American Beauty Film Analysis

Tim Burton uses creative and sometimes cramped camera angles to convey the primary concepts of aloneness and self-discovery, in addition to augmenting the veiled themes of societal homogeneity and discrimination, to the audience. This perception is suggested all through the movie through the director’s use of high-angle panoramic shots of the unvarying suburbia and long-shots of

“Hey Brianna, meet me at 12:00 a.m. in the cafeteria so we can discuss what happened in class today.

Director Tim Burton is brashly thought of as having a dark, macabre, and humorous style in his films. This being true, there is a multitude of ways that the style is created for the audience. Furthermore, Burton’s cinematic technique usage is a direct mark of creative exposure of this dark style throughout the duration of a film’s story. Director Tim Burton uses diverse cinematic techniques to create a variety of effects that represent his style of grim childlike misfortune, tampered by opulent optimism.

“Cold, shiny, hard, plastic.”, one of the most popular quotes from the movie, Mean Girls. Mean Girls is a teen comedy film directed by Mark Waters and screenplay by Tina Fey. This film is loosely based on a book called “Queen Bees and Wannabees” by Rosalind Wiseman which is a self-help book that describes all of the cliques in high school and how they can have a huge effect on girls. But the movie itself is about the sociopolitical climate of the average American “high school”. The movie was made in 2004 and set in Evanston, Illinois, but the film was shot in Toronto, Canada. The film stars Lindsey Lohan, Rachel McAdams, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and many more comedic actors and actresses. I chose to do an analysis on the movie, Mean Girls, because I wanted to see if people would agree with my perspective, which is that this movie does correctly show the real life mean girl situations and how girls can overcome the popularity contests.

The first thing I picked up in cinema class was that the size of the screen can play a huge role in the way the viewer experiences a film. American Honey by Andrea Arnold felt like one of those movies that was tailormade to be experienced to its full potential on the big screen. If I saw this movie at home on a smaller screen, there would be so many things that I would not be able to experience because of the limitation in screen size.

Throughout Burton’s films, one simple thought is true in all of them. From Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children to Alice in Wonderland, Burton emphasizes that “Visions are worth fighting for. Why (should you ) spend your life making someone else's dreams?” Deviating from the predestined path created for the main characters emulates Frida Kahlo’s “Along the Border Line Between Mexico and the United States ” The majority of Burton’s characters find themselves on a line between the path and visions that society and their family has carved out for them, and the path and visons that are worth fighting for . Burton incorporates contrasting settings and strained family relationships in his films to promote the idea that young people truly find themselves only when they deviate from the path that society has carved for them.

To some, Tim Burton’s works display frightening, abstract images. To Burton, his work represents positivity, “I never really saw them [films] as dark. They always seemed more positive in a way.” People all view objects differently. His fictional films include, Edward Scissorhands, Alice and Wonderland, and Big Fish, along with many others. In these films, Burton uses cinematic techniques that shape the characterization. Tim Burton’s usage of flashbacks, lighting, and color helps develop characterization in Edward Scissorhands and Big Fish.

American Beauty is a movie that sets in suburban America. The story is about Lester, whom is a middle-aged writer working in a magazine company. He was having a midlife crisis where he felt lonely and numbed by continuous unchanging routine of his everyday life. In the movie, his wife portrayed as a successful real estate agent, but she was also going through her own midlife crisis in both her career and personal life. Lester’s daughter, Jane Bumham had alienated her parents and was going through puberty. They have a new neighbor who is a U.S. Marine Corps Colonel Frank Fitts, and he has a son, Ricky Fitts, who is a drug dealer. Lester was going to get fired from his company that he had worked for fourteen

London has been a hot location for popular films for a long time. With beautiful scenery and an amazing atmosphere, London can be the backdrop in any film genre. You can see London as a city of romance, or you can see London as a dark lonely city. There are so many different Landmarks that are constantly popping up in many films we enjoy. One can watch a film with no knowledge of the location, and know that it is London right off the bat. With its beautiful landmarks and extraordinary streets, London has had screen writers hearts from the start. I chose to compare and contrast the function of London landmarks, and localities in two British films. These films being An American Werewolf in London, and 28 days later. Both these British films are extremely different from the films that we have watched in class, and that is why I chose them.

It was not until the second time of watching this film that I came to the realization that this film was a parody of documentaries, or in other words a "mockumentary". This film discusses the suburban sprawl that has been happening in many towns around North America. It depicts the neighborhoods with large identical two story houses on every street, the playgrounds, malls, stores, and restaurants that surround them along with the effect they have on the family. The family talks about the disadvantages they face such as the father's long two hour commute to work every day. As well as the isolation that the son feels in the movie. In the beginning he loved the idea of moving to a new house in a new place, but soon felt like an outcast by the

     The film takes place in California. The location is nature, and the houses are big, they have big front and back yards. The location seems appropriate and realistic.

It all started when an ordinary girl and a typical guy went on their first date in the summer of 1989.

The opening scene of American Beauty shows a teenage girl lying in a bed, venting her feelings towards her father. In this, the audience sees her in dull clothing and colours, minimal make-up and has greasy-looking hair. As she sits up, her hair falls around her face and she stares directly into the camera, giving a sense of unease to the audience.

images as constructions that we created around ourselves as a means of hiding our true selves. Mendes is able to implicate us in the construction and make us active viewers by exploiting our voyeuristic nature. In American Beauty Mendes uses the voyeuristic tendencies of the spectator to acknowledge the permeating constructed images. Mendes, through the use of narration, the mise en scene and cinematic techniques implicates the spectator in to using their voyeuristic tendencies to deconstruct

The film “The Prestige” is one of many masterful Nolan films that walks the line between being a meta film about the film industry, and being focused on immersing the audience in the actual content of the film. At a close inspection, comparisons to the film industry can be seen, but they are not so obvious to distract the audience from the central conflicts that are at the forefront of the film. The subject of the film could most easily be defined as surrounding the topics of obsession or fame. More specifically, the obsession of fame, and the illusion of happiness that fame projects. The main characters of the movie both urn for the fame of being the world’s most successful entertainer, even if for different reasons.