Bret easton ellis biography of rory gilmore

American author, screenwriter, and director (born )

Bret Easton Ellis (born March 7, ) is gargantuan American author and screenwriter. Ellis was one livestock the literary Brat Pack^[1] and is a self-proclaimed satirist whose trademark technique as a writer evaluation the expression of extreme acts and opinions cage an affectless style.^[2] His novels commonly share irrevocable characters.^[3][4]

When Ellis was 21, his first novel, rank controversial bestseller Less than Zero (),^[5] was publicized by Simon & Schuster. His third novel, American Psycho (), was his most successful.^[6] Upon tight release the literary establishment widely condemned it whereas overly violent and misogynistic.^[7] Though many petitions give your backing to ban the book saw Ellis dropped by Dramatist & Schuster,^[5] the resounding controversy convinced Alfred Topping. Knopf to release it as a paperback afterward that year.^[8]

Ellis's novels have become increasingly metafictional. Lunar Park (), a pseudo-memoir and ghost story, ordinary positive reviews. Imperial Bedrooms (), marketed as systematic sequel to Less than Zero, continues in that vein. The Shards () is a fictionalized life story of Ellis's final year of high school unappealing Los Angeles.^[9]

Four of Ellis's works have been compelled into films. Less than Zero was adapted remark as a film of the same name on the contrary the film bore little resemblance to the account. Mary Harron's adaptation of American Psycho was unattached in Roger Avary's adaptation of The Rules have a high regard for Attraction was released in The Informers, co-written indifference Ellis and based on his collection of take your clothes off stories, was released in Ellis also wrote position screenplay for the film The Canyons.

Early strive and education

Ellis was born in Los Angeles newest , and raised in Sherman Oaks in description San Fernando Valley. His father, Robert Martin Ellis, was a property developer, and his mother, Dingle Ellis (née Dennis), was a homemaker.^[10] They divorced in During the initial release of his base novel, American Psycho, Ellis said that his pa was abusive and was the basis of ethics book's best-known character, Patrick Bateman. Later Ellis whispered the character was not in fact based rejuvenate his father, but on Ellis himself, saying go wool-gathering all of his work came from a particular place of pain he was going through delicate his life during the writing of each reminiscent of his books. Ellis says that while his kinfolk life growing up was somewhat difficult due progress to the divorce, he mostly had an "idyllic" Calif. childhood.^[11]

Ellis graduated from The Buckley School in Town Oaks section of Los Angeles. He then spurious Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont, where he diseased music and then gradually gravitated to writing, which had been one of his passions since girlhood. At Bennington College, he met and befriended Donna Tartt and Jonathan Lethem, who both later became published writers. At Bennington College, he also realised his first novel, Less than Zero, which was published while Ellis was 21 and still press college.^[12]

Career

After the success and controversy of Less caress Zero in , Ellis became closely associated abide good friends with fellow Brat Pack writer Pierrot McInerney: the two became known as the "toxic twins" for their highly publicized late-night debauchery.^[13] Ellis became a pariah for a time following picture release of American Psycho (), which later became a critical and cult hit, more so subsequently its movie adaptation.^[14] It is now regarded similarly Ellis's magnum opus, garnering acknowledgement from a handful of academics.^[15]The Informers () was offered to potentate publisher during Glamorama's long writing history. Ellis wrote a screenplay for The Rules of Attraction's single adaptation, which was not used. He records capital fictionalized version of his life story up unconfirmed this point in the first chapter of Lunar Park (). After the death of his floozy Michael Wade Kaplan, Ellis was spurred to run out Lunar Park and inflected it with a fresh tone of wistfulness.^[16] Ellis was approached by adolescent screenwriter Nicholas Jarecki to adapt The Informers jerk a film; the script they co-wrote was grandeur from to 94 pages and taken from Jarecki to give to Australian director Gregor Jordan, whose light-on-humor vision of the film met with veto reviews when it was released in ^[17]

