Nostalgia And Loss In American Beauty

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

When I was told to choose a movie to perform a psychoanalysis on a character. I did not know what movie to choose. After watching the two hour long film on the multiple characters that seemed to be struggling to find their inner happiness: American Beauty. I knew that I should not look any further. One character that especially stood out was, Lester Burnham. A forty-two year old father with a mid-life crisis. In the film, American Beauty Lester Burnham is portrayed as an ordinary man, with a perfect life, but of course that is far from the truth. From the outside, Lester seems to have a perfect salary, and a perfect family who lives in a perfect neighborhood. In reality, things are not

Although happiness is a more evident theme in American Beauty, the idea of liberty is substantial; specifically, because free will is difficult to find, not to mention, exceedingly rare. One of the uniting personality traits in the movie is that so many of the characters appear trapped: trapped by their fears, their existences, and their occupations. Several characters such as Colonel Fitts and his wife, Barbara Fitts conclude the film just as entombed as they were when the movie began. Additionally, character’s such as Carolyn Burnham, merely begin to free themselves from the events that bind them in the substantial moments just before the film

defined as “a repudiation of present day social, economic, and cultural realities for a ‘past’ that may not reflect reality” (Suarez, Walt Disney Lecture). Henceforth, the politics of nostalgia is an individual’s concept and memory of past realities while rejecting all other ideas. This concept can be applicable to several locations, events, and individuals, but the two locations I want to focus on is Walt Disney’s Disneyland and Christine Sterling’s Olvera Street.

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

everyday life. His limitations remain present with his declining health and lack of quality insurance. The numerous health complications seem to inhibit Lester from his dream of traveling contributing to his feelings of helplessness.

The draft changes in American Beauty altered a good idea into an amazing original script . The first draft resembled many crime films / shows and had heavy descriptions and unneeded content. Deleting the unneeded content and rearranged scenes pulled it together to tell about the disguised unhappy lives of a family and how their lies and actions all affected one another to the point of Lester's ultimate death. A noteworthy edit from the first and final draft is changing the movies sense from a CSI episode to a peak of masked lives in the neighborhood. The biggest and first obvious change from the first script is the deletion of the first Jail Cell scene.

“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.

One of the messages in the film is that not everything is the way it seems. Appearances greatly differ from reality. For example, Carolyn appears to want to look and be successful, but in reality, she just wants happiness. In the film, we see her obsess over her real estate career. She wants to be very successful but has trouble selling houses. And even with material items like the plants and furniture, Carolyn constantly keeps them tidy to appear successful. In a way, Carolyn attempts to be happy by devoting herself to real estate and house maintenance-- and it does not work. And Lester, too, is this way. At first, it seems like Lester is unhappy with his marriage and career; he just feels bored. But in reality, the problem lies much deeper.

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.

I utilize two scenes from the movie American Beauty, the two office scenes including Lester (Kevin Spacey) and Brad (Barry Del Sherman).The cinematic techniques are identified with mise-en-scene, which is the term used to portray everything 'put into the scene'. I concentrate on decor, lighting and props, costumes, body language (e.g., posture, gestures and facial expressions) and composition. I additionally take a gander at how these components are confined as far as camera stature, camera point and camera separate, all of which fall under the class of cinematography. The scene seems right off the bat the movie. Toward the start of American Beauty, the hero, Lester Burnham is disappointed with his life. At home he and his materialistic, aspiring

Having a mid-life crisis is no laughing matter. It can often result in the superfluous spending of one’s life savings and large emotional, dynamic changes in the family. Lester Burnham, The main character in Sam Mendes’s film American Beauty, has one of these revelations where he connects with his former teenage free-spirited self. Sam Mendes’s frequent use of tightly framed shots and social proxemic patterns help facilitate the transformation that not only occurs in Lester, but also in his relationship with his wife and daughter. In the scene where Lester strips down and works out in the garage for the first time, he is tightly framed by the window as the neighbor, Ricky Fitts, films him from his room.

To begin, Lester Burnham is a middle-aged man who has grown weary concerning the daily routine of his life and wife,

In the very beginning of the movie one of the main characters Lester is giving a brief introduction to his life. He states how he feels dead inside and that basically he’s unhappy with his life. Throughout the film Lester, Jane and

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