When first presented with this assignment, I got very excited to be able to do a paper on this film. I remember seeing this film as a teenager and did not understand the point of it at all, but as I grew up I began to understand it completely. The movie American Beauty is about a family that is going through a very tough time because of lack of communication. There is a lack of communication between the mother and father and of course that puts a damper on the parents relationship with the child. In most relationships conflict is impossible to avoid. At times these conflicts can be constructive of destructive. Interpersonal conflict can be found in many relationships and if people were to learn the importance of communication they would most likely resolve many issues.
Conflict is inescapable, and the more people interact with one another, the more the need to negotiate boundaries and there is a greater likelihood that conflict will arise. The mother of this movie was depicted as a very ambitious real estate agent. The father on the other hand had lost his job and was having what some call a "mid-life crisis." Throughout the movie, you can see that the parents have very poor communication skills. In the movie you hear them say that when they were first married they were happy, but after fourteen years of being with each other they grew apart. The viewer can see that these two people are always angry or upset with one another and this really affects their teenage daughter who begins to dislike both of her parents. The parents began to hand their conflicts differently because they lacked the most important part in a relationship, and that was communication. The mother began to have an affair with a business rival. The father took...
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...situation or if they identified the problem. If they were to have resolved the conflicts within the relationship they would of seen that the conflict could of actually made their relationship stronger. There is both constructive and destructive conflict, which shows us the benefits of conflict and also why we avoid conflict. In this particular movie they are showing destructive conflict because they decided to avoid the conflict by ignoring the problem hoping it would go away. Interpersonal conflict can be found in all relationships and if people were to learn the importance of communication or the definition of constructive and destructive conflict they would most likely resolve many issues they happen to get involved in.
Works Cited
Sole, K. (2011).Making connections: Understanding interpersonal communication. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.
The children also argue with their mother often. The children think that their mother, with no doubt, will be perfect. They idealize their mothers as angel who will save them from all their problems, which the mothers actually never do. The children get angry at their false hopes and realize that their mothers aren’t going to...
According to smith and Hamon (2012), Families are considered as a whole in society. However, they believed that couples have many components in which makes up the family, if one component is missing, the family as a whole can get unbalance (Smith & Hamon, 2012). In the Brice’s family, communication was the component that was missing. The couple was not able to communicate their differences, which was what caused Carolyn and David to verbally insult each other. Smith and Hamon (2012), also explain that a person who expresses his or her feeling is considered as someone who is breaking the functions of their family system; especially if the person is focusing on the individual who is causing the problem, rather than the problem itself. In the Brice family, Carolyn could be considered the one that cause the dysfunction in the family structure because she was focusing on David as the problem of their marriage, rather than focusing of the elements that are causing their problems. Smith and Hamon (2012) explain that individuals should focus on how to solve a problem, rather than trying to find who is causing the
In certain cases that may relate to the two passages; there may be tension between parent and child due to contrasting opinions. In “Tortilla Sun” the different points of view was how the mother and daughter would spend their summers. Izzy did not want to spend it at her grandmother’s, but her mother could not care for her and needed to finish her studies. This created conflict between the two. In “Confetti Girl” the narrator tries to overlook the flaws in her father and have a good time, but he messes it up by focusing on her homework. The narrator is upset at her father and this creates tension in the moment. Parents are still people in the end, so should they put their wants and needs first, or make sure their children are always
Relationships are complicated, not every relationship will last, and this seems to be the most apparent with romantic relationships, as these types of relationships two partners will often come together and open up to each other and become very close. Every relationship needs effective communication, and this is evident in the film, The Breakup; starring Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn. This film ties in with Interpersonal Communications very well as it portrays its message of poor communication very well. Models of Relational Dynamics, couples conflict styles, crazymakers, and conflict in relational systems are some of the topics that the film perfectly depicts.
