Beleza Americana: analysis and summary of the film
Directed by Sam Mendes, American Beauty It is a North-American drama film, released in 1999, that snatched away the hearts of the public. A huge succession among critics, or long-time film won the Oscars of 2000 in various categories, notably for Melhor Filme and Melhor Director.
Accompanying Rotina from a group of common citizens, the plot portrays a North American family in the process of rupture.
Or marriage of Lester and Carolyn is a sea of frieza and discussões. Suddenly, he began to fantasize about Angela, a teenager who is a friend of mine. Daí em diante, or protagonist faced great changes in his life that ended in a tragic way.
Attention! From this point on, you will find spoilers!
Main characters and cast
Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey)
Lester é um homem de meia-idade, frustrated with life. He is tired of the work he is doing, of the marriage of the future and of the work in the future. To improve, to his relationship of him with Jane, a single file, I go praying every day. Tudo is suddenly upset, when Angela meets him, an adolescent, why he unfolds a huge paixão.
Angela Hayes (Mena Suvari)
Angela is Jane's friend and crooked leader at school. A pretty, talented and confident young woman, she immediately saw the problems that exist in Lester's match. Quickly, she concluded that her colleague from the school is crushed by her and has fun as such.
Carolyn Burnham (Annette Bening)
Lester's wife is an imóveis broker extremely dedicated to work, who takes a cold and critical stance with her own family. Dissatisfied with the appearance of the filha and with the husband's behavior, he did not give you two serious acid comments. Despite their efforts to stay together, everyone seems to grow apart more and more.
Jane Burnham (Thora Birch)
Jane is Lester and Carolyn's adolescent filha who manifests rebellious and rebellious behaviors of her own from her life. Disengaged as a family and in the absence of daily unity, the vai fostering a feeling of hate for the country.
Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley)
Ricky é o novo vizinho da família, who just moved home across the street. A young man with bizarre behavior, the fruit of a military and repressive education for the country, a stubborn man with the life of Lester and his class. Little time depois, he and Jane turned off.
Frank Fitts (Chris Cooper)
Former military man, Frank é o pai repressor de Ricky e vizinho de Lester. Um homem with extremist and preconceived ideas, the aggressiveness of the family and their behaviors are becoming more and more irrational, giving rise to a true tragedy.
Analysis: fundamental themes and symbologies
American Beauty This is a film starring figures who, certainly, lead privileged lives. Belonging to a social class with good economic conditions, living in a quiet region, having comfortable houses and vehicles. Contudo, when observed from the beginning, these people hide problems, insecurity and segregated.
We could, at the start, say that the plot narrates to crise de meia idade by Lester Burnham, a homem tão focused on whether the same thing that nem manages to enforce or chaos that or surrounds and or is approaching.
However, there are other stories that cross and enrich this mess. O longa-metragem fala de Vontades and Hidden Truths, of an inner life that exists for two olhares alheios. Approaching or human suffering, it also seals the beauty that exists in small details that so many times we ignore.
Meaning of roses vermelhas no film
Synonymous with beauty and romance, portrayed in art over the last two centuries, vermel roses are an element that is repeated at the end of the narrative.
Embora to its symbology seja a two points-keys to understand or film, it is necessary to clarify that these flowers can be interpreted in various ways, having different values for you. personagens.
Logo do not começo, Carolyn is taking care of the roses on the front of her house, when you see them praise or garden. For her, it is a symbol of success: a woman wanted to impress those who rodeiam.
Present at all the dinners, the roses are behind the house of the family; It has become a common element, not what they need to repair more. We can understand them as a representation of a external and superficial beauty, Associated with the need to pass a false idea of perfection to the rest of the world.
Ha to Lester, it seems to symbolize desejo e paixão. Thus his fantasies of him and Angela are always associated with the petals: saindo da blouse dela, caindo do teto, na banheira where a young man is deited, etc.
Contrasting with the thorns that Carolyn wore when she was cutting the flowers, Angela's figure barely touches the delicacy of the petals. One represents reality, another becomes an idealized figure, um sonho.
In my mind, it also seems to represent a recommendation, a new life that I recover or enthusiasm from adolescence. Tornam-se, then, a symbol gives lost youth e da passagem do tempo.
When Lester is assassinated by Frank, there is a glass of Vermel roses on the top of the table. Assim, they can also suggest um cyclical movement: nascem, vivem em todo o seu splendor e depois morrem.
Finally, American Beauty é o nome of a kind of roses. This seems to confirm the theory that all personagens can be compared to flowers that sprout and depois murcham, as time.
Family, repression and appearances
The two Burnham family nucleus is less harmonious: Lester and Carolyn do not understand each other at all and Jane resents the behavior of two countries. Disillusioned um as outro, sem amor nem understanding, or casal became radically different as tempo.
As they discussões they are constant and he felt belittled by the duas, faced like an idiot. Com both living second as regras Restricted by Carolyn, Jane assumes a conduct gradually more unruly and confused.
