Analysis of the Film American Beauty - Essay Example

? “American Beauty,” a film released just before the turn of the millennium in, November of 1999, and directed by Sam Mendes both follows in the footsteps of many films that have come before it whilst maintaining a unique and independent style. It differed significantly from the traditional practice of movie production in several ways, most notably the heavy involvement of the screenplay’s writer, Alan Ball, on set throughout production (Sarris). This led to the writer having a much greater impact on the eventual outcome of the film than would be normal in film sets, and a much more active compromise between the screenplay and the direction. The film also makes great use of conflicting messages of hope and despair, beauty and ugliness, and so on. “American Beauty” is a remarkable achievement in several ways. Despite having somewhat traditional cinematography, the artistic accomplishments of this movie in other aspects of film making and its following critical acclaim (including all of the awards that it won upon its release) led directly to widespread commercial success. Many aspects of the cinematography of “American Beauty” are somewhat traditional while avoiding cliche – at very least they are very far from experimental in any real way. The film, for instance, follows the rule of thirds nearly dogmatically, always maintaining action along the imaginary lines that would divide the screen vertically and horizontally. It tends to avoid extreme close-ups and distant medium shots while focusing on close ups and long shots, which all conspire to give this film something of a classical Hollywood look. This traditional Hollywood look that pervades the movie is useful, however, in differentiating the ‘produced’ aspects of the movie which has a generally negative tone, focusing on emotions and ideas such as despair, and ugliness, from other aspects of the film which focus on the polar opposite of these ideas, namely hope and beauty. Hope, one of this films major themes, is consistently connected a certain kind of shot: aerial shots of the suburbia in which the central family of the show lives. These aerial shots, frequently featuring excellent narration by Kevin Spacey, usually focus on the chances of life to expand beyond the mundane and reach into the ethereal. These shots are especially effective because they invoke an otherworldly quality, almost of a being in an afterlife looking down benevolently onto the town. By evoking the afterlife these shots give an underlying feeling of hope and possibility in the crowd. These shots, by departing so drastically from more traditional Hollywood cinematography, draw attention to themselves and their departure from the darker themes of the rest of the movie. This departure from the traditional Hollywood style for the purpose of aerial shots has one other major parallel in the film, the classic and oft referenced (and mocked) handheld shots of a bag blowing through the breeze. These shots focus on beauty that can be found anywhere in the world, even in the most basic events throughout life. The shots are not only of bags blowing in the wind, but also show one of the main characters, Jane Burnham, portrayed by Thora Birch, disrobing and exposing her breasts to another person for the first time. This openness and beauty juxtaposes her general shyness and awkwardness, showing that even in her somewhat un-perfect packaging beauty can be found. The use of a grainy and unsteady handy-cam to display these signs of beauty, contrasting the high quality shots of ugliness not only draws attention to the shots, but also highlights a final of the film’s major themes: conflict and juxtaposition. One of the essential aspects of “American Beauty” is that there are incredible amounts of contrast within everything from characters (such as a homophobic gay man) to the world itself, which is both ugly and beautiful. Beauty displayed by an ugly handycam video contrasts with ugliness from a high quality video camera to show the essential conflict between opposing forces in everything. “American Beauty” was artistically interesting, which led to some amazing achievements in the film industry. This film was the product of a major Hollywood film company and meant for distribution in traditional multiplexes. The film was eventually a startling economic and critical success, receiving several Oscars and a great deal of income at the box office – but it took a good deal of time for this to occur. DreamWorks, the film’s production company, was not entirely sure that “American Beauty” would be a mainstream commercial success and chose to only give it a limited opening weekend in a few theatres on the east and west coasts, near the end of September in 1999 (Mojo). The films wide release was a success, earning $8,000,000 in its opening weekend, which covered more than half of the film’s $15 million production cost (Mojo). It went on to make even more money on its second weekend, surpassing its production cost and making it a profitable film (Mojo). So even from its outset, “American Beauty was financially successful for its studio, earning back its production cost and much more to spare. The true economic surge for “American Beauty,” however, came on the wings of its critical success. While well reviewed from the outset (Rotten Tomatoes), “American Beauty” was something of a surprise at the fifty seventh Golden Globe awards, held on January 23 of 2000, taking home the awards for Best Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Film – Drama (Lyman). At this time, nearly five months after the films initial release, it was still lingering in a few theaetres around the country and had not had its theatrical release completely shut down (Mojo). Following its incredible at the Golden Globes, DreamWorks decided to re-expand the theatre presence of the film to thousands of theatres again, to take advantage of the coverage it had received at the awards and the upcoming Oscar buzz (Mojo). This second expansion of “American Beauty” grossed even more than its original release and decline had, eventually leading to the film grossing in excess of three hundred and fifty million dollars, all off of a fifteen million dollar production cost, making the film a