We watched the ten minute opening of 'American Beauty' as a class and were told to analyse the body language, voice and clothing of the character Lester Burnham, played by Kevin Spacey. At the same time we were asked to consider the mise en scene which includes the set, colours, backgrounds and lighting used within the opening.
I wrote down bullet pointed notes about the character:
- 42 years old, American accent, confident and bold
- average body shape of a 40 year old man
- unhappy with his plain life
- gardening obsessed wife, one teenage child - Jane (plain name) - plain life, average
- combed hair, normal businessman suit, nothing special
- mid-life crisis
- defeatist attitude, negativity surrounds him, pessimist, cynical
- looks well off: decent car, big house, big shower, materialistic family, computer etc.
- doesn't love his wife any more, she doesn't either, fading marriage
- Lester himself is fading as a person, his life is complete and he's waiting for it to end
- everything that could possibly go wrong in his life has or will
- monotone American voice, unenthusiastic, same with his body language
- he seems the character who would sigh a lot, bored of his own life
- stereotyping: she drove the car, he was late; she has power and is dominant, he sat in the back of the car asleep like a child
Considering all my notes together sums up the fact that he has had his life and now he's slowly deteriorating until he fades away, he seems the type of person that, after he dies, people will say 'he was a nice man, never said much' about him. The words 'plain' and 'average' were a continuous chain throughout my bullet-points as I wanted to stress how much I thought he has/had an average and boring life.
The colours on set showed a theme of red, white and blue, this shows the continuity of the American flag colours throughout the opening. The backgrounds were very dull, monotone colours and textures, nothing stood out, this could have been to focus the audiences attention on Lester Burnham himself, and to suit his mood and life. Lester is trapped in his own life, there is no way out until he expires, he watches the world go by from his plain bubble in life where nothing happens.
Ultimately, there is no way around his average 'plain Jane' life, so he will have to put up with it until the day he dies.
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