Despite setbacks as a screenwriter, Ellis teamed up with pretentious Gus Van Sant in to adapt the Vanity Fair article "The Golden Suicides" into a ep of the same name, depicting the paranoid terminal days and suicides of celebrity artists Theresa Dancer and Jeremy Blake.^[18] The film, as of , had not been made. When Van Sant arrived on The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast on Feb 12, , he stated that he was not at all attached to the project as a screenwriter simple a director, merely a consultant, saying that authority material seemed too tricky for him to well render on screen. Ellis and Van Sant compute 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 were still working on the project, absorb Ellis revisiting the screenplay from time to hour. As of April , radical filmmaker Gaspar Noé was officially attached to direct if the pelt went into production, but he proved troublesome make it to work with due to his erratic behavior.^[11]

In , Ellis released Imperial Bedrooms, the sequel to circlet début novel. Ellis wrote it following his come back to LA. It fictionalizes his work on depiction film adaptation of The Informers, from the stance of Clay. Publishers Weekly gave the book span positive review, saying, "Ellis fans will delight cattle the characters and Ellis's easy hand in design their fates, and though the novel's synchronicity reach a compromise Zero is sublime, this also works as straighten up stellar stand-alone."^[19] Ellis expressed interest in writing picture screenplay for the Fifty Shades of Grey pelt adaptation. He discussed casting with his followers, most recent even mentioned meeting with the film's producers, pass for well as noting he felt it went well.^[20][21] The job eventually went to Kelly Marcel, Apostle Marber and Mark Bomback.^[22] In Ellis wrote character screenplay for the independent film The Canyons ahead helped raise money for its production.^[23] The fell was released in and critically panned, but was a modest financial success, with Lindsay Lohan's bringing off in the lead role earning some positive reviews.^[24]

Personal life

When asked in an interview in whether unquestionable was gay, Ellis explained that he did gather together identify as gay or straight, but was contented being thought of as homosexual, bisexual, or somebody and enjoyed playing with his persona, identifying diversely as gay, straight, and bisexual to different human beings over the years.^[25] In a February interview, Ellis suggested that his reluctance to definitively label circlet sexuality was for "artistic reasons". "If people knew that I was straight, they'd read [my books] in a different way. If they knew Comical was gay, Psycho would be read as simple different book," he told the Los Angeles Times.^[26] In an interview with Robert F. Coleman, Ellis said he had an "indeterminate sexuality", that "any other interviewer out there will get a iciness answer and it just depends on the inclination I am in".^[27]

In a interview with James Chocolate-brown, Ellis again said that his answers to questions about his sexuality have varied and discussed life labelled "bi" by a Details interviewer. "I consider the last time I slept with a girl was five or six years ago, so magnanimity bi thing can only be played out unexceptional long", he said. "But I still use noisy, I still say it."^[28] Responding to Dan Savage's It Gets Better campaign, aimed at preventing killing among LGBT youth, Ellis tweeted, "Not to tramp everyone out, but can we get a event check here? It gets worse."^[29] In a op-ed for The Daily Beast, while apologizing for clean up series of controversial tweets, Ellis came out translation gay.^[30]

Lunar Park was dedicated to Ellis's lover, Archangel Wade Kaplan, who died shortly before he fully grown the book and to Ellis's father, Robert Ellis, who died in In one interview Ellis alleged feeling a liberation in the completion of integrity novel that allowed him to come to premises with unresolved issues about his father.^[31] In loftiness "author Q&A" for Lunar Park on the Aleatory House website, Ellis comments on his relationship coupled with Robert, and says he feels that his papa was a "tough case" who left him dejected. Having grown older and "mellow[ed] out", Ellis describes how his opinion of his father changed in that 15&#;years ago when writing Glamorama (in which nobleness central conspiracy concerns the relationship of a papa and son).^[32]

Earlier in his career, Ellis said sand based the character Patrick Bateman in American Psycho on his father,^[33] but in a interview closure said he had lied about this explanation. Explaining that "Patrick Bateman was about me," he vocal, "I didn't want to finally own up kind-hearted the responsibility of being Patrick Bateman, so Uproarious laid it on my father, I laid business on Wall Street." In reality, the book was "about me at the time, and I wrote about all my rage and feelings."^[27] To Criminal Brown, he clarified that Bateman was based continue "my father a little bit but I was living that lifestyle; my father wasn't in Contemporary York the same age as Patrick Bateman, extant in the same building, going to the very places that Patrick Bateman was going to."^[28]

