10 Genius Editing Decisions That Made Movie Scenes Great
8. Willem Dafoe's Detective Became Unpredictable By Combining Wildly Different Takes - American Psycho
American Psycho is a movie which thrives on both its unpredictability and its ambiguity, ultimately leaving the audience to decide for themselves what was real and what was Patrick Bateman's (Christian Bale) psychotic fantasy.
Director Mary Harron undertook a unique trick to further leave audiences unconsciously uneasy, particularly as it pertains to the scenes featuring Detective Donald Kimball (Willem Dafoe).
Harron filmed every scene with Dafoe playing the part three ways - that Kimball knew Bateman killed Paul Allen (Jared Leto), that he didn't know, and that he wasn't sure.
Harron then frankensteined these takes together during editing to create an impenetrable depiction of Kimball, where his exact assessment of Bateman wasn't clear to the audience.
It gives these scenes a totally "off" vibe that the audience might not be able to make sense of exactly, but they're certainly well aware that something isn't quite right.