Sam Mendes 1999 classic American Beauty is the perfect example of a film that utilizes mise en scene to convey a point. Despite its clever dialogue, Mendes also displays the narrative through different means: symbolic images, colors, lighting, sound, and characters' appearances. Every detail in the film shouldn't go unnoticed, for it most likely represents something larger than the story itself, such as its theme and the director's true message to the audience.
For one, the image that most people remember after viewing the film is the infamous red rose. This simple, physical object becomes the most important and recurring motif throughout the film. To Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey), the red rose stands for a youthful lust and passion he desires but can't have, living in a prim and proper suburb with an insufferable wife. He daydreams about his daughter's beautiful friend Angela (Mena Suvari) surrounded by red roses. He dreams of her at night, lying in a bathtub full of roses. Roses fall on him from the ceiling when he wakes up next to the wife he was once in love with. While it might seem that Mendes is hitting us over the head with this imagery, it conveys a strong point and brings us into the protagonist's head. He longs for a life of spontaneity and passion and Angela seems to possess this need.
The roses parallel with one of the themes of the film which is "beauty is skin deep." To Lester's daughter, Jane (Thora Birch), she views her neighbor's footage of a plastic bag floating in the wind as true beauty, rather than her so-called "beautiful" best friend, Angela. Her neighbor, Ricky (Wes Bentley), even finds beauty in the stark red pool of blood at the conclusion of the film. The reappearance of the color red in the film becomes ironic, then. It begins as looking beautiful and youthful, and ends quite tragically.
Another aspect of mise en scene used in the film is the lighting and sound. When Lester breaks free from his monotonous lifestyle and diverts back to his youth (i.e. the scene in which he is jogging down the street), the lighting is optimistic. The sun is shining and the music is upbeat. However, when Lester's wife, Carolyn (Annette Bening), fails in selling a house to prospective buyers, she closes the blinds and cries to herself in the dark kitchen. Not only does the darkness show us the tone of the scene, but it gives us insight into the deep, dark layers of her troubled psyche.
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Andrea,
This is a pretty good post, and so I want to provide you some critical feedback so that you can continue to develop your analytic skills. Looking closely at your thesis statement:
"Despite its clever dialogue, Mendes also displays the narrative through different means: symbolic images, colors, lighting, sound, and characters' appearances. Every detail in the film shouldn't go unnoticed, for it most likely represents something larger than the story itself, such as its theme and the director's true message to the audience."
If I were to re-phrase this, I would say that the writer is telling me that Mendes uses all the elements of mise-en-scene in a coordinated and deliberate way to convey the broader themes of the Lester story. And while this is totally true, I think you can say something more specific than that. Remember that every film does this (with greater and lesser success to be sure).
You then go on to talk about the red rose motif. I think this section contains your strongest ideas. If you were to develop this into a formal essay, I would suggest a) homing in on the red rose ideas, b) developing a stronger, more interesting argument around the red rose motif, and c) place your thesis in the opening paragraph. I think that you wrote the first paragraph as an introduction to the film. This is a common habit that often dilutes the power of the argument, because it introduces it with generalities (Mendes uses mise-en-scene to convey themes...) instead of a crisp and SPECIFIC idea (the red rose is a recurring visual motif whose thematic meaning develops over the course of teh film and, by the conclusion, actually reverses...or whatever you would argue).
Does this make sense to you? If not, please see me or email. Encourage you to keep at it, you are on the road to some good writing, I think.
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