American Beauty is a film that delves into your typical, middle-class suburban home and slowly uncovers all of the abnormalities that lie within. The family is portrayed as normal, but as the films tag line suggests “look closer.” It is possible to fully understand the implications that take place in this seemingly happy home. The film is directed by the famous theater director Sam Mendes and contains a number of techniques. The four essential techniques used in this film are symbolism, characterization, conflict and theme. Sam Mendes effectively uses each structural element to show the viewer that not everything is the way it appears to the naked eye.

Sam Mendes efficiently uses the color red; as symbolism to reveal character personalities and feelings. In American culture, red is a color of various meanings and images. The color red is the essence of life; it is the color of blood. It can insinuate energy, vitality, passion, anger, power, excitement, and sacrifice. Red can stand for warmth, danger, love, sex, death, rage, lust and beauty. In the film, red is used on various articles of clothing for a couple of characters. Carolyn Burnham, played by Annette Bening , i

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“Several different events unsettle the bitter and resentful lassitude into which the Burnham family has sunk, happenings that threaten to collapse the emotional walls the members have painstakingly created around themselves.” For the most part, all the characters in the film are facing a conflict within themselves, that must be resolved. The main protagonist, Lester Burnham is facing numerous conflicts all at the same time. The main conflict he is dealing with is his lack of freedom. For most of his life, Lester has been ignored by his wife as well as verbally abused. Joining with her mother, Jane the daughter, manages to make Lester feel unloved even by his own daughter. The film opens with videotape footage of Jane complaining about her father. A voice off-screen asks if she’d like him “out of the way.” “Yes. Would you?” she deadpans. If that was not sufficient, he feels that he is unnecessary even at work. As his boss stated, “One less sarcastic writer in my office, one less imbecile I have to deal with.” All of these individuals are catalyst in making Lester feel the only way out of this grief is suicide. Lester’s struggles are easily forgotten, when he sees Angela Hayes (played by Mena Suvari) and nothing is the same. As a friend of Lester’s daughter, Angela is the classic all-American blond that will change Lester’s life unexpectedly. Angela notices Lester leering at her, but instead of being disgusted she appreciates it. As she tells Jane, “I like to know that when I walk by, every guy around wants to f*** me. That means I have a good chance of making it as a model.” Used to guys drooling over her, she fears nothing in life more than being ordinary. As she stated in the film repetitively, “The worst thing anyone can be is normal.” When in actuality, she is just another typical eighteen year old cheerleader trying to appear older than her true age. As for Carolyn, she seems to be putting up an act for the community’s attention. Throughout the film, Carolyn is seen as the character who cares most about what people think about her. The ideal scenario of Carolyn’s lack of true identity occurs in the meeting of Buddy Kane. When first meeting Buddy the top real estate agent, Carolyn felt that she must have her husband along for Buddy’s acceptance. Carolyn and Buddy start talking to each other and find that they have the most materialistic things in common with each other. After Lester introduced himself and found that Buddy had little to no interest in him, Carolyn pushed him aside. While being on the tipsy side, Carolyn seemed to slowly let down her mask and start to talk to Buddy in a true but drunken manner. They unleash many things in common with each other and they realized they needed some work on their sex lives. After having a one night stand with “The King” it seemed as if Carolyn had some stress off her shoulders. She was officially “one step closer to finding her true identity.” Each character in American Beauty realized that satisfaction should be compared to your own standards and not the standards of others.

Some topics in this essay:
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