Scene Analysis

In Movie the American Beauty

The film American Beauty is one of the most important movies in the history of cinema. According to the online database of IMDb, this movie has won five Academy Awards in 1999 (IMDb, 1999). The awards are included the Oscar’s Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor (for the main character).

The last scene is important in this movie because it is a shortened version of the overall theme of the movie. Mendes sets out to reveal some incidents in the movie. Nevertheless, he extends to create a more important knot right at the end of the movie, which begs a whole series of questions. The movie comes to the end, but we still may have the question that what American beauty is and is that really beautiful.

The outset of the scene establishes a totally terrifying event in the whole narrative of the movie. Lester Burnham is enjoying the comfort of his conscience for he abstained from raping Angela Hayes because she is a virgin girl. Lester is sitting at a table with no guilt at all but a gun approaches his head from behind. Lester looks at the photograph of his family in front of him and says with calmness to himself "man o man o man".  The black and white photograph of the family in Lester's hands symbolises the extent of his family's relationships with him. The movie starts when he introduces all his family members but that introduction and almost all of the relationships are one-sided, ineffective, and absurd. This way the scene is connected to the overall theme of the movie by representing the family in a single photograph. The family that lacks the ability to prevent a terrifying incident. Lester is killed inside his house right in front of this photograph.

After the initial terrifying shots, the camera moves from left to right with some long tracking shots. These following shots combine a sequence of events in the present and past times in accordance with Lester's monologue. The monologue and the last scene convey two messages: first not acknowledging the true self may lead to a false and disastrous life, and second, it is almost inconceivable to judge about our life before it finishes. This can be easily understood when the sequence of tracking shots of old and new events ends to the video images of a plastic bag wandering in the wind. Lester explains he could be angry if this was not for beauty in the world. However, he is dead now and does not exist in this world anymore. That makes as if his monologue being said from another world, where he can express upon his lived experiences in a way that we cannot. We do not have that facility because we are still alive and confined to the process of living. How can we judge something that is not over yet? Thus, for us in confronting the life the question about American beauty remains unanswered. What American beauty is, and is that really beautiful?

References:

IMDb. (1999, October 1). American Beauty (1999). Retrieved on 17 August 2019 from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0169547/

Mendes, S. (2012, May 18). American Beauty Ending (1999) [Video file]. Retrieved on 17 August 2019 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtbbqjiFaGY