Movie Analysis Essay: American Beauty

The film I have chosen to analyse for my micro-features analysis essay is American beauty, which has won countless awards and Oscars any has many praises sung by critics, which was directed by Sam Mendes. The movie plot follows the mundane futile lives of the Burnham’s family which consist of Lester, a man who is 42 years old, who is going through an extreme mid-life crisis and severely depressed, who is married to Carolyn, an independent business woman and house wife and lastly their daughter Jane who is your typical teenager. The movies propagative catch phrase “look closer” subliminally implies that the ‘normal’ suburban families’ lifestyle isn’t as normal as first perceived , which then explores how dysfunctional and corrupt this family

The shot commences with a extreme close-up of the rose, this shows that it is something that Sam Mendes wanted to have highlighted, A rose is a plant that is associated with love and romance which Lester clearly doesn’t get and this can show that Carolyn is looking for another sexual partner despite the fact that she is married. However, the audience could also interpret that Carolyn is stimulated by the growth of her plants that she takes so much care of as her plants are all healthy. As an audience we don’t think Lester would be emotionally affected by this due to the amount of care we have seen shown by him. Lester is an outcast within in his family he is also portrayed as insignificant this is shown when Lester is eavesdropping upon Carolyn and the male neighbor Jim’s conversation. There is an intentional use of a ‘cut shot’ to show the lack of involvement he has in his wife’s life. The initial ‘over the shoulder shot’ that then shifts into a ‘mid shot’ which establishes the conversation which is then goes to ‘shot-reverse-shot’, the angles of the camera continuously change while the dialogue continues and the figure that was blurred and not clear is now seen through the window this could be a symbolic representation that hid relationship with his wife is now unclear and fragmented and that the glass window represents the overall exclusion from his wife and