(USA 1999 121m) DVD1/2
Dead already
p Bruce Cohen, Don Jinks d Sam Mendes w Alan Ball ph Conrad L.Hall ed Tariq Anwar, Christopher Greenbury m Thomas Newman art Naomi Shohan ch Paula Abdul
Kevin Spacey (Lester Burnham), Annette Bening (Carolyn Burnham), Wes Bentley (Ricky Fitts), Thora Birch (Jane Burnham), Mena Suvari (Angela Hayes), Chris Cooper (Col.Frank Fitts), Allison Janney (Mrs Barbara Fitts), Peter Gallagher (Buddy Kane), Sam Robards, Scott Bakula, Amber Smith,
When American Beauty was first released in 1999 it was hailed as an instant classic, a masterpiece for the ages and given all the clichéd verbal garlands you could wish to drape around it. In truth, it sits a little uneasily on its shoulders, but at the same time, though it may have been slightly fortunate to win best picture for 1999 (Magnolia should have, but wasn’t even nominated), it is certainly the one film that truly encapsulates modern suburban family life in a nutshell. It is also a film Billy Wilder would have loved.
Lester Burnham is dead we are told, so we know from the outset that we are viewing the film in flashback (a homage to Sunset Boulevard?). We are shown his family; his go-getting near failure estate agent wife and his frumpy daughter who hates her breasts. This is a family literally in name only. At this point Lester decides he’s had enough, he quits his job, causes his wife to go off and have an affair with her rival, starts working at a fast food joint so as to have as “little responsibility as possible.” Oh yes, and he starts fantasising about his daughter’s seemingly nymphomaniacal young friend.
Lester Burnham is a broken man; he hates his job and has sheer contempt for his bosses, epitomised by the hilarious scene where he blackmails the organisation into giving him a pay off when they are about to sack him on the pretext of downsizing. His attraction to Angela seems to be the embodiment of returning to his youth; as he says “I feel like I’ve been in a coma for the past twenty years. And I’m just now waking up.” He starts listening to his old Pink Floyd CDs, smokes pot, begins toning up and buys the car of his dreams. It’s as if he’s been told that he only has ‘X’ amount of time to live and starts doing all the things he always wanted to before he dies, and we can ironically see this because his narration has already told us he’s going to. Topping it all, he starts to sexually fantasise about Angela, but he’s really fantasising about Carolyn and their lost love. Sure he sees Angela naked on his bedroom ceiling and in his bath, and even jerks off thinking of her, but she’s covered in his wife’s eponymous roses. It’s therefore so fitting that the illusion comes crashing down at the end and he finds out that she’s actually a virgin and that she’s been fantasising, too.
For a story which encompasses both drug taking and dealing, teen drinking, homosexuality, murder and adultery, not to mention sexual fantasising about a minor, it’s quite amazing that the academy were so taken by it. Was it by its life-affirming “there’s so much beauty in the world” adage or by its dark humour? If by the script (from Six Feet Under’s Alan Ball) and the performances, they were spot on; Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening are simply magnificent as the Burnhams, so clearly once in love, even more clearly now total strangers. Yet in some ways it’s the youngsters who most impress, with Wes Bentley, Thora Birch and Mena Suvari running the gamut of teen emotions, attitudes and dialogue from A to Z. (Actually Suvari only got the role because the then 16 year old Kirsten Dunst turned it down on account of the nudity)
In 1960 The Apartment won best picture when in retrospect it should have gone to Psycho and both it and American Beauty are wonderfully human comedies about the stresses of life in their particular times. Both are included here as they are classics of their time and are technically superb (Conrad Hall’s cinematography is sublime). Lester may be dead, but we feel anything but as the lights go up and we go home.
Wonderful review Allan. Smooth as Silk. It is really surprising that the movie encompasses every check point in the R-rating guidelines and , even then, avoids being depressive.
This is a movie that I really loved when watching it for the first time. Although, I do feel that the movie is far from reality and that Mendes pulls the strings in order to “make” us love the movie with all those “oh, so beautiful” moments, it still remains a darn well constructed mainstream movie.
JAFB, do you still feel that it stands as Mendes’s best film? Or has ROARD TO PERDITION or REVOLUTIONARY ROAD eclipsed it at this point?
