American Beauty (1999)美国丽人

American Beauty Theatrical release poster

           Directed           by Sam Mendes
             Produced          by Bruce Cohen 
                                    Dan Jinks 
            Written            by Alan Ball 
            Music               by Thomas Newman 
            Cinematography     Conrad Hall 
            Editing           by Tariq Anwar
                                 Christopher Greenbury 
            Studio              DreamWorks 
            Distributed        by DreamWorks (US)
                                 United Int'l Pictures (int'l) 
            Release date(s)    September 15, 1999 (1999-09-15) (limited) 
 

Academy Award best director winner

                                 October 1, 1999 (wide) 
            Running time       122 minutes 
            Country             United States 
            Language            English 
            Budget              $15 million 
            Gross revenue      $356,296,601

            Genre             Drama

                                       MPAA                Rated R for strong sexuality, language, violence and drug content.                           

                                       Parents Guide     View content advisory for parents

                                       Sound Mix         DTS，Dolby Digital，SDDS

                                       Aspect Ratio      2.35 : 1

Lester Burnham (Spacey) is a middle-aged office worker who despises his job. His wife, Carolyn (Bening), is an ambitious real-estate broker; their sixteen-year-old daughter,

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Jane (Birch), abhors her parents and has low self-esteem. The Burnhams' new neighbors are retired United States Marine Corps Colonel Frank Fitts (Cooper) and his introverted wife, Barbara (Janney); their teenage son, Ricky (Bentley), is a marijuana smoker and drug dealer whom the colonel subjects to a strict disciplinarian lifestyle. Ricky uses a hand-held video camera to record his surroundings and keeps hundreds of taped videos in his bedroom. Lester becomes infatuated with Jane's friend, Angela Hayes (Suvari), after seeing her perform a half-time dance at a high

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school basketball game. He begins to have sexual fantasies about Angela, during which red rose petals are a recurring motif. Carolyn begins an affair with a business rival, Buddy Kane (Peter Gallagher). Lester is told he is to be laid off, but blackmails his boss for $60,000 and quits his job, taking employment serving fast food. He buys his dream car and starts working out after he overhears Angela tell Jane that she would find him sexually attractive if he improved his physique. He begins smoking marijuana bought from Ricky and flirts with Angela whenever she visits Jane. The girls' friendship cools and Jane becomes involved with Ricky; they bond over what Ricky considers the most beautiful imagery he has filmed: a plastic bag dancing in the wind.

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Lester discovers Carolyn's infidelity, but reacts indifferently. Buddy cools the affair, saying he is facing a potentially expensive divorce. Col. Fitts becomes suspicious of Lester and Ricky's friendship, and finds his son's footage of Lester lifting weights while nude, which Ricky captured by chance. After watching Ricky and Lester through Lester's garage window, the colonel mistakenly concludes the pair are sexually involved. He later beats Ricky and accuses him of being gay. Ricky falsely admits the charge and goads his father into turning him out of their home. Over Angela's objections, Ricky convinces Jane to flee with him to New York City. Carolyn loads a gun and drives home. Col. Fitts confronts Lester and attempts to kiss him; Lester rebuffs the colonel, who flees. Lester finds a distraught Angela; she asks him to tell her she is beautiful. He does, and she begins to seduce him. After learning that Angela is a virgin, Lester stops; the pair instead bond over their shared frustrations. Angela goes to the bathroom and Lester smiles at a family photograph in his kitchen. A gunshot sounds and blood spatters on the wall. Ricky and Jane find Lester's body. Carolyn is seen crying in the bedroom, and the colonel returns home, bloodied, a gun missing from his collection. Lester's closing narration explains that despite his death he is happy, as "it's hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty in the world" .

Principal cast

   Kevin Spacey           Lester Burnham

   Annette Bening         Carolyn Burnham

   Thora Birch            Jane Burnham

   Wes Bentley            Ricky Fitts

   Mena Suvari            Angela Hayes
 
   Chris Cooper           Col. Frank Fitts, USMC

                                           Peter Gallagher        Buddy Kane

                                           Allison Janney         Barbara Fitts

                                           Scott Bakula           Jim Olmeyer

American Beauty--美国丽人
(Lester makes a mess when he goes to work in the morning.)（早晨上班时莱斯特把事情弄得一团糟。）
Lester: My name is Lester Burnham. This is my neighborhood. This is my street. This is my life. I’m 42 years old. In less than a year, I’ll be dead. Of course, I don’t know that yet. And in a way, I’m dead already. That’s my wife, Carolyn. See the way the handle on those pruning shears matches her gardening clogs. Man, I get exhausted just watching her. She wasn’t always like this. She used to be happy. We used to be happy. My daughter Jane. Only child. Janie’s a pretty typical teenager, angry, insecure, confused. I wish I could tell her that’s all going to pass, but I don’t want to lie to her.
(Morning. Carolyn waits impatiently for Lester and Jane by the car.)
（早晨。卡罗琳不耐烦地等着莱斯特和简上车。）
莱斯特：我的名字叫莱斯特·本汉姆。这是我周围的环境。这是我的街道。这是我的生活。我今年42岁。不到一年，我将会死去。当然了，我还不知道结果。在某种意义上说，我已经死了。那是我的妻子卡罗琳。看她修剪花草的动作和园丁鞋多么相称。天，光看着她我都累坏了。她不总是这个样子的。她从前很快乐。我们从前很快乐。我的女儿简，是独生女。简是很典型的少女--愤怒、缺乏安全感、迷惘。我想要告诉她说一切都会过去的，但我不想向她撒谎。
Carolyn: Jane, honey, are you trying to look unattractive?
卡罗琳：简，亲爱的，你是不是想招人讨厌？
Jane: Yes.
简：是的。
Carolyn: Congratulations, you’ve succeeded admirably. Lester, could you make me a little later please? Because I’m not quite late enough.
卡罗琳：恭喜你，你已经可敬地做到了。莱斯特，拜托你能不能让我迟到得更久些呢？因为我还不够迟。

