1987 film adaptation of Less Than Zero. Allison Poole from Jay McInerney's 1988 novel Story of My Life appears as a torture victim of Patrick's. 1994's The Informers features a much-younger Timothy Price, one of Patrick's co-workers in American Psycho, who narrates one chapter. One of the central characters, Graham, buys concert tickets from Less Than Zero's Julian, and his sister Susan goes on to say that Julian sells heroin and is a male prostitute (as shown in Zero). Alana and Blair from Zero are also friends of Susan's. Letters to Sean Bateman from a Camden College girl named Anne visiting grandparents in LA comprise the eighth chapter.

Patrick Bateman appears briefly in Glamorama (1998); Glamorama's main characters Victor Ward and Lauren Hynde were first introduced in The Rules of Attraction. As an in-joke reference to Bateman being portrayed by Christian Bale in the then-in-production 2000 film adaptation, the actor himself briefly appears as a background character. The book also includes a spy called Russell who is physically identical to Bale, and at one point in the novel impersonates him. Jaime Fields, who has a major role in the book, was first briefly mentioned by Victor in The Rules of Attraction. Bertrand, Sean and Mitchell, all from The Rules of Attraction, appear in Camden flashbacks and several other Rules characters are referenced. McInerney's Alison Poole makes her second appearance in an Ellis novel as Victor's mistress. Lunar Park (2005) is not set in the same "universe" as Ellis' other novels, but contains a similar multitude of references and allusions. All the author's previous works are heavily referenced, in keeping with the book-within-a-book structure. Jay McInerney cameos. Donald Kimball from American Psycho questions Ellis on a series of American Psycho-inspired murders, Mitchell Allen from Rules lives next door to and went to college with Ellis (Ellis even recalls his affair with Paul Denton, alluded to in Rules), and Ellis recalls a tempestuous relationship with Blair from Zero. Imperial Bedrooms (2010) establishes the conceit that the Clay depicted in Zero is not the same Clay who narrates Bedrooms. In the world of Imperial Bedrooms, Zero was the close-to-non-fiction work of an author friend of Clay's, and its film adaptation (featuring actors Andrew McCarthy, Jami Gertz and Robert Downey, Jr.) exists within the world of the novel, too.

Bibliography

Upcoming Novels:

On his podcast, Ellis stated that he is always working on a new novel, but does not know which ones will ever end up getting published.[6]

Filmography

Screenplay

Feature Films:

Short Films:

Director

Actor

Producer

Television appearances

Miscellaneous film work

Novel adaptations

In May, 2014, Bravo announced that it had teamed up with The Rules of Attraction feature film adaptation writer/director Roger Avary and producer Greg Shapiro to develop a limited-run series based on Ellis' novel. The plot of the show will stray from the source material and is described as follows: "Inspired by the book and film of the same name, the high concept series takes the students and faculty at the fictional Camden College and unravels a murder mystery by telling the same story through 12 different points of view. Children of the 1%-ers live as unhinged and wild adults in a Bret Easton Ellis world with seemingly no rules to hold these privileged few down." Titled Rules of Attraction the series will be written by Roger Avary (The Rules of Attraction, Beowulf) for Lionsgate TV with Greg Shapiro (Zero Dark Thirty) serving as an Executive Producer.[28]

A remake of American Psycho is in the works, without Ellis' involvement, Ellis confirmed this on his Twitter page in early 2014. Ellis stated in a 2013 interview with Film School Rejects that the original American Psycho doesn't really work as a movie.[29]

Upcoming projects

As of the spring of 2014, Ellis has been filming in and around Los Angeles, California. On his Podcast he had stated that he writes scenes and then when certain locations, equipment and his actors are available, they will spontaneously shoot the material, with Ellis directing. He has also stated via his Podcast, his Twitter, his Instagram and his Facebook that he does not know what form this project will take when they complete it. It could be a feature film or a web-series. The project's producer, and Ellis' producing partner, Braxton Pope, has been regularly posting updates and pictures from the production on his Facebook and Instagram accounts.

Podcast

On November 18, 2013, Ellis launched a podcast with PodcastOne Studios. The aim for the show, which delivers 1 hour segments, is to have Ellis engage in open and honest conversation with his guests about their work, inspirations, life experiences as well as music and movies. Ellis, who has always been averse to publicity, has been using the platform to engage in intellectual conversation and debate about his own theoretical observations on the media, the film industry, the music scene and the analog vs. digital age in a generational context. Notable guests have included Kanye West, Marilyn Manson, Judd Apatow, Chuck Klosterman, Kevin Smith, Michael Ian Black, Matt Berninger, Brandon Boyd, BJ Novak, Gus Van Sant, Joe Swanberg, Ezra Koenig, Stephen Malkmus, John Densmore, Fred Armisen & Carrie Brownstein, Ivan Reitman, and Adam Carolla.