Sam, I know for sure that RR is not the one. It was too forced, Mendes was cutting to the drama rather than letting the tension evolve. As for RtP, I would like to believe that it’s a better film since it wears it artifice on its sleeve (in the form of a homage to the Golden Era) unlike the ultra-polished AB. But I’m not sure what exactly would Mendes’ greatest achievement be, for I’ve not seen films like Jarhead and Away We Go. But sometimes, I do feel that his theatrical instinct bogs down the cinematic quality of his films.
Ah JAFB, I quite agree that his theatrical instinct does affect that cinematic quality for sure, and I’ll be bold enough here to dismiss both JARHEAD and AWAY WE GO, which are considerably inferior to the Big Three. But a resounding YES to what you say there about the overrated RR, which most assuredly is forced. I enjoyed Michael Shannon’s performance though. Time will probably assert that RtP is his best film, I suppose.
I guess I’ll be the contrarian here: I actually preferred Jarhead to any other Mendes film I’ve seen. But on recent re-viewing on TV it seemed just ok (however, hard to judge with commercial interruptions and poor sound quality).
Uh-oh. I found myself thinking today, “Gee, I hope American Beauty isn’t one of those films Allan’s thinking of when he says there are 22 greater films than Schindler’s List in the 90s.” Now we know…
Truthfully, I like the movie and found it entertaining. It’s a very accomplished debut and “technically superb” seems a fair assessment. But what bothers me about the movie is that it’s ostensibly about a spiritual awakening yet seems too stereotypical and shallow to actually encompass this. I’ve written extensively about this elsewhere, including (I think) on these boards, so I’ll see if I can dig it up.
American Beauty, alongside Fight Club, Memento, and The Matrix, seemed to initiate the current cinematic epoch: dark in a kind of trendy way, very focused on surfaces rather than depths, and oddly un-resonant, at least for me. Gone were the romantic riffs of Hollywood’s past, those rich associative qualities replaced by a one-dimensionality which is often clever and polished but seems to lack soul. At least that’s always been my take on it. Again – a well-crafted movie, very enjoyable, but its ostensible greatness eludes me.
“American Beauty, alongside Fight Club, Memento, and The Matrix, seemed to initiate the current cinematic epoch: dark in a kind of trendy way, very focused on surfaces rather than depths, and oddly un-resonant, at least for me. Gone were the romantic riffs of Hollywood’s past, those rich associative qualities replaced by a one-dimensionality which is often clever and polished but seems to lack soul. At least that’s always been my take on it. Again – a well-crafted movie, very enjoyable, but its ostensible greatness eludes me.”
Superb summary Movie Man. That’s why I (over?)rated The Matrix in my top 25 of the decade. It changed, if not for better, the whole attitude of Hollywood from making “hero” stories into “concept” bastardizing – the films with high MoJo quotient, that is. But it was indeed pleasant to see a mainstream movie engaging in deeper debates than actor-chemistry, musical score etc.
Jonathan Rosenbaum had a great quote in his mostly positive review of the movie:
“David Denby’s review in the New Yorker surmises, “You may…realize, with relief, that there’s nothing of 60s cant in Ricky’s vision. What he says is free of psychedelic nonsense or political ideology.” Or you may realize, with regret, that there’s plenty of 70s cant in this same vision and that this cant constitutes the film’s political ideology; this self-centered and self-satisfied New Age spirituality is no better than “psychedelic nonsense,” though it fits much more snugly (and smugly) within an upscale 90s notion of what isn’t nonsense.”
Incidentally, that 60s cant may be part of what I miss about American Beauty. It seems to take the Gen-X aesthetic for granted, and assume that we’re all too sophisticated for something humanistic, romantic, mysterious. Everything must be flat, superficial, and ironic. No thanks. There’s a definite parallel here to contemporary literature, with postmodernism and daffy irony being seeming prerequisites for any novelist. Mind you, I’ve enjoyed some of the recent books I’ve read, but I miss the ambitious, grand, perhaps overweening but visionary quality of older works – and I fear that some energy may also be disappearing from movies.