Lester also sat Prisoner to Rotina and her Obrigações. Tired of work and marriage with love, he is totally unmotivated. As he is paralyzed no tempo, she misses that he sat "sedated" and hated like this all.
The wife, on the other hand, wanted to project an image of success to the rest of the world. In this way, she tries to pretend that her family is calm and happy, hiding out of frustration that she feels like a husband or wife. O jeito as vivem contrasts, em tudo, with a portrait of the past, where he appears sorrindo.
When I begin to ponder or divorce, talk about a country that lives not past and wonders or what happens with them. Even if I am intimidated or understood, we continue together, maybe because it is so or what society expects give them.
Perante, in the absence of interest, that they sentence one another, they both became radically upset and ended up being interested in other people. It is so indifferent that, later, the protagonist confesses to the vizinho that he is being brought by the woman and does not care about it:
O nosso casamento is a facade, a commercial to show or what normais we are. And we are all less isso ...
While in this room, Jane is a lacking and insecure young woman, disappointed as her parents, who must be her greatest examples of her. When she began to be chased and filmed by Ricky, she was not a girl. On the contrary, you young people are beginning to relate and confess about their families.
A teenager chega same to confess to a loved one that she was embarrassed by Lester, pela his paixão obvia por Angela, and wishes him to be dead. Já o seu parceiro de el tem uma secret life, longe do olhar controller from Frank, um violent pai. To me, on her side, she shows a passive and catatonic behavior or husband.
Or marriage of them also not happy or saudável, but kept to meet your social expectations. Além from attacking or filho for several times, or homem chega to expel-him from home when there is that Ricky fears a case as a vizinho. Na verdade, or homophobic military behavior hide a segredo: ele sente attraction for other homens.
Because he is an extremely retrograde homem, concerned about keeping an intact image before his peers, he lives hiding his sexuality. To his conduct he is hateful for himself and the rest of the world. When Ricky accuses him of being "um homem velho e triste", something seems to wake up inside him.
This is how Frank gains courage and tempts him to be Lester. Not so, perante a rejeição e o half of being uncovered, or military ends up supplying and kills or protagonist.
Desire as the engine of transformation
Face a life so frustrating and cheia of rules, a paixão imediata and ravishing emerges as a magical and unreal solution for you problems. When Lester is going to attend a filha dance performance, at the insistence of the wife, he sees Angela peel the first time. In her mind, the adolescent was dancing in her direction, as she tries to enchant him.
From that moment on, the protagonist cannot hide the attraction that he feels young. A flattered fica fica pela attentions to homem more velho, seeking opportunities to approach and converse with him.
Confessing that she is used to being treated in the same way as male gender since then, she credits that isso will be able to help her raise her life. Embora Angela tente agir like an adult, she looks for me validation of two othersShe is more innocent and vulnerable than she thinks.
When listening to a conversation between the two, Lester discovers that Angela is also interesting. So he fica more focused naimagem do than ever: start to do regular exercise, buy or sports car dos seus sonhos, etc.
As it is possible, at times, to turn to adolescence, he recovers to the confidence that he has lost. Reflecting on the ability to surprender himself, he changes his jeito de agir and ties him up with Ricky, a young man for the suspense.
Attending the husband's irresponsible behavior, Carolyn felt that the relationship was lost from time to time. In a sequence, she ends up wrapping herself as Buddy, a rival of the profession who sees the world of a girl similar to or seu hers.
Like him, a woman learns to shoot weapons and goes on to charge uma. However, a temporary happiness ends when they are flagrated by Lester and Buddy decides to flee the scandal and terminate the extra-conjugal case.
Unable to deal with a rejeição duo, she lost a head and turned to the armed house. Caminho hair, she goes listening to a motivational fita and repeats the same phrase: "You are only a victim to be escorted." At dinner suggest that, to avoid or divorce and public humility, she is ready to kill.
In contrast to two countries, Jane does not care as much as she thinks of other people. In addition to that all Julguem Ricky and Angela or chame de louco e perigoso, Garota is open to conhecê-lo de verdade.
When she realizes that she is filming after leaving the house, Jane is not scared but she is trying to run away. Or the same thing happens na noite em that Ricky grows or doesn't give me back, like fire, not garden. Seus gestures from him, even if you do not understand for each other, I end up conquering or loving her.
Not final, ignoring the conselhos da friend, Jane decides to run away as a lover, in hope of Começar uma nova vidaLong of all, here is what he knows.
Life and death: final reflection
Or the film begins with a disturbing revelation of Lester: in less than a year, he will die. Then, he declares that the life that he carried there was also, in some way, a kind of death. We know, also, since or começo that his costume of dissatisfaction and moving of him is a mere run against or tempo.
Aware that either the protagonist will find himself or herself at any moment, or the spectator is invited to seek the reasons or you may be blamed. However, or the outcome, it shows that his failure might be inevitable: Frank was not or assassinated, it was likely that Carolyn or fizesse.