(Before stepping out of the gate, Lester falls the papers in his hands onto the ground.)
（莱斯特还没走出大门，手上拿的文件就撒了一地。）
Jane: Nice going, Dad.
简：做得不错啊，爸爸。
Lester: Both my wife and daughter think I’m this gigantic loser. And they’re right. I have lost something. I’m not exactly sure what it is, but I know I didn’t always feel this. Sedated. But you know what, it’s never too late to get it back.
莱斯特：我的妻子和女儿都认为我是个不折不扣的失败者。她们是对的。我是有所失。我不十分肯定那是什么，但我知道我不总是有这样的感觉。沉闷。不过你知道吗，要重新找回它永不言迟。

Best Actor in a Leading Role
Kevin Spacey
Best Cinematography
Conrad L. Hall
Best Director
Sam Mendes
Best Picture
Bruce Cohen
Dan Jinks
Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen
Alan Ball

Best Actress in a Leading Role
Annette Bening

Best Editing
Tariq Anwar Christopher Greenbury

Best Music

Original Score
Thomas Newman

(1)Author: Praesepe (timhoeder@go.com)

American Beauty is the greatest movie ever made.
If you haven't already, watch American Beauty by yourself and give yourself some time afterwards to think it over. You will never, ever look at life the same way. It does exactly what movies are meant to do - give us a window into ourselves, and American Beauty does that better than any other film has ever done. No word of dialogue is unnecessary, no character exaggerated, everything is perfect...but if you have seen American Beauty you should know that already. Once you look closer at this movie, and see Beauty in every frame, it becomes so much easier to look closer and see Beauty in everything around you. You think I'm waxing poetic? Then you must not have seen the movie. Every character is a part of each of us: the Lester Burnham of change, the Carolyn of uncertainty and failure, the rebellion of Jane, the defeated Barbara, the false control of Angela and the Colonel, and the real control of Ricky. To me Ricky, not Lester, is the center of this story; he somehow controls or sets in motion the heart of Lester's rebirth and downfall. There are several parts of this movie where I lose control every time I see it, and none more so than the paper bag scene. To me that scene is simply the greatest monologue ever written.

I listened to the message of American Beauty - look closely and you can find Beauty in anything - and it changed my life. I rose out of a long, deep depression and started out into the world. Sometimes there is so much Beauty in the world, I can't even stand it, and it feels like my heart is going to burst.

This is the most beautiful movie I have ever seen. (over)

(2)Author: Ryan (ryan_lynch@bigpond.com.au) from Melbourne, Australia

"American Beauty" is tour de force cinema. Sam Mendes' brilliant debut feature depicts a web of characters who yearn for their own 'American Dream' - yet, in the end, only one character truly attains it.

Having seen "Happiness" only recently, I could not help but draw comparisons: both films centre around a microcosm of society in which the people, in their own unique way, all strive to be successful or simply 'happy'. But here the similarities end: the characters in "Happiness" undergo a self-realisation process through which they become increasingly aware of their meaningless existence, and go on to wallow in their own depravity. "Happiness" shows no signs of redemption; whereas in "American Beauty" the audience is offered a sense of hope, of salvation, though the characters must endure a similar fate, or more accurately, they must endure the way of life in which they are trapped.

The pivotal character upon which this theme centres, is the father Lester, played impeccably by Kevin Spacey. He is presented to us as a bit of a loser who plays the subjugated figure in the home and at work. He appears resigned to an unhappy life in which he is treated badly by his wife and daughter and his boss at work. Seemingly beyond redemption, Lester transforms from being a loser.

Mendes portrays this transformation admirably well: he shows Lester on his 'path to enlightenment' pushed up against a grim background of suburbanite existence. These early scenes are well balanced, forming a steady rhythm of TV commercial-like vignettes which prove very comical, if at times unsettling. As Lester reflects in the film: "My life is like a commercial". And how this rings true: like in "Happiness", all the characters hide underneath this veneer of normality and respectability, yet they are all revealed to be nothing but the opposite: depressed, depraved and desperate.

Lester's wife, played by Annette Benning, is the most success-driven character in the story which renders her the most hopeless in the film's tone of moral conviction. "In order to be successful in life one must project the appearance of success" is the maxim she adopts from the 'king' of real estate, Buddy King. It is a phrase which resonates throughout the film: for Benning's pawn, life is all about keeping-up appearances. This is where Lester differs from her: his emancipation is enabled by him discarding the constraints of 'normal life' and following what his heart desires.

Lester is the catalyst in this narrative in which the ancillary characters either follow suit (as does his daughter and Ricky) or pay the price (as does his wife and the Colonel). The irony inherent in this film, and it grows with resonance as the film draws to a conclusion, is that the only character who truly becomes free must sacrifice everything in order to achieve it. Yet it is through his sacrifice that he is able to afford the surviving characters a glimpse of hope in life.

This film left me gasping for air: its hyper-realism conveys, at the same time, a portrait of the suburban comedy, a jolting-shock of realisation, and a cathartic sense of hope. Mendes depicts a certain people who, to varying degrees, all strive for a certain 'American Dream', yet so few actually attain it. Though whilst one may have difficulty with tagging this film with the 'feel good' label, the beauty of "American Beauty" is that it sits half-way between a desperate cry for help and a reassuring sense of happiness and fulfilment and that is cinema at its best.
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