tremendous economic success (Mojo). “American Beauty’s” economic and critical success continued into the Oscars, where it performed even better than it had a the Golden Globes. “American Beauty” won the awards for Best Picture, Best Actor for the performance of Kevin Spacey, Best Original Screenplay for writer Alan Ball, Best Director for director Sam Mendes, as well as somewhat surprisingly beating out competition for Best Cinematography. The award for Kevin Spacey helped him solidify himself as a serious dramatic actor, a role he was not incredibly well known for in the past (Sarris), as well as solidifying “American Beauty” as the one of if not the best films of 1999 in most critics eyes. This critical success continues to this day, with “American Beauty” continuing to place very highly in film review aggregating websites. Rotten tomatoes, which measures the percentage of reviews that are positive for a movie, gives the film an eighty-eight percent “fresh” rating, with ninety-one percent of “top critics” reviewing the movie positively (Rotten Tomatoes), while film aggregator Metacritic gives the film an average review of 8.2, or which represents, according to the website, “universal acclaim” (Metacritic). “American Beauty was something of a surprise, having an incredibly long theatrical run and winning a great deal of awards, with the commercial success of the film resting heavily on its high critical acclaim, as demonstrated by a resurgence in its popularity and earnings following the fifty seventh Golden Globe Awards. “American Beauty” is, culturally at least, very much a product of its time and environment. To fully understand and explore its cultural themes, it is important to go back to the mindset of America in 1999, when the film was released. Everything was, on the surface at least, very calm. Bill Clinton had been presented for nearly a decade, and the scandal surrounding Monica Lewinsky had faded backwards. The tech bubble had not yet fully burst, and the economy was robust, especially compared to the terrible situation America is in today. Unemployment was relatively low, average incomes relatively high. Politics had yet to explode into the bilious acrid, divisive thing they became following the election of George Bush, and the controversy surrounding Al Gore winning the popular vote but not the presidency. And possibly most importantly of all, America felt safe – 9/11 had not happened yet, and the last major engagement of the US armed forces in Desert Storm was a distant memory to most who were not directly affected by it. Everything was safe, secure, and relatively prosperous, and people were supposed to feel that way too. But many people were certainly not fully satisfied or actualized, and it is that conflict between physical prosperity and emotional prosperity that is at the centre of the film. “American Beauty” describes the dark side of this supposedly prosperous America. Lester Burnham, portrayed by Kevin Spacey, has a job that makes his family plenty of money, especially when combined with income from his wife’s real estate job. Yet he feels totally trapped and alone, isolated, and finds that he would actually be much more actualized working as a burger flipper at a local fast food chain for next to no money than to do his economically prosperous job. He and his wife, the ostensibly happy on the outside, are both truly sexually frustrated, seeking outlets at work (in his wife’s case) or among people half their age, in the case of Lester Burnham. Their seemingly idyllic next door neighbors include a closeted, homophobic gay man, an abused teenager and an emotionally distant mother. This film portrays people who should be happy, yet utterly fail to find actualization, and explores the paths to actualization given to them. One of the reasons for its commercial success was probably that much of the audience identified with these themes to one degree or another. Many people who should have ostensibly been happy failed to do so, and watching people on screen play out their fantasies – quitting their dead end job, sleeping with their daughter’s friend, or kissing their next door neighbor – as wish fulfillment, giving a path out of their mundane existence. While there are many aspects of this film that one suspects would be shocking to middle class America – like a man on man kiss, and interest in incredibly young women by older men, the response to this film was overwhelming positive, showing at very least a fascination with these people who were able to so effectively escape from their cages. “American Beauty” is, at its core, a film about contradictions. It both stays very grounded in traditional Hollywood cinematography and style while using occasional forays out of this style to great effect. Its underlying themes outline a wide series of conflicts, such as conflict between beauty and ugliness and hope and despair in each one of us, and the places these ideas can take shape in the world around us. This film was an incredible commercial and industrial success, with the success largely coming off of huge critical success, as the film made most of its money following positive reviews along with winning awards at the Golden Globes. And while this film did not seek to drastically change the culture in which it was created, it certainly as of great cultural importance, perhaps showing the hidden desires and wishes of many of the people in the audience, and giving an arena for what should be hidden to be let out and explored fully, the good and the bad, the ugly and the beautiful. "American Beauty Reviews, Ratings, Credits, and More at Metacritic." Metacritic - Movie Reviews, TV Reviews, Game Reviews, and Music Reviews. Web. 09 Oct. 2011. . "American Beauty - Rotten Tomatoes." Movies | Movie Trailers | Reviews - Rotten Tomatoes. Web. 12 Oct. 2011. "American Beauty Week by Week Earnings." Box Office Mojo. Web. 12 Oct. 2011. . Sarris, Andrew. "American Beauty Review." The New York Observer. 29 Sept. 1999. Web. 08 Oct. 2011. . "Results Page - Academy Awards® Database - AMPAS." Academy Awards. Academy Awards. Web. 12 Oct. 2011. . Lyman, Rick. "'American Beauty' Wins 3 Golden Globe Awards - New York Times."The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 25 Jan. 2000. Web. 12 Oct. 2011. . Read More