Here’s the comment I left on this site a while back. Some of it overlaps with what I’ve already said, but anyway:
It’s a very “surface” movie – slickly structured, cleverly written, neatly worked out, but its satirical aspects are fairly incoherent and its characterizations quite stereotypical. And it offers the audience no insight into the supposedly mystical awakening of Kevin Spacey, certainly nothing approaching the robin speech in Blue Vlevet. Finally, I just can’t take a film very seriously when it thinks there’s anything revelatory or subversive about mocking suburban middle-class life. It’s the oldest hat out there; right now it would be far more radical for a filmmaker to make a movie celebrating suburbia.
Now this is a brilliant disclaimer, particularly the contention that “it offers no insight into the supposedly mystical awakening of Spacey” and the fact that it doesn’t approach the robin speech in BLUE VELVET.
Joel Bocko raises the bar wherever he places comments. But what else is new?
“what else is new?”
Well, not this comment which I posted some time back under that You Tube video – but thanks for the comment anyway! (Ha, ha)
Yes, the Blue Velvet speech is great, but then that’s Lynch. I find most contemporary filmmakers cannot approach any real spiritual sense in their work – the dominant aesthetic and narrative style is so secular.
Love this film. As a middle-aged man myself I can understand the inner tribulations that plaque Lester Burnham with every passing day. What has my life become? Where did all the good times go? Is this all that’s left? Important questions that, unfortunately we will all ask at some point in time. Along with that I think this is a brave film that exposes one of the rawest sexual male nerves in modern cinema and doesn’t apologize for a second. Sam Mendes direction (his first film) is assured (I liked his next, ROAD TO PERDITION better) and Alan Ball’s screenplay is as sharp as a knife. Its Spacey you never forget, though, wide-eyed in wonder, playing us all.
Yes, Allan, good points in the refrences to THE APARTMENT, SUNSET BOULEVARD and Billy Wilder. If Wilder were alive and making films today he would have, no doubt, snatched up Alan Balls script in a nano-second. Ball went on to even greater questions with the amazing SIX FEET UNDER for HBO and is currently wowing both the critics and myself with his new TRUE BLOOD for the same network. Oscar wasn’t wasted on him, that’s for sure. In a short time Spacey has carved some great performances, but Lester Burnham stays with you forever. He is, like his hero Jack Lemmon (who his performance is based on), an everyman hen-pecked by life and love long gone. He’s truly touching here.
Excellnt insights Dennis. You are really on a major roll the last few days!
I liked this film when I first saw it and Spacey I always find interesting. Technically accomplished and visually stunning, but on deeper analysis shallow.
The Burnhams are essentially clueless. They are immature, don’t know themselves, each other, or what marriage is about. The same clueless couple in Revolutionary Road only older and no wiser. The nihilist denouement is in a way a cop-out: a failure to explore alienation and the emptiness of the bourgeois as a manifestation not of psychosis but as the only response to suburban ennui.
Sidebar: I just remembered John Swanbeck’s The Big Cahuna (1999) which I should have added to my 90s list. Great screenplay and perhaps De Vito’s best performance alongside Spacey.
Tony, I do agree that you really have to allow for some suspension of rationale for this to work, but your metamorphosis is seemingly much in line with the general concensus. I know a number of people who loved it when it released, but now do not speak of it favorably.
I’m 100% with Dennis on this. It captures the fustrated anguish of middle-age and wrong choices made in a wholly hypnotic way. One for the ages.
As a 17 year old film buff in high school my friends and I saw this at least five times in the theater (it may have been more, I honestly don’t remember). I thought it was without a doubt one of the great movies of my adolescence. However, as I went to college and started watching more and more movies (and growing older) I became a little tired of the tricks that are on display in American Beauty. What I once thought was “awesome” and “cool looking” was simply a nice sheat of coating for a rather blase, sitcom story.
Annette Bening is the best thing about the movie, and through subsequent viewings in college my initial thoughts of the film being a masterpiece were waning. I still liked it, but the enthusiasm wasn’t there…and I think part of it was its sophomoric philosophy, it’s incredibly guffaw inducing sitcom moments (har har it looks like he’s giving him a blow job, and the gay-hating dad who happens to see this wants to kill his seemingly gay neighbor because…wait for it…the gay-hating dad is gay himself!), and the smug way it goes about reminding us that we’re watching some kind of modern masterpiece on suburban families.
