American Beauty dir. Sam Mendes 1999

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American Beauty dir. Sam Mendes 1999
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Film Style

• Based on our discussion about film style, where
  do we place American Beauty?
  
• Is this film realist?
• Is it classicist?
• Is it formalist?
• Remember that it is nearly impossible to create
  an absolutely formalist or realist film.

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Questions about Narrative Voice

• Often seen as a cheat in narrative or story
  films.
  
• Certain genres and film types use narrators
  documentaries, detective films, westerns, science
  fiction (eg. Blade Runner).
  
• Do you find Lesters voice intrusive or
  informative? Some critics felt it should not be
  necessary (or are audiences too dumb to figure
  out the filmmakers message?). The use of this
  voice is what we call didactic or teacherly.
• Is the use of a male voice a way of colouring the
  visuals and the story in favour of a male
  perspective? At which points in the film is the
  male POV favoured, especially at Carolyns
  expense?

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Genre Film as MysteryFilm as Social Satire

• Before we know the truth about Carolyn (Annette
  Bening), we might suspect her as Lesters killer.
  Note that Carolyn wears a red dress in the final
  sequence.
• Jane (and Ricky) are framed by the film for
  Lesters death because of the opening video
  clip.
  
• Because we see both women as plausible killers,
  the satire turns on us. Below the surface, is the
  truth both love Lester and want his love in
  return.
• The red door of the Burnhams house is also
  symbolic of the familys yearning for passion,
  meaning, and love.

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Tone and Formalist Design

• Tone is the emotional quality of the images (mise
  en scene, action, photography, editing, lighting
  etc.) sound (dialogue, music, etc.).
  
• If a dual perspective comes through (especially
  due to the voice-over narration), we say the tone
  is IRONIC.
  
• Irony can distance an audience emotionally by
  showing us a perspective detached from the visual
  and aural components of the film.
  
• Can you think of distancing devices used in
  this film?

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Look Closer

• The poster in Lester Burnhams cubicle asks us to
  look closer.
  
• In fact, the beginning of the film uses several
  disorienting shots to encourage us to look
  closer.
  
• The birds-eye-view shot of Lesters
  neighbourhood.
  
• This type of shot repeats with the first image of
  Lester in bed.
  

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Rose Petal Imagery

• At the right, we see one of Lesters fantasies of
  Angela, though less removed.
  
• Her image has the added eroticism of the bath.
• Where does the rose-petal image repeat?

When Lester imagines kissing Angela, he slowly p
ulls a red rose petal from his mouth. He has
tasted innocence.
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Roses and the American Beauty

• When combined with the image of Angela, the red
  roses symbolize beauty, attraction, eroticism,
  but also innocence, hope, and vitality, as well
  as love.
• The shot on the right is a reverse birds-eye of
  Angela on the ceiling of Lester Burnhams bedroom.

Note how the rose petals discreetly cover
Angelas body.
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Formal Elements Parallel Shots
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Fantasy and Reality

• Formalism is used in the fantasy sequences.
• However, reality is quite different. Lester
  realizes that he should not have sex with a girl
  his daughters age because he would be spoiling
  something beautiful.
• He takes on the fatherly role of comforter,
  instead, by making her a sandwich.

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Mise en Scene

• The film plays with the theme that surface
  appearances are deceiving.
  
• If the film is about the American Dream gone
  awry, then suburban nuclear family life seems to
  be a root cause of decay.
  
• Mise en scene (framing of images) is a crucial
  formal element that communicates confinement and
  sterility or alternatively, warmth and power.

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Analyse this Shot
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Try this One
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Pedestals and the Lowest of the Low
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Camera Placement and Power Relationships Shift
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Mise en Scene and Formal Elements

• Mise en scene refers to placing on stagewhat
  appears within the frame.
  
• Formalist films arrange items in precise
  repetitive ways to communicate regularity,
  rigidity, sterility, order, and regimentation. Or
  alignment.

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Turnabout is Fair Play
Does Ricky get closer to his subjects via the
camera, or does the camera keep him at arms len
gth? At a safer distance?
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Mirrors and Windows

• We often see characters faces (including the
  upper body) through windows and via reflections
  in mirrors.
  
• What is the symbolic significance of such shots?
• What do these types of images tell us about
  surface appearances in the film?

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American Beauty

• What does the title of the film suggest?
• What or who is the American Beauty in the film?
• What are some common symbolic meanings of red
  roses?
  
• What is suggested by the red rose in the image on
  the right?

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Red Rose Imagery

• Red roses appear on the dining room table at the
  Burnhams house, but disappear later when we see
  an increasing breakdown in the marriage.
  
• Also, the Burnhams garden consists predominantly
  of red roses, and they are therefore the source
  of the flowers on the table.

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Tender of Roses

• Carolyn Burnham (Annette Bening) is in charge of
  tending the roses in the garden, symbols of life,
  growth and vitality.
  
• Her neighbours, a gay couple, wonder what her
  secret is.
  
• As the American Beauty or Mother, she is in
  charge of keeping love in the home, yet here she
  is cutting roses.
  
• Her clogs match her pruning shearsan indication
  that Carolyn has bought into the need to keep up
  appearances.

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More Rose Imagery

• Notice the return of the vase of red roses in the
  confrontation scene.
  
• Lester is more at ease with himself, having quit
  his job at the magazine he also feels freer
  after having discovered his wife is having an
  affair, while she discovers he is working at a
  fast-food place.

