Lester Burnham's Allegory In The Film 'Look Closer'

American Beauty, a film that was written by Allan Ball and directed by Sam Mendes in 1999 is a unique piece that demonstrates many sociological themes throughout the development of the plot. The characters strive to portray themselves as the All American Family. They live in a nice house, drive nice cars and seem perfectly normal to the general public, but the audience is allowed to view the deep set issues that plague the main characters; Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey), Carolyn Burnham (Annette Bening), Jane Burnham (Thora Birch), and Jane's best friend Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari). As the plot develops there are many obvious parallels relating the lives of the characters to Merton's Strain

The Ugly Truth About Beauty by Dave Barry is a humorous essay, which uses techniques like satire including exaggeration, that gives the reader a funny yet accurate portrayal of women and their beauty standards compared to standards set for men. Barry uses satire, humor to criticize the faults of others, to connect with his audience. Although Barry loves to make funny points throughout his essay he constantly weaves in serious facts and examples of this issue. Barry will make a valid point then immediately follow it up with exaggeration. His use of satire in the essay makes the reading light and enjoyable while showing the reader the double standards of beauty.

American Beauty at first glance may seem to be a snuff film or even a movie that simply dwells on sexual desire but, it is actually a commentary on the monotony of life and the will and means to break out of said monotony. It can also be a tale of the dangers of desires and the downfall that obsessive natures can lead to. This is true for the main character’s wife, Carolyn Burnham, who appears to have both Borderline Personality Disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder. While the movie is mainly focused on Lester Burnham and his eventual desire to break free from his conformities, there is a focus on how Carolyn focuses mainly on her work, conformity, and order to the point where she puts her family life on the back burner. These

If you ask twenty people to define beauty you will receive, in all probability, twenty different definitions. Beauty, being as ambiguous as it is, leaves room for interpretation. Alice Walker, in “Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self”, attempts to demonstrate that perception is subjective, and she successfully does so. Albeit, our perceptions do change as we go through life, experiencing and learning. By taking the reader on a sequential journey throughout her life and establishing a sentimental and sympathetic tone, Walker is able to portray that accepting and loving yourself is greater than being considered “beautiful” by society.

Beauty and sadness are also similar in the way they are recognized. Beauty, which is outside or inside has always developed and changed in the different time with different people. If the love of Gatsby for Daisy in the classis masterpiece “The Great Gatsby” used to be commented that was illusive and stupid. Then now, there are more and more people agree that it is beautiful as a lofty devotion of fidelity and intension. Clearly, standards of a beautiful love is dissimilar between the people in Gatsby’s age and people in later years. In the same fashion, standards of sadness has never “stood still” and depended enormously on its “audiences.” If most of people in the 1900s thought of the movie “Titanic” that is sad only for the tragic love of

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

One of the most apparent themes in both The Great Gatsby and American beauty is that of the empty promises of materialism, where it is perceived that wealth equals success and is expressed through the acquisition of material goods. In American Beauty, this is mainly portrayed through the characterisation of Carolyn. Carolyn highly believes in this philosophy, proudly exhibiting her possessions to others, knowing that their judgments on the appearance of these will associate her and her family will a high status, power and wealth. An example is portrayed as Carolyn obsessively maintains her garden full with immaculate red roses, an important motif in the film that particularly associating with the idea of exterior beauty and perfection. In this scene, the camera angle is first a close up on a beautiful red rose, and then pans out to show Carolyn Burnham snipping roses from her immaculate garden, demonstrating her dedication and desire to have this appearance. Another example of her materialistic self is the couch scene in which Carolyn and Lester are attempting to rekindle their love, however Carolyn stops this fearing Lester will spill the beer on her $4000 silk couch. Lester, frustrated, bluntly yells, "It's just a couch!". “This is just stuff and it’s become more important to you than living.” This sparks Lester to build himself a new reality in which he has freedom without responsibilities as the empty promise of a happy and fulfilled life drives Lester to rebel from his caged existence. The dysfunctional relationship between Carolyn and Lester demonstrates that materialism has an effect that can be entirely alienating and creates deep unhappiness.

