American Beauty (1999): The Beauty Beneath

What is the duty of a  movie? Or is there any specific responsibity of a maker? How a movie can differentiate itself from a lot of average and below average movies or a lot more trashes?

I don’t think a director has any specific duty or social responsibility which he/she may carry through his/her career. A director may make whatever he/she wishes to make. And after making a movie becomes a separate identity, it becomes a living structure of audio and visual, it would find it’s own way through the eyes and hearts of the viewers. 

American Beauty ,  the sensetional directorial debut of Sam Mendes is  a hyper-discussed film which is said to dissect the apperently ‘beautiful’ life of american stereotypical people in it’s own unique way. Well, I don’t care about america and I don’t care about their social problems. I live in a very poor country of Asia, and the socail norms and taboos of my country is nothing like America. I truly have no fascianation about the american way of life. But this film is one of my alltime favorites. And it has a special appeal to me. I can find a lot of reviews of the film by a lot of critics which analyzed all the tiny aspects of this movie, but here I would like to share some personal experiences (I better say changes) which are directly or indirectly influenced by this movie.

I watched this movie in 2001 only because I knew it won the Oscar for Best picture. I was in my high school then and I used to think that achieving an oscar can make any movie ‘a good one’. And, oh-i’m-so-glad that at least in case of American Beauty I was damn right! And I was not at all interested about film that time and I was never an avid watcher before. I felt my first beat of enthusiasm about movies after watching this film. I was got spelled- no you got it wrong, not by the story or the intelligent and dark visualisation of the film or not by the context or content of this film. I got moved solely by the charecterization of Ricky Fits. This charecter made me think, think a lot- about my life as a teen-age, about human relationship, about beauty and yes about taking drugs too. Can you remeber the scene of plastic bag flying in the wind, captured by Ricky on his handycam?

“It was one of those days when it’s a minute away from snowing and there’s this electricity in the air, you can almost hear it. And this bag was, like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. And that’s the day I knew there was this entire life behind things, and… this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video’s a poor excuse, I know. But it helps me remember… and I need to remember… Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world I feel like I can’t take it, like my heart’s going to cave in.”

 This scene redefined my aesthetical perspective, it was such breath-taking beauty! And can you remember this conversation?

Ricky Fitts: It’s like God’s looking right at you, just for a second, and if you’re careful… you can look right back.
Jane Burnham: And what do you see?
Ricky Fitts: Beauty.

That’s what I found in this film- beauty, beauty in those things which we notice least. I don’t care about all the social isuues, Ricky just shaped and molded my perspective towards life to a great extent.  I think I should watch this film yet again now just to evaluate it from the point of view of an ordinary viewer. And after that I may get able to give some glimpse on it’s technical and other issues.