American Beauty analysis
This film, written by Alan Ball and directed by Sam Mendes, was released in 1999. It won many awards, including the Academy award for best picture, although it was and still is very controversial. The movie portrays the American suburbanite family in a bleak and dismal light and dares to discuss off-limit, intense topics dealing with the American life. This film requires insightful reflection and analysis in order to understand its profound significance and multifaceted layers. While many topics are explored and uncovered in the film, several dominant themes occur in American Beauty which are of great consequence. The first is the idea of looking closer. This recurring aspect of the film urges the audience to see that things are not as they appear on the surface. Examples include the seemingly perfect but actually dysfunctional family, the suggestion that someone else killed Lester, the fact that Angela turned out to be a virgin though she acted quite unvirginal, and the discovery that the homophobic Colonel is gay. The director and screenwriter purpos
Finally, he steps into a mature, paternal phase where he takes responsibility and finds meaning in life, as an adult. The moral of the film? Appreciate life while you can; there is so much in it to appreciate. He shares this idea of beauty with Jane to convince her to see beauty in ordinary and unordinary things everywhere. He is suppressed in the beginning with no purpose in his life, then he awakens when he first meets Angela and begins to really live for the first time in years, then once he is awake and alert, he sees Angela in a different light and realizes through her what is truly important to him and what is beautiful. At the end, however, Lester's perception of beauty drastically changes. Ricky sees beauty in almost everything in the world, in unconventional events and objects. Beauty is, of course, another omnipresent, significant theme in American Beauty. The truth or beauty itself may be found in a place where a person never expected to find it, like in a plastic bag floating - the filmmaker tries to rid the audience of its preconceived notions about truth and beauty, which is crucial in understanding the next theme about beauty. Lester finds beauty in physical sexuality, in the sexual context of a good-looking, "beautiful" teenage girl. Lester begins to see beauty on Ricky's level. Carolyn sees beauty in material goods, in wealth, and in success which the filmmaker uses to show why her character is so unhappy and discontent. They each have their own idea or image of what is beautiful. The way each character defines beauty ultimately defines the characters themselves in the film. Lester probably makes the biggest transformation of all the characters, or at least the filmmakers portray it that way.
Common topics in this essay:
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Colonel Lester,
Sam Mendes,
Lester Angela,
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Alan Ball,
beauty found,
truth beauty,
beauty world,
questions beauty,
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