The Film American Beauty - Essay Example

? The Film American Beauty What/ Who is the American Beauty? This is a fitting question which relates to the 1999 Academy Award Best Picture movie American Beauty. The movie is most artistic and entertaining to watch, but the film author uses an off-cam voice of main character Lester Burnham at the movie’s tail-end, saying that the movie’s message may not be easily understood. To determine the film’s message then is the aim of this paper. It will attempt to clarify the thematic idea that runs through the film, namely what/who is the American Beauty, which could possibly be lost in the many provocative scenes that depict a man’s middle-age crisis, family feuds, and portrayals of sexuality. The philosophical idea of beauty Since the early days of Greek philosophy circa 427 B.C., the question of what is beauty has been asked. And in the earthly yet lofty discussion of the Dialogues, Plato narrates how his teacher Socrates draws them to realize that beauty is not only what is fair in physical form-- such as of a face, hands or other parts of the body --- but also what is fair or good in speech and knowledge. “Is not the good also the beautiful,” says Socrates (Jowett Translation 204). Apart from what is readily understood, Socrates speaks in more mystical terms as he teaches contemplation as a mental gaze to see “ the very essence of beauty itself, everlasting not growing and decaying, or waxing or waning. . . which if beheld one would look and be with, bringing forth and nourishing true virtue” (118). The vision of Socrates on absolute beauty is not what is commonly known about the beautiful things in everyday life. Ordinarily, beauty is referred to with reference to appeal or loveliness mainly of the physical form, often enough of women. It would therefore be interesting to be clarified on what Socrates means by true, simple and divine beauty which “when beholden with the eye of the mind enables one to realize realities beyond images or physical form. The movie American Beauty may just have a comparable idea about absolute beauty. What American Beauty is In the movie American Beauty, the idea of beauty or the good is typified by the main characters. Living up to his ideal of the military service, Col. Fitts of the Marine Corps thinks military-like authority and discipline is good or beautiful for his family. He therefore subdued his own wife to full subservience and his son Ricky to outwardly regarding him as a role model and war hero. Next door neighbours are the Burnhams with Caroline Burnham bravely standing for the beauty of America’s economic rat-race which has turned her into a fierce competitor at the expense of her husband Lester, who has become less of a husband and more of a liability in her life. The teenage Angela Hayes typifies the young American beauty, obsessed with the need for attention and popularity among schoolmates. Her best friend Jane, daughter of Lester and Carol Burnham, has become the sounding board to her constant craving for adulation and her unending need to be someone special and not ordinary in school. Central to the movie, however, is not Angela, but Lester Burnham. The movie flows with his off-cam narrative and dramatic solutions to solve a middle-age crisis and discover the good and beautiful in life. Closely helping him in his search for life’s meaning is the young Ricky Fitts who introduced him to life space through drugs until Lester’s life was cut short by an assailant’s gun, that of Ricky’s own father Col Fitts. The varied objects which appeared good or beautiful to the movie’s characters appear to compose the totality of beauty in the American way of life -- authority drawn from soldiery for Col. Fritts, drive for success at the expense of family for Carolyn, search for life space for Lester Burnham, popularity and attention for the insecure Angela, and the double life of discipline-and-drugs for the young Ricky Fitts. Who is the American Beauty It is easy to say that Angela Hayes, the object of a fleeting attraction of Lester Burnham is the American Beauty in the film. Even theatrical billboards portray Angela as the American Beauty. On a deeper plain, however, the whole movie is like a mosaic in which all major parts contribute to creating the whole picture and delivering the thematic message. Angela’s physical beauty is therefore but a prop to a deeper perception of the beautiful, comparable to Socrates’ own vision of beauty. Given the frenzied kind of lives led by the Burnhams and their friends, all the external beauty shown as external trappings of modern living find at its core, the beauty of the American way of life itself. Ricky Fitts is the pivotal character who spreads this thematic message by his odd video recording activities. Explaining to his girlfriend Jane Burnham why he took a video of an old homeless woman, he said it was as if “god was looking at you, and you looking back at what was there-- beauty.” Of his video recording of a plastic bag freely carried aloft by the wind, he said he saw so much beauty, such that he felt “his heart was about to cave in.” The balancing acts of Lester Burnham proved wise after he found an answer to his search for meaning out of his confused identity. Therefore, he was quick to resign a high-paying job in order to experience greater freedom and less responsibility as a menial drive-in eatery kitchen helper. He also took time to tone up physically in order to regain confidence in his sexual personality. And when he refused to take advantage of Angela Hayes, Lester proved himself to be a hero who could save an innocent beautiful maiden from danger and who could demonstrate the true manliness of a would-be gigolo. The other characters who simply had no eye for the deeper good or absolute beauty, were less fortunate. Carolyn Lester’s indiscretion and Col. Fritss’ undisclosed homosexual tendency met with most embarrassing outcomes. And at the end-scene, Lester laid flat on the ground bloodied, but strangely smiling, as a result of the point-blank gunshot at the back of his head. Lester’s off-cam voice reiterated the thematic message of the highly artistic, yet complex film: “I’ve always heard an entire life flashes in front of your eyes a second before you die. First of all that one second isn’t a second at all. It stretches on forever like an ocean of time. For me, it was lying on my back at Boys Scout Camp watching falling stars, and yellow leaves from maple trees, my grandmother’s hand like paper, the first time I saw my cousin Tony’s brand new Firebird, and Jenny, and Carolyn. There’s too much beauty in the world and my heart swells up like a balloon about to burst. I can’t feel but gratitude for every single moment of my stupide little life.” A tragic end? Not really so, since as Plato’s Dialogues stress: “In the contemplation of beauty absolute, you would not be after the measure of gold, and garments and fair youths... if man had eyes to see the true beauty, all realities bring forth and nourish true virtue for him to become the friend of God and immortal. Would that be an ignoble life?” (218) Reference Jowett Translations 1951. Dialogues of Plato. New York: Simon & Schuster. Print. Read More