The Official Synopsis for the Bret Easton Ellis Podcast:

"Controversial best-selling author and screenwriter Bret Easton Ellis delivers a weekly glimpse into one of popular culture's most fascinating minds. The entertainment industry's top writers, directors, actors and musicians will join Bret to discuss the issues and complexities that keep the creative world turning as we experience this intriguing period in our planet's history. The same sensibilities that have formed Bret's impressive catalog in literature and film will be on display with each and every new episode of The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast."[33]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Easton Ellis". randomhouse.com. Retrieved July 30, 2012
  2. ↑ "Birnbaum v. Bret Easton Ellis". The Morning News. January 19, 2006. Retrieved February 25, 2007.
  3. ↑ Salfield, Alice; Gallagher, Andy; MacInnes, Paul (July 19, 2010). "Video: 'I really wasn't that concerned about morality in my fiction'". The Guardian. Retrieved July 28, 2010.
  4. ↑ "Bret Easton Ellis loses a few marbles in 'Lunar Park'". Taipei Times. taipeitimes.com. August 21, 2005. Retrieved February 25, 2007.
  5. ↑ Thompson, Clifford, ed. (1999). World authors 1990–1995. H.W. Wilson. p. 215. ISBN 978-0-8242-0956-8.
  6. 1 2 3 PodcastOne. "Bret Easton Ellis Podcast". Podcastone.com. Retrieved 2014-06-29.
  7. ↑ "New Tone of Wistfulness for Lunar Park". New York Times. August 7, 2005. Retrieved March 5, 2012.
  8. ↑ Child, Ben (June 12, 2012). "Could Bret Easton Ellis bring Fifty Shades of Grey to fruition?". The Guardian. Retrieved July 30, 2012.
  9. ↑ Watkins, Jade (June 12, 2012). "'Scarlett Johansson is the perfect Ana': Writer Bret Easton Ellis on who should play the lead in film of 'mommy porn' bestseller Fifty Shades Of Grey (and he wants to write the script)". Daily Mail. Retrieved July 30, 2012.
  10. ↑ "Fifty Shades of Grey: a very positive meeting last week with producers Michael De Luca and Dana Brunetti. Seems we're all on the same page." Bret Easton Ellis' Twitter account. Retrieved July 30, 2012
  11. ↑ Kit, Borys (8 October 2012). "'Fifty Shades of Grey' Movie Hires Writer". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 27 May 2013.
  12. ↑ "The Canyons by Braxton Pope — Kickstarter". Kickstarter.com. 2012-06-09. Retrieved 2014-06-29.
  13. ↑ Shulman, Randy (October 10, 2002). "The Attractions of Bret Easton Ellis". Retrieved April 13, 2009.
  14. ↑ Martelle, Scott (February 1, 1999). "The Dark Side of a Generation". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2013-09-10.
  15. 1 2 Coleman, Robert F. (August 22, 2010). "Bret Easton Ellis interview". RobertFColeman.com. Retrieved December 20, 2010.
  16. 1 2 Brown, James (January 27, 2011). "Patrick Bateman was Me". Sabotage Times. Retrieved February 7, 2011.
  17. ↑ Ellis, Bret Easton (November 24, 2010). "Twitter / Bret Easton Ellis". Twitter.com. Retrieved December 15, 2010.
  18. ↑ Ellis, Bret Easton (December 17, 2012). "Dear Kathryn Bigelow: Bret Easton Ellis Is Really Sorry". Retrieved December 18, 2012.
  19. ↑ Dennis Widmyer. "Bret Easton Ellis". Retrieved September 26, 2007.
  20. ↑ "A Conversation with Bret Easton Ellis". Retrieved September 26, 2007.
  21. ↑ "Author Q & A: A conversation with Bret Easton Ellis". randomhouse.com. Retrieved February 25, 2007.
  22. 1 2 3 4 5 Goulian, Jon-Jon (Spring 2012). "The Art of Fiction No. 216, Bret Easton Ellis". The Paris Review (200). Retrieved 2014-09-20.
  23. ↑ "Guardian book club: John Mullan meets Bret Easton Ellis". The Guardian. June 8, 2010. Retrieved August 14, 2010.
  24. ↑ "Dum Dum Girls - "Are You Okay" (By Bret Easton Ellis, Official Short Film)". YouTube. Retrieved 2014-06-29.
  25. ↑ "Bret Easton Ellis Presents "All That Glitters" from Bret Easton Ellis, Ryan Perez, Seth Morris, Antonio Scarlata, BoTown Sound, Kat Bardot, Dustin Bowser, Chris Kula, Funny Or Die, and Ally Hord". Funnyordie.com. 2010-09-21. Retrieved 2014-06-29.
  26. ↑ IVICAP (SELECTSPECS) (June 6, 2015). "BRET EASTON ELLIS & PERSOL JOIN FORCES ON NEW “ORPHEUS” CAMPAIGN". Selectspecs.com.
  27. 1 2 Placebo (band)
  28. ↑ Andreeva, Nellie. "Bravo Developing 'Rules of Attraction' TV Series". Deadline.com. Retrieved 2014-06-29.
  29. ↑ Giroux, Jack (August 7, 2013). "BRET EASTON ELLIS: ‘AMERICAN PSYCHO’ DOESN’T WORK AS A MOVIE". Film School Rejects.
  30. ↑ Lewis, Dave (16 February 2013). "Bella Heathcote to lead Brett Easton Ellis' 'The Curse of Downer's Grove'". HitFix. Retrieved 2013-08-10.
  31. ↑ "10 Breaking Bits". Moviehole.net. 16 February 2013. Retrieved 2013-08-10.
  32. ↑ "Disappear Here". Facebook. 2013-12-25. Retrieved 2014-06-29.
  33. ↑ "Bret Easton Ellis Podcast". Podcastone.com. Retrieved 2014-06-29.

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