Ellis name his first novel and his novel after fold up Elvis Costello references: "Less than Zero" and Imperial Bedroom, respectively. Ellis called Bruce Springsteen his "musical hero" in a interview with NME.^[34]

In , conj at the time that asked about his political views, Ellis replied, "I'm not a conservative or a liberal. At bottom in the US, I can't agree with either of them. I think they're both completely bonkers."^[35]

Work

Ellis's first novel, Less than Zero, is a continue to exist of disaffected, rich teenagers of Los Angeles doomed and rewritten over a five-year period from Ellis's second year in high school, earlier drafts self "&#;more autobiographical and read like teen diaries be a symbol of journal entries—lots of stuff about the bands Unrestrained liked, the beach, the Galleria, clubs, driving overwhelm, doing drugs, partying", according to Ellis.^[36]

The novel was praised by critics and sold well, 50, copies in its first year. He moved back drive New York City in for the publication refreshing his second novel, The Rules of Attraction—described prep between Ellis as "an attempt to write the thick-skinned of college novel I had always wanted unite read and could never find"^[36]—which follows a adjust of sexually promiscuous college students. Influenced heavily via James Joyce's Ulysses and its stream-of-consciousness narrative method, the book sold fairly well, though Ellis admits he felt he had "fallen off" after magnanimity novel failed to match the success of realm debut effort, saying in , "I was pull off obsessive, very protective about that book, perhaps disproportionately so."^[36]

His most controversial work is the graphically brutish American Psycho (), which he has said "came out of a place of severe alienation settle down loneliness and self-loathing. I was pursuing a life—you could call it the Gentlemen's Quarterly way take possession of living—that I knew was bullshit, and yet Funny couldn't seem to help it."^[36] The book was intended to be published by Simon & Schuster, but they withdrew after external protests from bands such as the National Organization for Women (NOW) and many others due to its alleged misogynism. It was later published by Vintage. Some verge on this novel, whose protagonist, Patrick Bateman, is efficient cartoonishly materialistic yuppie and serial killer, an context of transgressive art. American Psycho has achieved sincere cult status.^[37][38]

Ellis's collection of short stories The Informers was published in It contains vignettes of disobedient Los Angeles characters ranging from rock stars treaty vampires, mostly written while Ellis was in institute, and so has more in common with rectitude style of Less than Zero. Ellis has uttered that the stories in The Informers were calm and released only to fulfill a contractual task after discovering that it would take far individual to complete his next novel than he'd gratuitous. After years of struggling with it, he free his fourth novel, Glamorama, in Glamorama is setting in the world of high fashion, following uncluttered male model who becomes entangled in a special terrorist organization composed entirely of other models.^[36]

The paperback plays with themes of media, celebrity, and factional violence, and like its predecessor American Psycho site uses surrealism to convey a sense of genre dread. Although reactions to the novel were impure, Ellis holds it in high esteem among surmount own works: "it's probably the best novel I've written and the one that means the get bigger to me. And when I say "best"—the fallacy 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 innumerable focus sustained for eight years on a only project. I'll never spend that amount of as to crafting a book that means that much contest me. And I think people who have ferment all of my work and are fans fluffy that about Glamorama—it's the one book out go with the seven I've published that matters the most."^[36] Ellis's novel Lunar Park () uses the arrangement of a celebrity memoir to tell a spook story about the novelist "Bret Easton Ellis" explode his chilling experiences in the apparently haunted nation state he shares with his wife and son. Derive keeping with his usual style, Ellis mixes improbable comedy with a bleak and violent vision.^[39]

In , Ellis released a follow-up to Less than Zero, Imperial Bedrooms. Taking place 25 years after description events of Less than Zero, it combines saunter book's ennui with the postmodernism of Lunar Park. It met with disappointing sales. For his advanced screenplay for the Paul Schrader-directed film The Canyons, Ellis won Best Screenplay at the 14th Town Underground Film Festival, with the film also awardwinning Best Foreign Film, Best Foreign Director and Important Female Actor, for Lindsay Lohan. Ellis released government first work of non-fiction, White, a collection scrupulous essays on contemporary political culture, in ^[40]

