American Beauty Theme

AMERICAN BEAUTY

American beauty is one such movie that will leave a long-lasting impression on the viewer, irrespective of your reason for watching, because of the roles each character plays and the surprise conclusion presented at the end juxtaposed to what anyone would have perceived. The movie starts with a shot of Jane lying down on her bed and ranting about her father. The shot changes to Lester, who is narrating to the viewer how he will be dead in a year or less. The movie is centered on the Burnham family. The main character of the movie is Lester Burnham, played by Kevin Spacey. Lester lives with his wife who is a realtor and their 16 year old daughter. Lester feels that the two important women in his life think he is a loser. The

culture at his workplace too is also harsh to him because the company was trying to downsize and Lester felt that he might be a victim. In the opening speech, Lester mentioned that “it is never too late to regain”. His temperament was constantly tested during the movie.
Lester who is suffering from depression and midlife life crisis, immediately develops an infatuation for his daughter’s friend after meeting her at his daughter’s basketball game. Lester later crashes and starts to make some changes to his life, he quits his job, blackmails his boss and trades his car in for a sports car. Further on in the movie, his wife cheats on him with one of her rivals in the real estate business. His daughter also falls in love with the next door neighbor’s son. Col Fitts, the next-door neighbor catches his son with Lester and immediately assumes they are having an affair, he was so disgusted and full of rage.
The score throughout the movies is centered on the characters. This is shown in the following scenes; “Bali Ha i” begins when the Burnham’s were walking into their house, and continues through dinner. “On Broadway” is played during the basketball scene. “All along the Watchtower” played for about a minute when Carolyn was outside gardening and hears music, only to find Lester working out and smoking marijuana in the garage. Another scene with the score is when Carolyn and Buddy are in bed in a motel, this also moves to Lester smoking and singing along in his car on his way to apply for a job. Another scene with the score is when Lester was running down the street.

I did not find any Leitmotifs in the movie, all the songs were played once. There are two things that I paid attention to in this movie, the score and the themes. The score in my opinion was very perfect for this movie. It was mainly percussion instruments but it created the mood and rhythm. Some of the instrument I heard were, cymbals, xylophones, and flute. The score truly matched the scenes, to which I believe was always narrative.
The score created an array of emotion for viewers. There was always a mixed feeling of unrest and pleasure in the scenes. The score helped the characters communicate with the audience in the nonverbal scenes. And also with the timeline that was being presented by Lester. A few of the scenes stood out in respect to the score. The scene where Lester and his wife attend their daughter’s cheerleading performance, and Lester spots his daughter’s friend for the first time. The music is slow and seductive focusing on Lester. When Lester was seen as the only one in the stands, the music gets faster and faster, and the viewer feels a portraying sense of an adrenalin rush through their blood. The viewer had a connection both mentally and physically with Lester’s sexual arousing. We see the music deepen as the focus shift on Lester’s daughter’s friend, Angela, who at the same time is also fantasying with her body. The music gets faster again when she starts to open her top part with pounding drums and percussions. In this scene, the music is raising a high level of sexual arousement in the dream. Also in this scene, the music defuses Lester’s lust for a young girl and this triggers a sense of regaining his manhood.
Another scene is where Angela bumps into Lester in the kitchen as Lester is going through the fridge, the viewer is sent together with Lester, into his fantasizing mind with the help of the music. The music becomes slow and as it starts to rise, it is interrupted by the sound of an elevator. And then it starts to get provocative again as Lester and Angela begin to make out, here there’s a sense of guilt and pleasure portrayed by the score. The music behind the scene brings in some form of enjoyment to both men and women viewers, this keeps the viewer so engrossed into the scene. The music fades away when Lester pulled away from Angela.
Another example of the score is when Ricky is recording Jane from his room, whilst Jane’s friend, Angela is dancing in front of the mirror, there’s a portrayal of a sense of innocence here. The score helps to get the focus on Jane who is seated away from the window and pretending not to be paying any attention to what is going on, but then smiling creepily from the love gestures she’s getting from Ricky. Here the score is helping the audience have a sense of love.
The scene where Ricky gets a beep from Lester while eating with his parents is another example where the score comes in. Ricky lied to his Dad that he had to meet up with Jane but ended up meeting up Lester for a drug deal. The core in this scene is soft, with the rain in the background too made it more inquisitive. In this scene, the score portrays a mixed feeling of anxiety and curiosity, when look at it from Col Fitts point of view. The curiosity part of it made Col Fitts o into Ricky’s room and finds the tapes from all of his recordings. He watched the tapes and concluded that his son might be gay. Ricky later comes back to find his father waiting in his room, and just as he was putting his money away, his father pounced on him and confronts him. Suddenly there is a swift cutting sound, which creates a very serious tone coupled with the rain in the background. As they are yelling at each other, the screeching tone changes into a low volume tone, creating a scary situation for the viewer with a deify piano beat which emphasizes sadness.
Lester after fantasizing about Angela for weeks, finally finds her in the living room siting all by herself. Apparently she had just had a fight with Jane and her so called boyfriend, Ricky. Angela asks permission to turn on the Jukebox, Lester says yes and what happens next here is all fantasy. The music then turns to a slow and rhythmic tune as Lester flirts with Angela. Angela then reveals to Lester that she’s a virgin. The score is cut sharp, here comes the rude awakening to both the viewer and Lester from this fantasy.
My second observation in the movie is the themes.

