The film “American Beauty” is filled with deeper meanings that lay beneath the surface. In the film a certain theme is displayed, people act differently than who they really are. This theme is shown in a strong majority of characters, whether the character is from the Burnham family or the Fitts family or neither. As mentioned the Burnham family displays this theme very well. If you saw Carolyn Burnham walking down the street you’d see her as a smart, wealthy, real estate agent. She goes to her daughter’s cheerleading performances and makes sure the lawn is in peak condition, however in reality Carolyn is the exact opposite of the well put together real estate agent she seems. An example of this being when she tries to sell a house early on …show more content…
Colonel Frank Fitts is an army veteran who has just moved into the suburban neighborhood and is neighbors with the Burnhams. He seems to be a traditional mans man, he served his country, is married, has a son, and lets say he isn’t the biggest fan of homosexuals. He seems polite to Jim and Jim when they first meet, but when he’s driving Ricky to school his true self comes out as he goes on a rant about how much he dislikes homosexuals. That is the one thing he is extremely adamant about. Yet when he goes to confront Lester whom he thinks is gay and has seduced his only son he isn’t boiling with rage or in undeniable grief. He seems lost and confused, and when he asks Lester about Carolyn’s location and Lester responds with “I don’t care” Frank breaks down. Lester tries to comfort him as they share an awkward hug, then Frank does the unexpected and kisses Lester. This shows the exact theme the movie is projecting, Frank seems like the manliest guy alive, he even has his own gun collection, yet who he’s really a closet homesexual, or is sexually confused. But, it’s not just Frank, who shows this theme, his son Ricky does as well. Ricky shows this theme two different times, the first is how his father perceives him, the second is how Angela and Jane first perceive him. In his father's eyes Ricky is a smart kid who is on the straight and narrow, he has a stable job at a fancy restaurant, and doesn’t do drugs …show more content…
Angela is one of the best examples for this being a theme for the movie, as she provides two solid examples. The first being the way she acts and talks. Early on in the film Angela and Jane are standing outside in the schoolyard as Angela talks about this time she was doing a model shoot, and the photographer and her engaged in a sexual act. The other girls seem shocked and surprised by it, yet Angela acts very nonchalantly about it and continues on the conversation until the other girls storm off until they call her a slut. Another example is when Angela and Jane are driving to Jane’s house the night Lester dies, Angela asks Jane about Ricky, and how sex is with him, Jane dismisses it and does not want to talk about. Angela keeps on pressing and says “Why? I tell you about every guy I’ve had sex with”. These aren’t the only two examples, but the point is that Angela acts like a girl that’s had a ton of sexual encounters, but the truth is she’s a virgin, she’s never been with a guy. At one point she’s even called out on her fakeness by Ricky, in the scene where Ricky and Jane plan to move to New York. Angela says to Jane “Yeah? Well, at least I'm not ugly! ” Ricky counters that with, “Yes, you are. And you’re boring, and you’re totally ordinary, and you know it”. The truth is that she is all of those things, that is the real Angela, she puts on this mask
“I knew I would never be one of those girls, ever. It wasn't the blond, blue-eyed looks or the beautiful, leggy figure. It was who she was-an American-and were not.” (Alvarez 43) Apart from the contestants looks it was also because of how they are American while she wasn’t American. Reaching towards the end of the short story one of the girls starts to name off the things of how she wished she would look like instead. “Had we been able to see into the future, beyond our noses, which we thought weren't the right shape; beyond our curly hair, which we wanted to be straight and beyond the screen, which inspired us with a limited vision of what was considered beautiful in America.” (Alvarez 43) She starts to put herself down in a way towards how she looks like compared to the constant girls which would be the symbolism of
To elaborate, Scott argues that as a picture interpreter, we must make a distinction between the “ideal and the real,” to understand the true meaning of an image. She argues how the Gibson Girl and the American Girl were two idealised visions of modern beauty and femininity which made women to try to be like them. These two girls became markers of their decade, ...
Not long ago, a woman’s success was measured by the success of her husband and her domestic prowess. Today, a woman is presumed successful if she can emulate the standards of beauty portrayed in the media. Unfortunately, this subliminally enforced standard is unattainable to some women, regardless of the quality of their character. Let’s examine how western women went from being pioneering superheroes, to people who measure their worth against airbrushed photographs of impossibly beautiful women.
"Mrs. Robinson, you are trying to seduce me," says Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman). The Graduate, directed by Mike Nichols in 1967 is an influential satire/comedy film about a recent East Coast college graduated who finds himself alienated and aimless in the changing, social and sexual general public of the 1960s, and questioning the values of society. The theme of the film is of an innocent and confused youth who is exploited, mis-directed, seduced (literally and figuratively) and betrayed by a corrupt, self-indulgent, and discredited older generation (that finds stability in “plastics”) that I found to be quite clear and understanding, while also capturing the real spirit of the times and allows America's youth to perceive onscreen an image of themselves which they can both identify with and emulate. The Graduate is a significant film even today due to its use of abstract camera angles, telephoto lenses, excellent cinematography, and great acting. Few visual effects were used, however, matting and numerous point of view shots were used. These characteristics and the fabulous use of mis-en-scene, great writing and the era of the film all made The Graduate what it is today, magnificent.
Within this film the sociological concept based around sex & gender is hit quite a few times. Missy, a new comer to her current school, tries out for the cheering team. She is put under lots of scrutiny from some of the members of the cheer squad. She is underestimated due to her appearance and she proves herself to the team. They already had a candidate in mind, but the captain lets the other two team members know that Missy will be on the team. Hearing this noise infuriated them and they called Missy an “uber dyke” which is a sex and gender stereotype. Missy was treated this way all based on the way she prefered to
The Hollywood movie Pretty Woman (1990) is about a prostitute in Hollywood, marrying an extremely rich businessman, in spite of her mutual distrust and prejudice. The movie contains the basic narrative of the Cinderella tale: through the love and help of a man of a higher social position, a girl of a lower social status moves up to join the man at his level.
