American Beauty: Analysis of Lester Burnham Essay

November 17, 2010   American Beauty: An Analysis of Lester Burnham and Ricky Fitts   American Beauty, written by Alan Ball and directed by Sam Mendes, invites the viewer to do one thing: look closer. Look closer at life, look closer at your surroundings, look closer at your possessions, and finally look closer at your loved ones. What is integral about the subject matter of the film is how applicable it is to almost anyone who watches it. The film’s grotesque depiction of American middle-class society

American Beauty is an iconic, memorable and enduring watch, directed flawlessly by Sam Mendes. The film explores and somewhat criticizes and attacks the cherished societal beliefs and institutions of the ‘American Dream’, depicting the obsessive nature of materialism and illustrating the distortion of appearance versus reality. Many critics have scrutinized and developed further these ideas, of which I have analysed two critical reviews from Brittany Deschler (1999) and David Heuser. The critical

The film American Beauty, directed by Sam Mendes is a film about imprisonment and escape from imprisonment (Mendes, 1999). American Beauty explores the breakdown of a suburban family man whose life journeys from self loathing and emptiness to freedom and liberation but at the ultimate cost of his life. Mendes effectively employs a range of techniques to help convey the meaning of this film such as set design, camera angles, colour and soundtrack. Cinema often uses structured set design and camera

The State of Despair in American Beauty In life, everyone must make choices. Choices give an individual the freedom to decide upon the path to which they will follow. Since it’s beginnings, the film making industry has focused on showing the direct relationship between the choices that people make and the resulting consequences they must face. In the movie American Beauty, the character of Lester Burnham must make many important choices that could either lead to his ultimate happiness, or draw

Term Paper: American Beauty What are the costs of living in a success-driven, consumer-oriented, image-obsessed society? This challenge to contemporary America’s suburban culture finds a voice in Sam Mendes’ 1999 movie American Beauty. The film’s complex subtlety underscores its implication that subtlety itself is a casualty in our society. American Beauty’s tagline exhorts viewers to “look closer,” but the film expresses ambivalence concerning what is revealed by closer inspection. On one hand

The Psychological Evolution of Lester Burnham With roughly ten percent of American adults suffering from depression, it is no surprise that the disorder is commonly embodied in both literature and film (“Facts &Amp; Statistics.”). One such example of depression personified in a fictitious character can be found in the 1999 drama American Beauty. Directed by Sam Mendes, husband and father Lester Burnham experiences symptoms of depression, resulting in an extreme midlife crisis, ultimately leading

Certain pieces of literature studied indicate a consistent theme of the subjection of men. Writers of literary works such as The Metamorphosis, The Overcoat, and American Beauty definitively succeed in portraying a somewhat pathetic protagonist male and how that male is ostracized by the people in his surrounding environment. In all three pieces, the subjugated men react in various ways. These men either “rise up” and “liberate” themselves by taking an effective standpoint on their desiderates or

they are satisfied. We are condemned to swing between pain and boredom. Through the character of Lester, the film American Beauty argues that happiness is attainable; I would argue that it is an illusion. (add details from the movie). In the film American Beauty Carolyn Burnham, the wife of Lester, is obsessed with materialism and others’ opinions. She is trapped by the ideology of the American Dream. According to Schopenhauer property is not significant at all. He does not believe that wealth

Application & Critical Analysis – Chapter 11 The movie “American Beauty” (1999) by Sam Mendes directly relates to the topics discussed in Chapter 11 of the text. This film is a narrative by the main character, Lester Burnham, a 42-year-old advertising executive who is a father and husband. Lester has an issue with his wife, Carolyn, is tense. This broken relationship affects their daughter, Jane, who is unhappy and struggles with self-esteem matters. Lester’s relationship is further broken when

Antiheroes: neither villains nor supermen but the tragic heroes of daily life. Discussing the deptiction of the ‘male American antihero’ within the framework of this thesis in the cases of Lester Burnham, Frank Wheeler, and Brandon Sullivan refers to white men from (upper) middle class leading a drab, emotionally unfulfilling life in the US – in New York City and suburbs in Connecticut, to be exact. First of all, one needs to clarify what exactly makes and antihero and what distinguishes him from