I re-watched the film again about four years ago (about my tenth time in all) and I didn’t hate it as much as I did in college and I didn’t love it as much as I did in high school…it’s just kind of “there” for me now…nothing too special except for a great performance by Bening and Peter Gallagher’s eyebrows. But again, the sitcom style humor horribly derails the film (not to mention Conrad Hall’s amazing cinematography — the shot at the end where Lester is lying in a pool of his own blood is a great shot).
Ah, Kevin, I have read about your later-year disdain for this film on another thread at Hugo Stiglitz, and this mirrors the general concensus. I have stood by my original opinion, though back then I had it as my best film of that year, a position I no longer support. Great observations there as usual.
Kevin – wow! We have shockingly “mirrored” stories about watching the film over the years….though I was a sophomore in college when it first came out…me and my friends were blown away in the theaters. Subsequent viewings and subsequent life experiences have caused my enthusiasm for it to wane…but it is still “out there somewhere” — in the collective unconscious of OUR generation…saying something about something…maybe…I don’t know.
As for the whole Mendes debate…I think ROAD TO PERDITION is his best film — and his more recent films (though still compelling) seemed to have lost “something” without the late great Conrad Hall working on them — something about Hall’s lush cinematic compositions combined with Mendes’ snarky theatrical sensibilities made AMERICA BEAUTY something really special. And Hall really outdid himself on ROAD TO PERDITION…a monumental achievement in cinematography and a grand film.
I agree with this, David… although I initially was not a big fan of Road to Perdition, my appreciation has steadily grown ever since to the point that it’s now my favorite Mendes. The cinematography from Conrad Hall is out of this world.
Superb review!!!
“It is also a film Billy Wilder would have loved.” That’s a terrific observation and I completely agree to that. More so when you again so aptly observed regarding the movie’s subtle allusion to Sunset Boulevard. Like the Wilder gem, this too was an incredibly dark and acerbic satire filled with pitch-black humour and mordant wit.
And yes, in hindsight (i.e. after having read your review), I too am finding it a bit hard to understand what propelled the Academy committee to hand over the top prize to a movie that contains everything that the Academy’s old, conservative members love to hate. But then, in the Academy’s favour, the 2000’s have seen a number of dark, offbeat movies like Capote and Queen getting nominated, and some even winning, for instance No Country for Old Men. Perhaps this was the year they decided to turn the tables from blockbusters & petty crowd-pleasers to dark, complex works of cinema.
The fact that American Beauty was also a hit with the masses despite its political incorrectness, just add to the immediate potency and relevance of the movie.
Well, even ‘The Apartment’ is full of suicide, adultry, corruption, pimping…Then there’s ‘The Godfather’, ‘Midnight Cowboy’, even ‘The Lost Weekend’ – but that had a social-conscious kicking in. ‘On Flew over the Cockkoo’s Nest’.
Ha Shubhajit! The Academy was in a “hip mood” in 1999/2000. They had the at-that-time wildly popular Beatty-Nicholson-Bening contingent behind the film, and had wide critical support to validate the choice. Thanks again for the superb comment.
This may seem a tad off-topic, but one thing that I’ve always loved about AMERICAN BEAUTY is actually its poster.
Hollywood marketers usually seem so obsessed with spoon-feeding people details when it comes to posters, that seeing that simple-yet-striking image of the hand-rose-torso really felt quite original (still does). I can’t help but wonder how hard the designers had to fight to get that poster okay’d, and how much someone at Dreamworks wanted the usual poster that splashed big photos of Spacey and Benning’s faces.
As for the film itself, it’s still one of my all-time favorites. I’ve read lots of accounts of people souring on it as the ten years (!) have passed…I often wonder what it is about it that has caused the shift.
Welcome to WitD Mad Hatter! And you have locked into the site’s most prominent feature by far, my colleague Allan Fish’s decade countdowns. Without those there would frankly be no site. I have seen your insights over at our dear friend Joel Bocko’s sites, and we are honored to have you here.