My Mise-en-scene analysis is on American Beauty on page 217: number 1(The dinner scene). The frame itself is a very closed, tight shot; there is no way for the characters to escape and they're left with only confronting each other in this very little space. The shot of the camera isn't necessarily far away or close either. It's neutral, and we can see the full action of the family's dinner conversation happening right in front of us. My eyes were immediately attracted to the bright, white table and then my eyes focused on the faces of the family. The scene's texture is slightly fuzzy, and is not very detailed. But the character's faces are still recognizable. The foreground of this scene is the table with the man and woman sitting at each end; the middle is the girl-who is
...allowed to reach her American Dream without being frowned upon by others. Materialism, and the fears of judgment, are restrictions for these characters that keep them from reaching their true happiness and American Dreams.
The movie I decided to analyze for this course was American History X (1998), which stars Edward Norton. Though this movie isn’t widely known, it is one of the more interesting movies I have seen. It’s probably one of the best films that depict the Neo Nazi plague on American culture. The film takes place from the mid to late 1990’s during the Internet boom, and touches on subjects from affirmative action to Rodney King. One of the highlights of this movie that really relates to one of the key aspects of this course is the deterrence of capital punishment. Edward Norton’s portrayal as the grief stricken older brother who turns to racist ideologies and violence to cope with his fathers death, completely disregards the consequences of his actions as he brutally murders someone in front of his family for trying to steal his car. The unstable mentality that he developed after his father’s death really goes hand-to-hand specifically with Isaac Ehrlich’s study of capital punishment and deterrence. Although this movie is entirely fictional, a lot of the central themes (racism, crime punishment, gang pervasiveness, and one’s own vulnerability) are accurate representations of the very problems that essentially afflict us as a society.
I feel that the factor or beauty should not be an issue because with the use of Chloë Grace Moretz, this film is showing that there are very beautiful young women out there that are very pretty, but they grow up believing they are ugly because of the way they are being treated. Seitz states, “…It does not matter whether Carrie is conventionally ‘pretty or not pretty.’ Because Carrie is an abused child, she feels ugly; because she feels ugly, she radiates worthlessness.” I feel that this statement made by Seitz helps give a better viewpoint as to why it shouldn’t matter if the character is portrayed like the
Sex, love, depression, guilt, trust, all are topics presented in this remarkably well written and performed drama. The Flick, a 2014 Pulitzer Prize winning drama by Annie Baker, serves to provide a social commentary which will leave the audience deep in thought well after the curtain closes. Emporia State Universities Production of this masterpiece was a masterpiece in itself, from the stunningly genuine portrayal of the characters of Avery and Rose, to the realism found within the set, every aspect of the production was superb.
video camera, of a young teenage girl. The narration reveals that she wants her father dead. The image portrayed around her is constructed as an evil, unaffectionate youth. The next scene is of a high angle shot, with a voice-over narration. The voice-over goes to explain that this is Lester Burnham’s speaking and he is already dead and the following is a construction of the relevant events. This scene holds relevance for two reasons. First it constructs an image that the young teenager in the previous scene is the killer. And as we will learn by the end of the film this image is not all that it appeared to be. This is a reoccurring theme throughout the film, that these are constructed images, and to notice that there is more to the story then what appears on the surface. The high angle spanning shot of Lester’s street also holds significance for the spectator. This opening shot is quite similar to that of Alfred Hitchcock’s opening scene in Psycho. The similar themes is the spectators being the voyeurs. In each we are looking into the private sphere of the character. However, in American Beauty our voyeuristic nature is not shameful.
According to Jeffords, Disney changes the fairy tale in its film version of Beauty and the Beast. This film has had countless number of changes since this fairy tale first came out. One major change was inanimate objects came to life. This is a difference because in the older versions of Beauty and the Beast, the Beast is isolated in his castle and he fulfilled all of Beauty's need by enchanted magic. I believe that this change is significant in this film. This is because it takes away from the Beasts power. In the older versions this shows that the Beast really cares about Beauty and will do anything to help her fulfill her needs. In Disney's version they took this out. They made it so the Beast was less powerful, making him come off as week.
1980. Warner Bros. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Music by Wendy Carlos and Rcachel Elkind. Cinematography by John Alcott. Editing by Ray Lovejoy. With Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd.
The movie, “Mona Lisa Smile” is an inspirational film that explores life through feminism, marriage, and education lead by a modernist teacher at the end of a traditional era. It begins by introducing the lead character, Katherine Watson (Julia Roberts), a liberal-minded novice professor from California, who lands a job in the art history department at a snobbish, all-girl college, called Wellesley, in the fall of 1953. Despite warnings from her boyfriend Paul that a Boston Brahmin environment was out of her element, Katherine was thrilled at the prospect of educating some of the brightest young women in the country however, her image of Wellesley quickly fizzles after her first day of class, in which, was more like a baptism by fire. Her smug students flaunted their exhaustive knowledge of the text and humiliated her in front of a supervisor. However, Katherine, determined not to buckle under pressure, departs from the syllabus in order to regain the upper hand. She quickly challenged the girls’ idea of what constituted art and exposed them to modern artist not endorsed by the school board. She dared them to think for themselves, and explore outside of their traditional views. This form of art was unacceptable by the students at first however, overtime Katherine penetrated her student’s distain and earned their esteem.