essay on a movie scene
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“American Beauty” is a film written by Alan Ball and directed by Sam Mendes in the year 2000. The film is about Lester Burnham , who is searching for happiness. Lester Burnham is an ordinary-looking man in his forties. Lester is in a loveless marriage because his wife, Carolyn Burnham, who thinks that success is the most important thing in life, neglects him due to her obsession to her real estate career. In the film, Lester often mentions that Carolyn doesn’t acknowledge him. Lester’s daughter, Jane Burnham, is emotionally distant from her father, and often claims how pathetic she thinks Lester is. In the beginning of the film, Lester was told that he was in danger of losing his job. All these factors dramatically culminate into feelings of desperation and vulnerability for him. This begins to change as Lester is introduced to his daughter’s friend, Angela Hayes. Lester overhears a conversation between Jane and Angela, where Angela states that she would have sex with him if he would start working-out and building up his body. The thought of having a teenage girl finding Lester “hot”, excites Lester thus beginning Lester’s change throughout the movie (American Beauty, motion picture, 2000).
I will be analysing two scenes of this film which I found to be the most significant in terms of how it helped me shape my interpretation of and emotional response to the film. Both scenes involve major turn of events in the film regarding Lester Burnham and I found that the cinematographic qualities of the scenes played a major part in contributing to the movie’s overall meaning. According to Richard Barsam, cinematography is the process of capturing moving images on film or some other medium (Barsam 2007, p.140). Barsam states that, “Although cinematography might seem to exist solely to please our eyes with beautiful images, it is in fact an intricate language that can contribute to a movie’s overall meaning as much as the story, mise-en-scene, and acting do” (Barsam 2007, p.140). This means that the use of the different aspects of cinematography such as lighting, framing, camera angles can help contribute to interpreting the meaning of the film itself.
The two cinematographic elements which are mainly used in the scenes include composition and camera movement. Barsam states that the composition element refers to the arrangement of visual elements within a shot (Barsam 2007, p.161). There can be numerous visual elements within a shot. Some of the elements include lighting, shot compositions (long-shot, medium-shot, close-up), and dynamic compositions. Barsam points out that a key component of composition is lighting. The lighting shapes the way the movie looks and helps tell the story (Barsam 2007, p.148). Among its properties are its source, quality, direction and style. Barsam states that the different properties of lighting work together with other elements to determine the overall mood and meaning of a scene (Barsam 2007, p.154).
According to Barsam, the second cinematographic element, camera movement, can change the way we see the images because any movement of the camera modifies the different elements of framing. These elements include camera angle, level, height, types of shots and scale (Barsam 2007, p.176). The moving camera opens up cinematic space, and thus filmmakers use it to achieve many effects. Barsam points out that the moving camera leads the viewer’s eye, or focuses the viewer’s attention and, by moving into the scene, helps create the illusion of depth in the flat screen image. (Barsam 2007, p.176)
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This is a essay on American beauty,
Scene Analysis Of America Beauty Film Studies Essay,
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