No doubt that AMERICAN BEAUTY’S poster is one of the most famous ever crafted for any film, and I dare say it fueled teh intrigue as much as any other single element.
I’m inclined to agree with you on the film, though it’s true that more than any other critically-praised film (upon release), even SCHINDLER’S LIST, it has fellow out of favor with more than can rightfully be reasoned.
Thanks Sam – glad to be here and kinda humbled that I have a reputation that precedes me.
That’s my question though – why has this film been subject to such a collective bitchslap?? It’s theems are still pretty relevant…it’s style isn’t exceptionally dated…and it might have been copied once or twice but not so often that there are hordes of ugly wannabe’s out there…
So what is it about this film that has made many (though not I) start to say “Yeah, I loved it at first, but…” ?
Mad Hatter:
I think we are in luck, as our friend R.D. Finch of The Movie Projector has coralled some excellent points to support the validity of a backlash. Joel Bocko and others will problem say “c’mon Sam, be original” (LOL!!) but as I still kinda like this film I am loathe to be the hatchet man. So, please scroll down and look at what R.D. Finch just wrote. It’s admittedly persuasive.
I disagree about this film being shallow (Tony) or sitcom-like (Kevin). Its an insightful look into people who, after the lightningbolts of love fade, are faced with the sheen surfaces money and security offer as a cosolation prize for selling their souls to the up-keep of commercialism and materialism. Caroline is the shrillest example; a woman who liked what she saw in the order created from the ease of her upper-middle class placement and slowly setting everything around her as ornamentation for her Tiffany Christmas tree of life. After the excitement of new love has gone, the routines become a replacement for not wanting to see the real people they have chosen to saddle with til death. Caroline is tragic as there is no catalyst, or event, to wake her up. Unlike Lester whose shaken by the possibilities that there could be more. Politics has nothing to do with AMERICAN BEAUTY.
The metaphor of Carolines gun is telling. Her shooting sends a thrill of adrenaline comparatible to the thril of an amusement park ride. Its a reminder to her of a time where she threw caution to the wind, and really lived. Lester speaks of him and her going to the roof of a former living residence to strip naked and flash the police helicopters. This freedom, that will culminate in the gun, will show itself breifly in a flaqsh moment of Caroline laughing in excitement on an amusement park ride as Lester recalls rthe Caroline he fell in love with many years earlier and who is in his mind as a perfected image as he slips into death. Fleeting moments of joy, lost, through the passage of misspent time, never stopping to smell the roses that figure so prominently throughout this film. Lester is the only one freed at the end. Notice his smile as he lays in his own blood.
As for the Academy chosing this film for BEST PICTURE, I don’t think it really went against “what they usually hate.” Let’s face it, AMERICAN BEAUTY was, hands down, the best of the five films nominated and, though they never say it out-loud, the powers that vote for these things are mostly middle to old aged men who probably responded to the mirror this film was holding up to their own lives. I’m telling some of you younger bloggers, as I get older the themes and the truths of this movie become more and more pronounced. In my mind, this is an unflinchingly candid retrospect to events that will, ultimately rear their heads at all of us.
Welcome MAD HATTER!!! Nice to have fresh blood and insights here at WitD!!!! SAM-thanks for the nice response. I’m ONLY on a role when the film is one that I’m passionate about. Great comments by everyone here today so far. As I voice my own feelings, I am often learning from the others here as well. BTW-Sam, loved your article on the Greenaway Documentary!!!!!!
MAD HATTER-I think the reason so many have back-lashed this film on second look is that they began to see the truths. As a younger person, I can see them responding to the comedy of errors, the coolness of its ingenuity and plotting. But, as they grow older, but not much older, they realize that something deeper, that they cannot put their finger on, is really at work here. I turn 43 years old in January, I was 33 when I saw this movie the first time. Like the young, I was originally smitten with all the details I mentioned above. But, where I am now, I see AMERICAN BEAUTY for so much more. Trust me, as the young grow older, the really ingenious themes and blundt truths will speak louder and louder and this film will be “rediscovered” by the many that have, for now, dismissed it. Allan is right to place it so high on the count. It works on you slowly. The true sign of greatness. Give em time.
David:
That’s funny that we had similar responses to the film.