Through plot and characterization, the themes are very well conveyed to the audience, once the viewer connects with the movie. The interesting part is that, each of the characters was an agent of one or more of the themes. Some of the themes that are obvious in the movie are; materialism, Carolyn is so materialistic. All she cares about is the material possessions in her life. She believes that success and appearance are the only most important things in life. Another theme is denial, there are three characters in the movie who are in denial of themselves, Col Fitts, Carolyn and Angela .Col Fitts was in denial of his sexuality, Carolyn was in denial of her life and Angela was also in denial of self, she felt so insecure. Control, these same characters always had the desire to control people. Col Fitts controls his son, Carolyn wants to control the music at dinner all the time, Lester somehow also tried to control his family when he stared working out and smoking marijuana. Jane, unfortunately could not control anything. Ricky has his destiny in his hands and is in control of himself. And lastly loneliness and the sense of feeling never crossed paths in the movie. Many of the scenes had one character all alone in a frame, Angela and Jane were in a mirror, Lester was alone in his car, and Carolyn was lonely in her job. Almost all the characters had emotional problems. Jane only changed emotionally when she met Ricky, this was because she felt a connection with him. Carolyn in an attempt to make an emotional connection with Buddy through infidelity failed because she had no connection with him. Col Fitts also never had a connection, he attempts to kiss Lester but he was met with a bad

response.
Change on the other hand was a controversial theme in the movie because the movie started with Lester wanting to change his life. In the end when he was shot, he felt alive and begun to appreciate the life he lived. Carolyn’s last appearance was when she came home to find Lester murdered. The shock of Lester’s death had an effect on her and so she showed some remorse and emotion, now that Lester is no more, she realized what she had missed. This was very true to the saying that “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone”. Carolyn learnt that the hard way. Col Fitts also unfortunately did not reach a change, he still live in his lonely miserable life.
The message of the film is in the title, American Beauty. I tried to compare it to the movie “The Godfather”, where families are struggling to live the American dream, whereas, in the American Beauty, the dream was already there but was misused. Col Fitts was an abusive father, Carolyn was successful but arrogant in character.
One symbolic instrument in the movie was rose. Roses were shown several times in the movie. Carolyn seen cutting roses all the time in her garden. Angela was also seen in a tub full of roses in Lester’s fantasies.
In conclusion I believe that American Beauty is a movie that focuses on the tough reality of the majority of American families, who are constantly struggling to find happiness in the search for the American dream.