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American Beauty Mise En Scene Analysis

520 Words3 Pages

American Beauty

Sam Mendes American Beauty is a great example of a film that uses mise en scene. Mendes uses many elements to give us more information using images, colors, lighting, sound, and character clothing. He also utilises many different forms of shots to make us feel like we are in the film.

I feel that one important aspect of American Beauty was Symbolic Imagery. The image that most people notice while watching the film is the image of the red rose. To Lester, the red rose stands for the youth he desires but can't have. At the basketball game we even say him daydream about his daughter's friend Angela surrounded by red roses. We even saw roses fall on him from the ceiling when he wakes up. While it might get a little stale at times, I feel that the roses convey the strong feelings that lester is having. Another example of symbolic imagery is when Jane watches the video of the plastic bag floating in the wind. See’s seeing a whole new version of beautiful other than what her so called "beautiful" …show more content…

Near the beginning of American Beauty, Lester is going through some sort of midlife crises. At home his wife caroline can barely stand each other and jane, their daughter, can’t stand either of them. At work, he feels as if he is going nowhere and is trapped in his job. We see this from him being framed in his computer screen looking like he’s trapped in a jail cell. As he’s called into his boss's office to be told to start doing better or they will have to fire him. In the scene they use a wide shot where Lester takes up a small portion of the frame which makes him look weak and small. The scene is also shot at a high angle, which makes him look even smaller. Lester is positioned in the center bottom of the frame which makes him look really out of place and awkward. I feel that all of these mise en scene elements played an important role in helping us understand how the characters were

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