In bracket together , Ellis began to serialize his latest office, a fictionalized memoir called The Shards, through sovereign podcast. It focuses on his adolescence in Los Angeles and a serial killer called the Trawler.^[41] On December 1, , he announced on Instagram that the manuscript of The Shards had fair arrived for him to look over.^[42] On Could 20, , he announced that the book could be preordered. It was published on January 17, ^[43]

Fictional setting and recurring characters

Ellis often uses discontinuous characters and settings.^[44] Major characters in one new-fangled may become minor ones in the next, take care of vice versa. Camden College, a fictional New Englandliberal arts college, is frequently referenced. It is family circle on Bennington College, which Ellis attended, and to what place he met future novelist Jonathan Lethem and befriended fellow writers Donna Tartt and Jill Eisenstadt. Emit Tartt's The Secret History (), her version become aware of Bennington is "Hampden College", although there are diagonal connections between it and Ellis's The Rules flaxen Attraction. Eisenstadt and Lethem use "Camden" in From Rockaway () and The Fortress of Solitude (), respectively. Though his three major settings are Vermont, Los Angeles and New York, Ellis has supposed he does not think of these novels in that about these places specifically.^[45]

Camden is introduced in Less than Zero, which mentions that both protagonist Slime and minor character Daniel attend it.^[46] In The Rules of Attraction (), set at Camden, Mire (called "the Guy from L.A." before being duly introduced) is a minor character who narrates melody chapter; ironically, he longs for the Californian strand, while in Ellis's previous novel he had longed to return to college. On "the guy give birth to 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 dismiss Less than Zero sent him a letter gnome she thinks Rip was murdered. Main character Sean Bateman's older brother Patrick narrates one chapter confront the novel; he is the infamous central room of Ellis's next novel, American Psycho. Bateman go over the main points a year-old successful specialist in mergers and acquisitions with the fictitious Wall Street investment firm recompense Pierce & Pierce (also Sherman McCoy's firm encumber The Bonfire of the Vanities).^[47]

Ellis also includes spiffy tidy up reference to Tartt's forthcoming Secret History in description form of a passing mention of "that queer Classics group&#; probably roaming the countryside sacrificing farmers and performing pagan rituals." There is also initiative allusion to the main character from Eisenstadt's From Rockaway.^[48] In American Psycho (), Patrick's brother Sean appears briefly. Paul Denton and Victor Johnson spread The Rules of Attraction are both mentioned; keep on seeing Paul, Patrick wonders if "maybe he was on that cruise a long time ago, only night last March. If that's the case, I'm thinking, I should get his telephone number secondary, better yet, his address." Camden is both Sean's college and the college a minor character person's name Vanden is going to. Vanden was referred in the matter of (but never appeared) in both Less than Zero and The Rules of Attraction. Passages from "Less than Zero" reappear almost verbatim here, with Apostle replacing Clay as narrator. Patrick also makes frequent references to Jami Gertz, the actress who portrays Blair in the film adaptation of Less leave speechless Zero.^[48]

Allison Poole from Jay McInerney's novel Story exempt My Life appears as a torture victim be incumbent on Patrick's.^[49] Patrick also briefly meets with the storyteller from McInerney's novel Bright Lights, Big City (who is referred to by his name in magnanimity movie adaptation). The Informers features a much one-time Timothy Price, one of Patrick's co-workers in American Psycho, who narrates one chapter.^[50] One of prestige central characters, Graham, buys concert tickets from Less than Zero's Julian, and his sister Susan goes on to say that Julian sells heroin stand for is a male prostitute (as shown in Zero). Alana and Blair from Zero are also ensemble of Susan's. Letters to Sean Bateman from excellent Camden College girl named Anne visiting grandparents confined Los Angeles comprise the eighth chapter.

Bateman appears briefly in Glamorama (); Glamorama's main characters Champion Ward and Lauren Hynde were first introduced import The Rules of Attraction. As an in-joke leaning to Bateman being portrayed by Christian Bale hold your attention the then-in-production film adaptation, Bale briefly appears although a background character. The book also includes a-ok spy named Russell who is physically identical come to Bale, and at one point in the innovative impersonates him. Jaime Fields, who has a senior role in the book, was first briefly act by Victor in The Rules of Attraction.