Here’s the thing with Mendes: His parts are never as good as the whole he tries to create. I always remember striking images from his films, but I never think of them having any kind of power because I just never cared about the context. I’ve always found him to be too melodramatic for my tastes, and I say that as someone who is most certainly not adverse to melodrama. But I think I’ll always remember the aesthetic of his films more than what he was trying to say with them — the ending of American Beauty (the aforementioned shot of Lester in my previous post) or the fascinating ending to Road to Perdition and that shot of Jude Law taking the picture…
I really disliked Revolutionary Road…I thought it was overwrought garbage, and if it weren’t for the movie-stealing scenes with Michael Shannon I would have totally checked out during that movie. Away We Go is interesting because it goes for quiet comedy — but I think it succeeds in spite of Mendes…he doesn’t really do anything with that movie that screams it’s one of his pictures. The actors are more deserving than anything he does…and I guess that how I feel about all of his movies.
I love that description of RR, Kevin. Can’t say I disagree at all! LOL!!
I didn’t see this film until nearly ten years after it was released. What I’d read about it always gave me reservations. But after seeing “Six Feet Under” on TV (one of my favorite series of all time), I decided to watch it. I thought it was artfully made, but I had some problems with the movie:
1. It struck me as the product of a director who has no direct experience of the subject he’s dealing with. I grew up in middle-class suburbs like the one in the movie. In my experience, far from being hotbeds of sexual repression, obsession, and perversion where disillusionment about unfulfilled expectations is rampant, they are places of stultifying conformity and complacency. That’s why the comsumerist mentality is so comfortable there.
2. Kevin Spacey. The movie is so loaded toward his character (and against Bening’s, who still managed to give a subtly comic performance), but that would only work if the actor playing him is intrinsically sympathetic. There is no way this actor can conceal his essential smarminess and lack of humility. That’s what made him so perfect for his role in “L.A. Confidential” and so wrong for this part. I’ve read that Jeff Bridges was originally set to play this part. What a difference he would have made–sort of his character in “The Last Picture Show” grown up. He could have made the character’s disaffection believable, more than the existential tantrum of a frustrated adolescent suffering from delayed arrested development.
3. After seeing “Six Feet Under” I could see the essential irony and droll humor in the screenplay. But I could also see that this was submerged by Mendes’ preoccupation with making a Big Statement about the Emptiness of Modern American Suburban Life.
4. The Chris Cooper character. Give me a break. Ball did such a great job with the gay characters in “Six Feet Under” that I can’t believe he intended this plot thread to be presented as the unbelievable cliche it became in the finished movie.
After seeing “American Beauty” it became clear to me why Ball retained such tight creative control over “Six Feet Under.” I did recently see “Road to Perdition” and liked it better than “American Beauty.”
The above comment is proof parcel for those who don’t already know that California-based film veteran and proprietor of The Movie Projector R.D. Finch remains one of the most perceptive film writers on line. Ignore what I say here (as I have a repuatation for eternal graciousness) and READ his comment. I must say I do agree with what you say there about Jeff Bridges “growing up” from his THE LAST PICTURE SHOW days to play the role that “smarmy” Kevin Spacey did (Great point!). And who could argue with Point #1, especially since it is informed by the personal experience. I’m not quite sold with #3 as I did see more of a versatile mission in Mendes’s screenplay, but again with #4 I can’t really argue. Ha!
Great comments here. Dennis, my problem with the film is that I DON’T see anything particularly deep here. I can accept the shallowness when its subject is Spacey’s inertia and alienation but when he “wakes up” … the movie’s still shallow. Nothing spiritual about it – it’s very surface film. Which is fine, as far as that goes, but it doesn’t really resonate as a strong statement to me.
Mad Hatter, glad I brought you over. Great comment on the poster – I’ve always enjoyed your take on those matters. I wouldn’t count myself as part of the backlash because I’ve always felt pretty much the same about. Initially, from the hype, I thought it sounded smug and smarmy – when I finally saw it (on video) I liked it a lot but still thought it had been somewhat overrated, and that it was not as “deep” as it thought, and I still hold to that.