By all means, we can also consider that American Beauty he fakes about death as something inevitable, ao qual nenhum from us can escape. Lester sat or weighed two years, gave life by passing and trying, uselessly, to return to youth times. He dies from work, regains past habits and is turned off by an adolescent.
Contudo, to his reality he does not change and he does not manage to consummate or wish him to sit for Angela. When a young man confesses that she is a virgin, or protagonist, he has a moment of lucidity and barnacle or error that he is committing.
Now, when she sits down, smelling an old family portrait, acknowledging that she cannot change the natural course of things, that Lester was assassinated. At last expressão he assembles himself to a slight smile.
No final monologue, it reveals everything here that I saw during the last few seconds na terra. No foi em dinheiro, power or luxuria that I thought. His mind was invaded by childhood memories, cadent stars, places where he used to jump, lembranças of moments with family.
Lester confesses that he is grateful for every second of his "idiot vidinha", sublining the existence of so many beautiful things in the world. This conception of beauty does not seem to be more superficial or linked to the patrons of the society: it is about beauty that exists in lesser details, such as a plastic bag flying no wind.
Finally, he ends his speech by announcing that, one day, the viewer will know that he is failing. Fica, assim, um letterhead of personagem for those who assist: life is passing and we need to be careful with what we value, because it can not mean anything, not final.
Summary of entanglement
Beginning
Lester is a 42-year-old homem who started by introducing him to his home and family as a spectator, announcing that he was going to die in less than a year. Married to Carolyn, he is also the father of a teenage girl named Jane.
At first glance, it is about a common family that lives in the North American suburbs. However, we began to perceive that there are huge conflicts between them. O casal argues for trivia reasons and the two seem to conduct very different conducts: inasmuch as she is stubborn as a success, he is unmotivated with the career that she escolheu.
Criticized by the wife, he was also treated with contempt for the filha, who is increasingly rebellious with brigades between the parents, gradually destroying them. In front of the house, there is a young man named Ricky, who has just moved to that house and has a strange habit of spying and filming everyone.
Development
When he is going to attend an event at Jane's school, or the protagonist sees Angela for the first time. A teenager, one of the best friends of the garota, is dancing as a jeito who considers him sensual, awakening non-family fantasies. Unable to hide what he is feeling, the logo began to show interest in the girl. Jane, who can be seen, looks angry with the attitudes of the country.
Angela, on the other hand, goes to "crush" from home, more fun and goes on to feed her, with praise for her friend. Lester, happy with your attention, sofre a true (and sudden) transformation. First of all, he is more concerned with physical fitness, doing regular exercise. In few years, he grew up more confidently with the family, going on to oppose the rules of the wife.
It is during an event of Carolyn's work that we meet or her greatest competitor, why a woman reveals a secret paixão. Despite two efforts to keep up appearances, Lester ends up distancing himself and finds Ricky, or vizinho, who was working as a garçom. Na sequência, or young man confesses that he sells maconha and you two hide to smoke.
Or adult becomes Ricky's customer; enquanto isso, Jane also knows or strange vizinho who always watches. Embora Angela, who has never known, affirms that she is a louco, or that she is interested in her coming to grow. Ricky's family also reveals everything less common: to me he is always apathetic and pai, a former military man, and violent and repressive.
Carolyn found her scalding as a rival and you two passam to live an extra-conjugal case. Or husband of the, on the other hand, leaves the business and goes to work in a fast food restaurant in the region, where he has achieved the same work, decades before. He who ends up attending a meeting between a woman and his lover, confronting each other two hours and declaring that the marriage ended.
Final do film
O lover of the, to avoid scandals, place a final point not romance. Desperate, a woman returned home with a weapon. Enquanto isso, Lester chama Ricky for his house and you two hide to consume substances. Or pai do adolescent, who is spying on janela, thinks it is about an intimate encounter. Homophobic and aggressive, he is not filho and resolves to evict him from home.
Aí, o military bat na porta do vizinho e chora nos seus braços. Em followed, or homem tenta beijar or protagonist, who or rejeita in a friendly way. Ricky and Jane decide to run away together and Angela tries to prevent them, starting an acesa brigade. Magoada with what I see from the house, she descended to the living room and found her friend.
After a few seconds of conversation, you two become beijam and begin to get involved, more or less moment and interrupted when Angela declares that she is still a virgin. Taking consciousness of his mistake, or adult apologizes and consoles the adolescent, who began to crash. Sitting at the table in the back, the old portrait of the family, when Frank gives a shot at his head, pelas coasts.
In our final moments, we attended a monologue of the protagonist about the "film" that he passed over to his head before he died. By revisiting her memories of her, we can also get to know her reflections about everything that she lived with and there.
Cartaz and film data sheet
| Qualification: | American Beauty (original) |
| Year of production: | 1999 |
| Directed by: | Sam mendes |
| Gender: | Drama |
| Launch date: | September 1999 (USA) February 2000 (Brazil) |
| Classification: | Over 18 years old |
| Duration: | 121 minutes |
| Country of origin: | United States of America |
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