Sam Mendes

Movies: American Beauty, The Road to Perdition, Jarhead, Revolutionary Road

The day that I saw American Beauty when i was 12 years old marks the beginning of my love for film. It was the first film where i didnt just walk away from it with a good feeling but rather a desire to find out who it was that created this quirky social study.

Sam Mendes takes a very personal angle on his projects. They always turn out to be a sort of character study, diving deep into personal problems rather than treating characters as pawns of a plot. One of the best examples of this was his adaptation of Anthony Swofford's Jarhead. From the look of the trailers that were released it looked like another war film, like black hawk down. Something loaded with action and very small characters trying to keep up with the fast pace. Rather, Mendes chose to tell the stories of these soldiers. The plot became secondary to his beautiful vision of the effects of a war in the dessert on these all american boys.

In the road to perdition he had to recreate the 1920's gangster film, but instead reinvented it. Most of the films in this genre rely on a beautiful setting with some big gun action and witty dialogue. Rather, Mendes chose a project about a gangster whose son witnesses one of his hits and is forced to go on the run with his son to protect him. This relationship of father son proved to be compelling enough that it could have occured in any era, but of course Mendes aimed to please and succeeded on all fronts. He used lots of long establishing takes to take the viewer through the area, and then close almost clostraphobic shots between father and son pulling the viewer deep into the relationship.

Mendes has a project coming up called Revolutionary road and i will definitely be one of the first in line to see it. He is a director with confidence is his vision and is not afraid to hide behind a camera. He puts his own twists on his projects almost always redefining and raising the bar.