美国丽人1

Deeply
analysis
The clues of the film
1.Two families 3.Three youth
adolescent crisis
personality crisis mid-aged crisis
2.Three middle aged people 4.Four kinds of love affairs
—By the Eighth Group: 覃怡
张思
谢小莉
于露
The meaning of the film’s name?
• The first sight you saw the title of the film, what’s the film probably talk about?
• Make a guess-----• Beautiful girl? • American idol? • Wonderful sceneries? • ·················
Academy Award
• BEST PICTURE: American Beauty
• BEST DIRECTOR: Sam Mendes • BEST ACTOR: Kevin Spacey • BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Alan Ball • BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Conrad L.Hall
Theme
• American Beauty is a reflection of American life, which seems to be perfect but, the truth is it’s full of social problems: mid—age crisis, teenagers, emotionless family, drug, homosexuality… • The story described a “weird” joyless American middle-class family and death of Lester Burnham.
So he started to make a change and live a new life: Quitting the boring job, doing exercise, listening to rock music and having drug. He feels comfortable about his life, however, his wife and daughter can’t understand his behavior…….
Three Youth --purberty crisis
Puberty
Puberty is a transitional stage to adult and also is a time when sexual consciousness is growing. So it is a sensitive stage in a life time. Puberty often has the features as follows : ●Curious and one-side vanity. ●Sexual impulse ●Inferiority ●They can not tell what is right and what is wrong
Classical lines
Lester Burnham: Remember those posters that said, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life?" Well, that's true with every day except one: the day that you die. 莱斯特：记得那些海报上说过，"每一 天都是你一生的开始？"是呀，只有一天不 是，你死的那一天。 Lester Burnham: No, Brad; I'm just an ordinary guy who has nothing left to lose. 莱斯特：不，布拉德，我只是个没什 么可失去的普通人。
Carolyn, a women desires to be successful in her career but fails in her family, acts strong but inside weak. She’s just some money-grabbing freak, as many people are, and she always look down upon her husband.
Thank you!
When Lester first saw Angela, he was totally obsessed with her beauty. “I feel like I have been in a coma for the past 20 years and just now waking up.”
Mid-aged crisis
wk.baidu.com
Middle-life crisis
• The middle crisis is a turbulent湍流which may continue over a period of several years. It’s advents may announce itself through the appearance of nagging唠叨 doubts and self-questions, or apparently irrational or uncharacteristic actions.
“In order to be successful, one must project an image of success at all times. ” is what she believed , which in fact destroyed her whole life.
Colonel, a private homosexual, the man is the authority of the family, all of his obedience, then, he thought a conservative and autocratic, of looking at things is always absolute and absolute not.
Four kinds of love affairs
---Personality crisis
Lester Burnham • Colonel
We can find out everyone in this movie is so typical and maybe such kind of people do exist in our daily life. ------In some degree, it’s their personalities that caused the tragic story.
• At the same time, GUNSHOT! Lester fell down in blood. We didn’t see dead people’s scary face but a tender face, smiling … now, he must be in his happy moment.
The end
of the movie is the most touching part. Lester find out the most important in his life is his daughter ,his family. He gently held the photo of his happy family, started at the three people on it, whispered to himself and sunk into the memory of the past with a smile on his winkle face..
Two families
• Family 1 :Lester and Carolyn is the owner of the family of a male and female, they have a daughter, Jane. The majority of family men and women in society is simply the owner of about 40% typical families. • Family 2: Navy captain was man of the house, the hostess withdraw and the role in the family more like a nanny, and an 18year-old son, Ricky.
Three middle aged people
● Lester Burnham, a man who is going through his mid-age crisis. He doesn’t have a “successful” job, doesn’t have passion for life and doesn’t even have good relationship with his wife Carolyn and his daughter Jane. He feels like he has already died until he met Angela.
The end
American Beauty not only show us an ironic reflection of American dream’s life but also tells us that there’s beauty everywhere. We should learn to find it and cherish it.