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Film Analysis: American Beauty
Women's Sexuality
Film Analysis: American Beauty
Film Analysis: American Beauty
American Beauty (1999) was written by Alan Ball, creator of the HBO series 6 Feet Under, and directed by Sam Mendes. American Beauty centers around the Burnham family, who, on the surface seems like a picture-perfect, white, upper-middle class, suburban family. The protagonist of the film is the father and husband of the Burnham family, Lester, who, fed up with the boredom and monotony of his life, has an interesting "mid-life" crisis, that includes a very active crush on his adolescent daughter's Lolita-type best friend.
The film follows the Burham family as each member (mother, father, and daughter) transition into new stages of their lives. Lester's transition is the most notable and spectacular. He loses his high paying job and begins working at a fast food restaurant. While working the drive-thru, he discovers that his seemingsly prudish wife is having an affair with one of her real estate agent colleagues. Lester also begins smoking marijuana for anxiety and relaxation (and as a symbol of his rebellion against his capitalist lifestyle) during his transition. He buys his marijunana from the...
Ricky is a bit odd, and there are rumors about him at school. Ricky attends high school with Lester's daughter Jane, who is blossoming into her sexuality and with Jane's friend, Angela, who is already sexually flourishing. Angela is the cheerleader who Lester has a large and inappropriate crush on.
In a way, all of the characters in the film are experiencing a type of adolescence or some stage of puberty. Lester and his wife, Carolyn, experience the kind of sexual exuberance and awakening that typically happens during the teenage years, but happens in later stages of life, too. Even though they both experience this, they do not share these experiences with each other as husband and wife. Jane, Angela, and Ricky are biologically and developmentally teens, so their sexual awakenings are spot on for their ages.
Ricky's father, Colonel Frank Fitts, is a strict and rigid marine. He runs his family as if he were running a team in the marine corp. Over the course of the film, the audience comes to understand that part of Frank's rigidity and meanness is a result of his repressed homosexual desires. In Frank's persistence to control his son, he discovers his son is selling…
References:
Carroll, N., & Choi, J. (ed.) (2006). Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures: An Anthology. Blackwell Publishing, Malden, MA.
LoBrutto, V. (2005). Becoming Film Literate -- The Art and Craft of Motion Pictures. Westport, CA: Greenwood Publishing Group.
Nichols, B. (2010). Engaging Cinema. New York/London: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
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