R.D. – interesting; a lot of people’s feelings about this seem to be related to growing up in suburbia. I always thought suburbs were kind of cool when I visited friends and relatives there, but then I never lived in one – where I grew up was a little more rural (and by the ocean, which opens things up a bit). From all I hear, I guess I didn’t miss out (although from all the Spielberg movies I watched I always thought they seemed kind of fun). At any rate, AB’s vision of suburbia seemed at once too bland and too exaggerated.
On the one hand, it downplayed the archetypal and lost some of the resonance of its satire (resulting in the uneasy co-existence of, for example, the modern acceptance of gays and the homophobic repressin of the colonel). On the other hand, Annette Bening’s completely shrill, the colonel’s a complete authoritarian, the teens are typically sullen and rebellious. Personally, I respond more to finding unexpected depths in seemingly archetypal scenarios but the movie does the reverse, giving us somewhat cartoonish characters (with some reveals that just shift rather than expand our perceptions of them) in a perhaps too-realistic setting (the “suburbs” of the film are not prototypical at all).
The Spacey/Bridges observation is brilliant. Spacey certainly creates a distinct performance here, and for what it is it’s perfect. But is it really what the movie needs? A Bridges American Beauty would have been a completely different entity, and I think it would have had more heart.
I come from a design and photography background, so a great poster is like crack for me.
Sadly I find myself clean far too often most days.
Yeah, I love a good poster or cover art … I’ll admit to being suckered into Criterion Collection purchases, occasionally even blind buys, by their drop-dead amazing DVD covers. I also like the randomness of some European posters, like the legendary Polish ones – which I guess means I’m less interested in the poster as advertisement (though that’s interesting to) as in art in and of itself.
I liked those posts where you “corrected” the posters, taking out the obvious elements and improving them by re-positioning.
I find it interesting that just one week removed from me writing about how films change for us based on repeat viewings, that everybody is talking about their different reactions to a movie based on when they watched it/re-watched it.
I know I’m guilty of this – during various stretches if you asked me what i thought my favorite movie of all time was, it would usually be something that spoke to my own personal situation.
Is it fair to project that on to the film? “Well I was going through a midlife crisi the first time I watched AMERICAN BEAUTY, but now everything’s okay and my family life is cool…so I’m not sure how much I love it anymore”.
By the way gang – this is some hard-core discussion. I’m not sure I’m gonna measure up in this crew! If I were a comic book sidekick I’d probably be saying something like “Holy Online Intimidation!”
There’s a few points there – for one thing, favorites vs. greats…my “favorite” list changes all the time (except perhaps at the very top) while my greatest list remains more solid. But yes, even opinions of how great a film is (not just how much one liked it, but how much it has to offer) can vary over time. The key, I suppose, is examining whether the changes in your own life have blinded you to something you saw before (which is still there) or shown you that before you were projecting something onto the film (which the film itself is not fully responsible for). In other words, did the hypothetical midlife crisis cause you to invest the film with a pain and depth which the movie itself doesn’t really facilitate (other than by its choice of subject matter and perhaps some superficial signifiers)? Or is it your current complacency which has closed down your senses, making you no longer attuned to the depths the movie has to offer? The relationship to the film is a complicated mix of subjective (what we bring to it and get out of it) and objective (what the filmmakers put there to engage us, and how they put it there). That’s why I do think it’s fair to attempt to talk about films as “great” but it will always have to be something of an attempt because our “equipment” is a bit rusty.
“I’m not sure I’m gonna measure up in this crew!” Not to worry, all we do here is speak our minds and try to back ourselves up – personally I like the forum because it’s knowledgeable but unpretentious.
I haven’t re-visited American Beauty since I first saw it, but remember being underwhelmed by it — largely because I feel that, by the late date of the film’s release, the representation of suburbia has a “been there, done that” feel; and even more so because I think Mendes’ addiction to over-prettifying so many shots poses a serious problem in this film. It adds a patina that prevents me from fully engaging with the film, and has more than a whiff of the cynical about it (inasmuch as it, in my view, makes a film like this far more palatable to audiences and the Academy, a much easier take than it ought to be). I don’t mean to suggest everyone should make the same kind of film, or have the same “take” on affluent suburban life — but I don’t see what Mendes’ visual style adds to the film beyond gorgeousness.
Let us not forget: