American Beauty Analysis

Author: Diana Costa

Taking a closer look to “American Beauty”: how does it portray everyday life?

A tedium that includes the expectation of nothing but more tedium; a regret, right now, for the regret I’ll have tomorrow for having felt regret today – huge confusions with no point and no truth, huge confusions…1 We consciously pass through the door we have to enter, and the fact we have to enter it is enough to put as to sleep. We pass through everything.2 Fernando Pessoa

Lester Burnham would probably share the same opinion as Fernando Pessoa: a person, most of the times, is dead already even before the physical death itself. Who is he? Lester Burnham is the main character in Sam Mendes film, named “American Beauty”. This movie, more than anything else, is a great example of the reification of everyday life, which refers to an existence that, in a way, is dead. The movie begins, with Lester’s presentation of himself: “My name is Lester Burnham… I am 42 years old; in less than a year I will be dead. Of course I don't know that yet, and in a way, I am dead already”3. This analysis of the movie intends to show that there is more to know about it than what catches the eye. It is not just a simple movie about the life of a particularly family going through a crisis, but holds in it the possibility of many other

1

Pessoa, Fernando, 1888-1935. The book of disquiet; edited and translated by Richard

Zenith. London: Penguin Books (2002) pp.22 2

Ibid. pp.76

3

DVD “American Beauty”, Dir. Sam Mendes. Dream Works SKG (2000) 00:01:16

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meaningful interpretations of it, which I will try to develop and explain, according to my own interpretation of it. The movie begins with Lester’s voice, describing his own life. As the scene proceeds, it is obvious that he lives the perfect life of a person in the suburbs, engaged by the capitalist era. Even though he can say he has a good life since he has everything in terms of what money can buy, he just lacks one thing: happiness. In the first close-up we have of him, he appears with an expression we can only interpret as being a bored and resigned one. Also, even his voice, bittersweet and quite monotonous, proves his tedium. Then, we realised he reached a point where is bored with his own everyday life. Each day, he follows a rhythm which consists in waking up, having a shower – which he describes as being the highest moment of the day since it allows him to masturbate – go to his boring job, come home and have dinner with the family while hearing the usual background music, referred by his daughter Jane as “elevator music”4, and then the rest of the night it is not shown but we can assume it is pretty much the same as any other previous night in his life. According to what Theodor Adorno once said, “boredom is the reflection of objective dullness… boredom is objective desperation”5. With the first descriptions Lester does, it is obviously noticeable how tired he is with his life, and he even says it is almost like being sedated. Siegfried Kracauer, a critical theorist, believed the capacity for boredom was not a bad thing, and mass culture was the one to blame for creating all the feelings of emptiness and desires of consumerism. As I mentioned before, it is exactly what happens with Lester in the movie, given that he has almost everything capitalism can provide for a ‘better’ life. Also, in the scene where Carolyn argues with Jane, she actually says to the daughter to

4

DVD “American Beauty”, Dir. Sam Mendes. Dream Works SKG (2000) 00:07:04

5

Adorno, Theodor W.; The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture; Ed. J. M. Bernstein,

London: Routledge (1991) pp.192

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realise how comfy her life is, with everything she needs, when she is not even aware of it. In his studies about Henri Lefebvre’s dialectics, Ben Highmore mentions that for him it is “the logic of commodity, where life is lived according to the rhythm of capital”6. This idea of capitalism’s influence is also very clear when Lester says: "our marriage is just for show - a commercial for how normal we are, when we're anything but"7, describing it as something almost imposed. As Henri Bergson said, “the human senses should be regarded as limiters to the total amount of energy that bombards our beings, preventing the individual from being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information that exists at each and every instant”8. Kracauer wrote: “For their self has vanished – the self whose presence, particularly in this so bustling world, would necessarily compel them to tarry for a while without a goal, neither here nor there”9, which can perfectly describe Lester’s life in the beginning of the movie. Another thought transmitted, in this case through Angela’s character is that there is nothing worse than being ordinary. This intends to mean that the moment life reaches a point of just being ordinary, what more can be worse than that? And it takes us back again to when Lester describes as himself being dead already. Angela also mentions the idea of an everyday rhythm when she tells Jane: “Dinner with parents, every Thursday night: red lobster”10. It is just an example of something that is already recurrent, because it is what a routine creates: nothing but the already expected. Rhythm is a very important factor in what concerns to boredom, especially in what concerns to a linear repetition of routines, described by Henri Lefebvre as being 6

Highmore, Ben; Everyday Life and Cultural Theory: An Introduction; London: Routledge (2001) pp.113

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DVD “American Beauty”, Dir. Sam Mendes. Dream Works SKG (2000) 01:40:18

8

Viola, Bill; Reasons for Knocking at an Empty House: writings 1973 -1994; London: Thames + Hudson

(1995) pp.5 9

Kracauer, Siegfried; “Boredom” in The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard

University Press (1995) pp.331 10

DVD “American Beauty”, Dir. Sam Mendes. Dream Works SKG (2000) 00:20:28

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“the monotony of actions and of movements, imposed structures”11. Another important moment of the movie that reinforces this idea of boredom as being inherit to human life is when Lester tells us about not wanting to lie to his daughter, because in the future life always reaches a point of boredom: “I wish I could tell her that's all going to pass, but I don't want to lie to her”12. For Lefebvre, everyday life “connotes continual recurrence, insistent repetition”13 which automatically means the linear rhythm formerly stated. Highmore wrote about how Lefebvre saw the everyday life as being “exploitative, oppressive and relentless”14 and that is what the movie tries to illustrate, not forgetting how Lester describes himself as being a prisoner of his own life, and at some point he says to his wife: “This isn't life. This is just stuff. And it's become more important to you than living”15. Inside the context of Lefebvre’s views about everyday life, there is the question of leisure time. He sees it as a “continuation of the alienation of work and also its critique”16, differing only from the rhythm of labour. His views perfectly match Adorno’s about the same matter, since this one believes free time is not ‘free’ at all, and “people are unware of how utterly unfree they are, even where they feel most at liberty, because the rule of such unfreedom has been abstracted from them”17. No matter what, leisure time is also dominated by capitalism, so it does not represent any escape from it. In the movie, we see some of the characters trying to find their freedom from the boring 11

Lefebvre, Henri; Rhythmanalysis; London: Continuum (2004) pp.8

12

DVD “American Beauty”, Dir. Sam Mendes. Dream Works SKG (2000) 00:03:28

13

Highmore, Ben; Everyday Life and Cultural Theory: An Introduction; London: Routledge (2001)

pp.128 14

Ibid. pp.115

15

DVD “American Beauty”, Dir. Sam Mendes. Dream Works SKG (2000) 01:17:25

16

Highmore, Ben; Everyday Life and Cultural Theory: An Introduction; London: Routledge (2001)

pp.128 17

Adorno, Theodor W.; The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture; Ed. J. M. Bernstein,

London: Routledge (1991) pp.191

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daily life, like for example Carolyn looking for an escape of the routine by having an affair with another man, or Jane falling in love. Nevertheless, Lester is the character who suffers the biggest change and, from then on, starts breaking constantly with the routine, breaking with what used to be expected from him. A scene where he actually states his change of personality is when he argues with his wife saying: “this hasn't been a marriage for years, but you were happy as long as I kept my mouth shut. Well tell you what, I've changed”, and after it, a smile appears on his face. To turn the world upside down is what Lester pratically does when he starts dealing with his everyday life in a diferent way. He decides to quit his boring job, and stop being the quiet man who never used to raise his voice to others, taking everything they had to say without protesting against if he did not agree. Like it could be described, it represents the “symbolic reversals of master and peasant”18, and even if it works as metaphor for the interaction between culture and individual, it is in fact express through the way how the relation between Lester and Carolyn changes, when he stops being commanded by her and starts fighting back. His sudden change is explained by his own words when he says “it's a great thing when you realize you still have the ability to surprise yourself”19. Sam Mendes seems to have chosen a colour code that illustrates this sudden change, since in the beginning of the movie he uses the grey colour most of the times, as representative of boredom and lack of hapinness. As the changes start to happen with Lester, we have the first scene where he sees Angela releasing, visually, red roses from her body – and which keep covering all her body in all of Lester’s dreams – which can be interpretated, especially the colour red, as symbolizing passion, or in this case, maybe a reborn of his passion for life. This is reinforced by his own words: “I feel

18

Highmore, Ben; Everyday Life and Cultural Theory: An Introduction; London: Routledge (2001)

pp.125 19

DVD “American Beauty”, Dir. Sam Mendes. Dream Works SKG (2000) 00:46:10

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like I've been in a coma for the past twenty years, and I'm just now waking up”20. Nonetheless, we can perceive through the family photos shown displaying at his house that they used to be happy, but that is only a memory of a past, the same one Lester was possible referring to. One of the most striking scenes, which show Lester’s change of behaviour, is the dinner scene when he suddenly throws the plate of asparagus against the wall, leaving both wife and daughter speechless with what just happened. This makes us reflect about what we usually take for granted, since none of the women were expecting such reaction from a man who used to be quiet and calm. Highmore wrote: “For Lefebvre, ‘moments’ are those instances of intense experience in everyday life that provide an immanent critique of the everyday”21, and that is exactly what Lester experienced through a moment of delight, when he watched Angela for the first time, dancing with the cheerleaders. This connects with the subject of what is taken for granted, when life holds “the possibility of its own transformation”22. Another good example of this, shown in the movie, is when Angela thinks it is weird the fact that Ricky, Jane’s neighbour, does not look at her once, since she is used to have all the male eyes on her. Even such minimal detail shocks her and makes her think about what is wrong with the boy, especially when by the end of the movie he tells her how ordinary she is. This happens because we tend to have for granted many things in our lives, and we never think in the possibility of a sudden change that can alter everything, and when it happens, it can be a moment of pure shock, disgust or enjoyment. Nonetheless, everyday life also holds the possibility of different representations of it, like photography, audio records, or visual records. This last one is precisely what 20

DVD “American Beauty”, Dir. Sam Mendes. Dream Works SKG (2000) 00:19:22

21

Highmore, Ben; Everyday Life and Cultural Theory: An Introduction; London: Routledge (2001)

pp.115 22

Ibid. pp. 113

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Ricky’s characters uses in the movie, recording most of what he can see, which can sometimes seem to not have any logic behind it. When we talk about visual records, we can also compare with photography, because both represent and demonstrate the same. When Roland Barthes wrote about photography, he distinguished two main aspects about it: the studium and the punctum23. What he tried to explain is that photography connects with reality in the way a person tries to interpret photographs (studium), and that has the power to produce an emotional response in the person (punctum). There are also other theorists who have wrote about photography, as for example Walter Benjamim who believed it was through photography that an entire existence of an “optical unconscious”24 is discovered, or Susan Sontag, who described photography as one of the better ways to experience something. When I mention all the theories about photography is because they can, moreover, be applied also to any other forms of representation, which includes visual records. One of the most famous scenes of the movie is precisely the one when Ricky shows Jane the “most beautiful thing” he ever filmed, and it is a simple bag ‘flying’ as the wind blows. As the video images pass, Ricky tells Jane that it was when he “realized there was this entire life behind things” 25. Timothy Bewes wrote about this particularly scene: “The scene accompanied by a haunting, truth-signifying piano score, represents a yearning to see through the pasteboard mask of visible reality that is apparently further advanced”26. What it is intended to be transmitted with this scene is what all the previously mentioned theorists have said: it is one of the ways for us to get conscious about our everyday life, and sometimes contemplate many of the aspects we know that exist, but because of our state of sleepiness, we stop paying attention to them. Those are the fragments of everyday 23

Barthes, Roland; Camera Lucida; London: Vintage (2000) pp.26-27

24

Benjamin,Walter; A small history of photography; (1931)

25

DVD “American Beauty”, Dir. Sam Mendes. Dream Works SKG (2000) 01:02:59

26

Bewes, Timothy; Reification, or, The anxiety of late capitalism; London: Verso (2002) pp.198

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life, usually absent or that happened in the past, which through representation are turned present again. The ultimate question is: Is there any form of break out from a reified existence? Mendes’ movie portrays some possible escapes: for Lester, his escape starts when he develops a crush on Angela, a teenager; Ricky finds a new meaning behind life by filming life, as mentioned before. But what about death? Through the movie, there are slight references to death through Ricky’s character, describing it as way through which the beauty of life can be perceived. There is scene with a dialogue between Jane and him, in which she asks what he sees when ‘filming’ death, to what he answers: “Beauty”27. This idea is reinforced in the last scene, which ends with Lester being killed and Ricky observing the slight smile on the other’s face, with an expression of pure contemplation of death. As the movie proceeds to an end, we hear Lester’s voice explaining the experience of death, and how his entire life passed in front of his eyes. It illustrates perfectly how a person can achieve some consciousness of the unconscious, and gives a whole new meaning, a new representation, of past things or just what is absent, making them present again. Overall, it is possible to conclude that Sam Mendes movie is, undoubtedly, one of the best examples to illustrate and explain the everyday life, and the concept of “routinized pleasures”28 caused by capitalism, most of the times. There is a lot we can learn with the movie if we really read between the lines, or like the own tagline says, if we “look closer”. Even when we think we are just finding a way out of the daily routine, we do not realize how we still are being influence by the ‘demands’ of capitalism. It is just a break from work, but still within the limits of what capitalism almost leads us to do. It is almost as it acts like a sedative, which puts people to sleep 27

DVD “American Beauty”, Dir. Sam Mendes. Dream Works SKG (2000) 00:59:44 Highmore, Ben; “Henri Lefebvre’s dialectics of everyday life” Chapter 7 in Everyday life and cultural theory; London: Routledge, 2002; pp. 128 28

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and leads them to not being able to see what really surrounds them. Eventually, it will result in boredom, which Lester’s character brilliantly illustrates, because there is always a daily rhythm created, and usually we do not do anything to get out of such rhythm until we really realise what more exists past the limits of our own everyday life. The movie starts showing us all this, until it suddenly demonstrates a possibility of change, pointing that life itself offers us that same possibility, the so-called ‘moments’, as Lefebvre referred to them. It is the world turned upside down for Lester, because he chose to do it so, due to a pure moment of delight, surprising all the people close to him. It is the matter of what is taken for granted, because the everyday life can be easily modified, even if it is caused by an unexpected event, or even if it is something previously premeditated. Yet, there are different forms of representation which also allow us to take notice of what is absent or belongs to the past, and that we tend to be unaware of. In the end, the movie is itself a good representation of everyday life, and makes us think about our own everyday life. Are we in a state of boredom? Do we only follow a daily routine, which we do not try to change? Do we take anything for granted in our lives? Or more important: Have we stopped observing what surround us, only to just look into things in a superficial way, without experiencing them, physically and emotionally? No matter what, even if life offers the possibility of change, which can actually make us feel happy and realize “I’m great”29, there is not a truly escape from the everyday life. In a way, we will always be influenced, even if not noticing it, by the capitalism surrounding our everyday life. But we can make a change and, nevertheless, finally achieve a state where we have the choice of being conscious of what we thought it was absent, just as Lester does in the minutes when his life flashes in front of his eyes, and he contemplates some of the details of his life, like the touch of his grandmother’s hands, or the maple threes which he had on his street. He is able to observe. To finalize, 29

DVD “American Beauty”, Dir. Sam Mendes. Dream Works SKG (2000) 01:50:25

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Lester’s final words resume well the purpose of observing all the life behind what appears to be nothing but common in our ordinary lives: “…there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst…And I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life”30.

Bibliography: Adorno, Theodor W.; The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture; Ed. J. M. Bernstein, London: Routledge (1991) Barthes, Roland; Camera Lucida; London: Vintage (2000) Benjamin,Walter; A small history of photography; (1931)

30

DVD “American Beauty”, Dir. Sam Mendes. Dream Works SKG (2000) 01:55:08

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Bewes, Timothy; Reification, or, The anxiety of late capitalism; London: Verso (2002) Certeau, Michel de; The practice of Everyday Life; translated by Steven Rendall, Berkeley, Calif.; University of California Press (1984) Highmore, Ben; Everyday Life and Cultural Theory: An Introduction; London: Routledge (2001) Highmore, Ben; The Everyday Life Reader; London: Routledge (2001) Kracauer, Siegfried; “Boredom” in The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press (1995) Lefebvre, Henri; Rhythmanalysis; London: Continuum (2004) Pessoa, Fernando, 1888-1935. The book of disquiet; edited and translated by Richard Zenith. London: Penguin Books (2002) Sontag, Susan; On Photography; London: Anchor Books (1990) Viola, Bill; Reasons for Knocking at an Empty House: writings 1973 -1994; London: Thames + Hudson (1995) Filmography: DVD “American Beauty” Dir. Sam Mendes. Dream Works SKG (2000)

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