American Beauty is a film about dysfunctional suburbia. Which is why it is not very surprising when the movie reveals how utterly toxic familial relationships can be, as seen with Ricky and Colonel Frank Fitts. Ricky's home-life is a nightmare: an emotionally absent mother and a controlling, abusive father. There is a

“American Beauty”, the 1999 film, is a motion picture that more or less shows a different side of the average suburban family. Although all of the characters have significant issues, I have chosen to take a closer look at Lester Burnham. Lester Burnham is a 42-year-old businessman who is married to the career-obsessed Carolyn and they have one daughter, a teenager named Jane. One of the first scenes of the movie explains how the family works: Carolyn is driving, just like she “drives” the family, Jane is sitting right next to her in the front seat, and Lester is slouched in the backseat, visually becoming more miserable by the second.

There are many connecting themes in American Beauty. Through plot, characterization, and cinematography these themes are conveyed well. Overall, this film is highly successful in layered themes and counter themes. The main themes that the film draws attention to throughout the movie are that of materialism, appearance versus reality, denial and repression, control versus chaos, loneliness versus feeling connected, change and searching, and beauty (subjective and objective). Each character is an agent in one or more of the themes as explained below.

In 1999, Sam Mendes released his comedic drama film that was nominated for 8 Oscars and won 5, including Best Picture. The movie, American Beauty, is about two families whose members are all trying to achieve happiness in different ways. This takes place throughout the entire movie and explores the different ways people search for happiness, along with the positive and negative results of their actions. The theme of American Beauty is that the pursuit of happiness is the driving force in everyone’s life, but is overall an impossible task to complete unless it is through death. The film explores how each character is set on achieving happiness and how it is always the most important thing to them, no matter how it affects other people around

“Beautiful things grow to a certain height and then they fail and fade off, breathing out memories as they decay” (137). Beauty and youth are often held at high regard, people will go to any length to keep themselves young and beautiful. However, sometimes the striving to stay youthful and attractive is what causes the people to lose and waste what they previously had. This is the case in The Beautiful and Damned, Anthony and Gloria Patch are obsessed with the ideas of youth, beauty, and money. They desire only beautiful things and a beautiful lifestyle, however, they must learn the lesson that beauty and youth are not forever. Through its timeless characters, descriptive prose style, and themes of class systems, youth, and beauty, The

The film begins by vividly painting American suburbia through the depiction of their socioeconomic archetypes. Within the opening credits, the audience is welcomed by the neighborhood fireman waving to his surrounding neighbors, the blocks crossing guard safely crossing the children across the street, the morning’s blue sky looking down onto a white picked fence and blooming red tulips reaching up high. The film vividly paints life in suburbia. Then suddenly we see a man being struck by natural causes, and a woman who is glued to her television unaware of her surrounding world. The climax of the film begins by establishing the protagonist, Jeffery’s fatalities, and establishes his predestined journey into complying into societies

American Beauty introduces Lester as he is going through his everyday routine; A grown man who masturbates in the shower, drops all of the contents of his briefcase as he is walking out of the door, and crouches in the backseat while his wife chauffers him to a long day of work, only to come home to a hostile dinner with his family. Knowing he will repeat the same routine all over the next morning. All of this stacks up and stacks up inside of him until he reaches a state of

Beauty sets standards for society through appearance, especially in younger generations due to use of social media and picture editing. “Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder” is a saying that has been around for ages (Plato, n.p.). It is an accurate phrase because of contrasting views within particular individuals. Beauty is present in the good deeds of community members as well as the unity exhibited through dreadful events. It is a flower bud breaking through the dirt into the fresh, spring air. To clarify how beauty is viewed, it is often times the exposure of evil accounting for the new appreciation of something beautiful. After recognizing the privileges we acquire, the existence of beauty is revealed and expressed more easily. In current society, appreciating beauty is substantial to