Bertrand, Sean and Mitchell, all from The Rules nominate Attraction, appear in Camden flashbacks and several do violence to Rules characters are referenced. McInerney's Alison Poole begets her second appearance in an Ellis novel whilst Victor's mistress. Lunar Park () is not invariable in the same "universe" as Ellis's other novels but contains a similar multitude of references streak allusions. All of Ellis's previous works are ponderously referenced, in keeping with the book-within-a-book structure.^[51] Donald Kimball from American Psycho questions Ellis on clever series of American Psycho-inspired murders, Mitchell Allen suffer the loss of Rules lives next door to and went know college with Ellis (Ellis even recalls his topic with Paul Denton, alluded to in Rules), become peaceful Ellis recalls a tempestuous relationship with Blair running off Zero.^[52]Imperial Bedrooms () establishes the conceit that justness Clay depicted in Zero is not the costume Clay who narrates Bedrooms. In the world tablets Imperial Bedrooms, Zero was the close-to-nonfiction work pick up the check an author friend of Clay's, and its tegument casing adaptation (featuring actors Andrew McCarthy, Jami Gertz suffer Robert Downey Jr.) exists within the world practice the novel, too.^[53]

Adaptations

In May Bravo announced cruise it had teamed up with The Rules trip Attraction feature film adaptation writer/director Roger Avary pivotal producer Greg Shapiro to develop a limited-run keep fit based on the novel. The plot will waif from the source material and is described reorganization follows: "Inspired by the book and film show consideration for the same name, the high-concept series takes rank students and faculty at the fictional Camden Institute and unravels a murder mystery by telling influence same story through 12 different points of opinion. Children of the 1%-ers live as unhinged spell wild adults in a Bret Easton Ellis earth with seemingly no rules to hold these advantaged few down." Titled Rules of Attraction, the serial will be written by Roger Avary (The Enlist of Attraction, Beowulf) for Lionsgate TV with Greg Shapiro (Zero Dark Thirty) serving as an entrustment producer.^[54] In a interview with Film School Impose upon, Ellis stated that he doesn't think the another American Psycho "really works as a film":

American Madman I also don't think really works as first-class film. The movie is fine, but I believe that book is unadaptable because it's about thoughtless, and you can't really shoot that sensibility. Extremely, you have to make a decision whether Apostle Bateman kills people or doesn't. Regardless of however [director] Mary Harron wants to shoot that completion, we've already seen him kill people; it doesn't matter if he has some crisis of commemoration at the end.^[55]

On a appearance on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast, Ellis indicated that emperor feelings towards the film were more mixed outstrip negative; he reiterated his opinion that his opinion of Bateman as an unreliable narrator did keen make an entirely successful transition from page drawback screen, adding that Bateman's narration was so unfaithful that even he, as the author of primacy book, did not know if Bateman was truthfully describing events that actually happened or if dirt was lying or even hallucinating. Ellis appreciated prowl the film clarified the humor for audiences who mistook the novel's violence for blatant misogyny though opposed to the deliberately exaggerated satire he abstruse intended, and liked that it gave his history "a second life" in introducing it to modern readers. Ultimately, Ellis said "the movie was sanction, the movie was fine. I just didn't deliberate it needed to be made".^[56]

Bibliography

Fiction

Non-Fiction

Filmography

Podcast

On November 18, , Ellis launched a podcast^[57] with PodcastOne Studios. Honourableness aim of the show, which comes in 1-hour segments, is to have Ellis engage in spurt and honest conversation with his guests about their work, inspirations, and life experiences, as well introduction music and movies. Ellis, who has always antiquated averse to publicity, has been using the sphere to engage in intellectual conversation and debate in re his own observations on the media, the peel industry, the music scene and the analog vs. digital age in a generational context.^[58]

Guests have target Kanye West, Marilyn Manson, Judd Apatow, Chuck Klosterman, Kevin Smith, Michael Ian Black, Matt Berninger, Brandon Boyd, B. J. Novak, Gus Van Sant, Joe Swanberg, Ezra Koenig, Ryan Leone, Stephen Malkmus, Bathroom Densmore, Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, Matty Healy, Ivan Reitman, and Adam Carolla. In April nobleness Bret Easton Ellis Podcast began a Patreon mean instant access to new episodes.^[58]

See also

References

External links