Red symbolizes Lesters growing
sense of his own life-force, his return to
consciousness and vitality. The roses are
also symbols of his awareness of beauty
and his own sense of passionnot just
for sex, but for life itself.
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Love on the Couch?

• Lester feels amorous toward Carolyn, but her
  insistence that he not spill beer on the silk
  couch stifles his attempt at lovemaking.
  
• His shirt is a rather drab version of red.
• This scene on the couch parallels Lesters
  aborted love-making scene with Angela.

Although she doesnt mean to, Carolyn sucks the
life out of Lester. Perhaps this is a comment on
the American suburban family? Is this portrait
antithetical to feminist concerns?
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Mr. Smiley

• The name Mr. Smiley connotes certain
  ironiesthat part of the American myth that says
  were all smiling. People look happy on the
  outside, but in reality are crying on the
  inside.
• Note the red cap and belteven Mr. Smiley is red.
  Lester is feeling free enough to work in a job
  most wouldnt consider at his stage in life.

The yummy smile with the tongue showing also
suggests that American culture is not only
food-oriented, but driven by carnal pleasures.
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Theres More to the Use of Red than Roses

• An often missed use of red in American Beauty is
  the red recording light on Ricky Fitts (Wes
  Bentley) camera.
  
• The camera substitutes for his eyes, and as he
  tells us, allows him to see things he might miss
  otherwiselike theres more to Jane (Thora Birch)
  than we think.

The tonal range of the colours in American Beauty
is deliberately subdued, making red stand out.
Note also Janes dark red lipstick.
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Voyeurism and Beauty

• Both neighbouring families are dysfunctional.
  (Why is Rickys mum so catatonic?)
  
• Rickys father, Colonel Fitts (Chris Cooper), is
  a homophobe who is attracted by what repels him.
  
  
• He is the opposite of Lester a father who is in
  supreme control of his sons life. A man who
  operates out of fear, assuming the worst.
  
• Voyeurism runs in the family.

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Voyeurism and the Eye

• The image of the eye and screen within a screen
  are obvious signals that remind us of our own
  voyeuristic tendencies (as in watching this
  film).
• The films tag-line exhorts the viewer to look
  closer.

People are much more complex than they seem on
the surface. Jane definitely.
Even Angela.
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The Search for Beauty

• Ricky and Lester are not the only ones searching
  for beauty in a world that often seems drab and
  even hurtful. Note Carolyns red slip.
  
• Note also the plastic gloves, the sterile home
  and the furious vacuuming!

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Form is Content

• André Bazin, the famous editor of Cahiers du
  Cinema, admired films that present a discourse
  on method. However, as a realist, he might have
  taken exception to some of Mendes formalist
  flourishes in this film.
• Ultimately, to make a narrative Hollywood-style
  film that would win an Academy Award, you need to
  tell a good story with believable characters
  whose interior life is reflected in their faces
  and actions on screen. As such, the camera acts
  in aid of the characters and the story.
• This style is most often called Hollywood
  Classicism.

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Andre Bazin Form is Content

• Ultimately, American Beauty is about finding
  beauty in our own lives, brief and seemingly
  ordinary as they are.
  
• See the red bottle? The scene is a confrontation
  and ultimately voyeuristic, but not without
  hope.
  

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The Climax

• Here, the red car is both a signifier of Lesters
  renewed passion and mid-life crisis while also
  foreshadowing the Colonels attack as well as
  Lesters blood.
• Another motif (recurring imagery) worth tracing
  in the film is the repeated reference to
  deaththe dead bird, the funeral procession
  

Note how the Colonel stands in the rainhe is a
sad man, a defeated man, and the wet T-shirt
signifies he is also a sexual being, while
foreshadowing the kiss.
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Formal Elements and the Gun Shot

• Lester goes beyond the stereotypes of a suburban
  male having a mid-life crisis.
  
• He awakens to the beauty in his world (which
  includes his family) and in himself.
  
• We see the reaction of the other characters to
  his death by the repetition of the gun shot (we
  hear the shot 4 times).
  
• His death, although tragic, indicates that death
  is inevitable, and simply put, life is for
  living.
  
• Rickys complex facial expressions upon seeing
  Lester dead reveal the beauty in Lesters
  expression, that beauty and tragedy can be
  intermingled.
• Life and death are two of the greatest
  mysteries.
  

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Zen and the Suchness of Reality

• Rickys videotape of the plastic bag dancing in
  front of a red brick wall shows us beauty and
  passion in ordinary things "Sometimes there's so
  much beauty in the world, I can't take it..." We
  can glimpse what lies behind surface reality.
• Zen asks us to be mindful in the moment.
• The sound of a gong used to end meditation in Zen
  practice is meant to awaken the sleeper to
  being in the moment.
  
• Mendes, who has an interest in Eastern
  philosophies, believes that without this sense of
  vitality, we are caught up in surface appearances
  and do not penetrate the illusion of the
  material world (as a Zen monk might say).

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Themes in American Beauty

• The American gun-mentality
• Machismo and homophobia
• Male power structures and Feminist concerns
• Human Neurosis and Fantasy Life
• The cult of materialism, surface beauty and the
  fakeness of the American Dream
  
• Spiritual Awakening (and hope in the moment of
  Transition)
  
• Passion for Living

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Film as Medium

• American Beauty is a useful introduction to film
  as a medium of entertainment that also offers us
  a chance to look at how films are constructed to
  form meaning.
• Stylistically, it is a film that uses formalist
  techniques in aid of its meaning, its narrative
  and its characters, and thus it is a fine example
  of Hollywood Classicism.
• Do you agree?