She’s considering having an abortion. On the other hand the daughter wants to get merry to her African boyfriend he wants her to move with him to Africa. Momma is very excited to own her first home and they also refuse to take the money from Mr. Linden, they are tired of living in the apartment, momma thinks a house is the best investment. The son is going through some extremely hard times after losing all that money trying to open a liquor store. In the story the son faces more problems the son has the most problems for example he’s in charged of the house after his father die he took over all the responsibility he’s father had. During the 1950s after the father die the son usually took over the family and all its
Interpersonal conflicts happen all the time and are not necessarily bad. In Hitch, there were many instances where some of these conflicts could have been avoided, had they communicated better. It can either destroy the relationship two people have together or bring them
In conclusion, the affect of the relationship largely depends on the quality of communication between parents and children. The parents’ may need to examine their children’s objection, and vice versa. This can be shown in “Romeo and Juliet”, “Her Father” and “My father thought it Bloody Queer”, where all parents have lack of communication with their children. They show their parental love by deciding what the best is for their children; they insist their children to do as they are told. As a result, children attitude begins to change as their parents have neglected their feeling. This causes suffering for parents and children which may end their relationship.
The first topic that is found in the movie that was taught in class is conflict. Conflict is expressed disagreement over perceived incompatible goals. Although it may seem it, conflict is not always a negative thing. Conflict is needed and can help growth of relationships. Many conflicts are started because people have different conversational styles. In class, we learned that there are guidelines that one should follow in order to help prevent conflict or help solve it. The guidelines include clarifying goals, helping others save face, using constructive criticism skills, using empathic listening skills, monitoring nonverbal be...
Durkheim's concepts of the sacred and the profane has dominated religious and social commentary for decades. While these two, inexorably linked, concepts are most often related with respect to religion, we can apply them to the almost-religion of the “American Dream” for the purpose of analyzing the lives of Lester and Carolyn Burnham, Buddy Kane, and Angela Hayes in the film “American Beauty.” In “American Beauty” the experiences of the characters illustrates the dichotomy between the sacred and profane, the morality associated with the sacred and profane, and the influences the sacred and profane have on the characters.
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
Each person in the family starts to develop a job or rule that that play in the family that others can’t really fill. For example Jeannette and Brain’s relationship with each other are almost stronger than anyone in the family. The role that Brain plays is the one that is extremely quiet unless with his family and even though he is a younger sibling he sees it as his goal to protect Jeannette, even if it evolves fighting older bigger girls but if it’s for his family he will do it. Lori is always lost in a book but he is like the mother of the family even though their real mother is around. Their father is bright man that the kids get to see from time to time but then there alcoholic father appears and that’s when problems arise. When it comes to functioning at younger ages they were almost completely dependent on their parents like all kids are, as they started to reach teenage they started to rely less on their parents and more on each other. They started to get their own jobs, when they needed resources they would rather depend on each other or themselves. The communication was free for the kids if they had a question or a problem they would voice their concerns but the only time they didn’t was when they saw that their father was drinking or was drunk. They left the
Caldwell, Tracy M. “The Negative Effects Of Parent And Child Conflict.” Literary Theme: The Negative Effects Of Parent & Child Conflict (2006): 1-5. Literary Reference Center. Web. 30 Jan. 2014.
"Two Kinds" is a powerful example of differing personalities causing struggles between parent and child. In every parent-child relationship, there are occurrences in which the parent places expectations on the child. Some children fall victim to a parent trying too hard or placing expectations too high, or, in the case of "Two Kinds," a parent trying to live her life through that of her child. However, the mother is also a victim in that she succumbs to her own foolish dream that "you could be anything you wanted to be in America." Knowing that her own time has passed, she wants her daughter to succeed by any means necessary, but she never stops to think of what her daughter might want. She strictly adheres to her plan, and her overbearing parenting only leaves the daughter with feelings of disapproval and questions of self-worth. The mother does not realize the controversy that she creates, and she cannot understand that her actions could be wrong. She also does not realize that she is hurting not only her daughter, but also the relationship that should bind the two of them ...
The film, then, relates a father/ daughter dynamic built upon emotional lack, as the father expressly negates the significance of his own child.