American Beauty Work

Our task was to study the opening scenes of American Beauty (click on the picture above for youtube link), and decide how we felt the lead character (Lester Burnham - played by Kevin Spacey) was represented. We were asked to keep a close eye on certain aspects of the scenes, Body Language, Voice, Clothes, Mise - en scene, and colours.

The film begins with Lester (voice over) telling us about his street which he lived on, the impression i took from his opening speech was that he seemed to be possessive about his environment. We also learn that this film is about how Lester builds up to his death (which he announced at the beginning). The impression we seem to get from Lester, is that he has given up, and didn't see much point in life - as he had achieved all of the things he had wanted to do, and had no ambition left in his plain & boring life. This seems to give us the picture of his life fading away.

The plain & boring point was reflected in him and his environment, for example, his house was "a typical American house", the casual clothes he wore (apart from a average suit he wore to work). Another factor was that the colours in his house were all grey and boring colours which reflected his dull family's attitude. However, one thing I did notice was that the colours which were prompted towards were red, white & blue - colours of the America flag.

His family attitude towards him played a major factor into his boring life, as they seemed to have a major lack of respect towards him, which was noticed when he left the house (very late, his wife was waiting for him - she was driving) dropped his suitcase outside their house (his files all fell out) then his wife gave him a stern look down her nose towards him which would 'cut' right through anything. When he entered the car, he slouched, asleep in the back, with his daughter and his mum in the front - which was another sign of the lack of respect for him.

Finally, onto the last point of us feeling he is trapped. This was strengthened by the fact most time we saw him he seemed to be 'peering' from behind something else. For example, whilst the focus was on his wife outside in the garden talking to a neighbour, we see him in the background peering from behind the curtains. The final picture was of him sitting at his office desk, and the camera focuses on his computer screen, with white writing on it in columns - which when you could see his reflection, it looked like he was behind bars.