Lighting Essay

Cinematography : American Beauty

Introduction

American Beauty is a 1999 debut feature film for director Sam Mendes and playwright Alan Ball . Starring Annette Bening and Kevin Spacey this drama movie is set in contemporary American suburbs . The film won five Academy Awards including an award for Best Picture . Interestingly , Sam Mendes uses colour , especially the colour red to symbolize passion love , life and danger as well as low key lighting , and both high and low contrasting to give reveal the characters attribute and theme of the scenes

The colour red is

persistently and cleverly used in the film , American Beauty . The film director , Sam Mendes uses the red colour as a pivotal motif to emphasise theme and mood , expose characters feelings and personality , and distinguish families . Note that , in America culture colour red gives various images and meanings . For instance , red colour represents blood or rather the core of life . In other words , it evokes the meaning of vitality , energy , anger , sacrifice , excitement , and power . Moreover , it is used to represent danger , sex , warmth , lust death , beauty , and rage . It is used , further for women 's possessions such as clothes and cars . At the finishing of the film , colour red is used to show Lester 's blood spattered across a table , which is white in colour . All these meanings of red have been cleverly represented in the movie

Red roses are also used in the film as a symbol of death , life and love In some sense flowers symbolize love , caring and compassion . In fact , in the American Beauty they symbolize beauty . However , these aspects of the red roses are superseded with peril due to their thorns , which can pierce . The title American Beauty is suitably explained with the use of the red roses as well as Angela , who is an ideal America woman with her long blonde hair , her red lips , blue eyes and her porcelain skin tone The use of the red rose as a symbol of beauty , however , is not without flaws the roses have thorns which are dangerous and the red colour is also a representation of blood that can mean death . All in all , red roses both a motif and stand for symbols in the film they appear in almost every part of the movie . For instance , they are seen in the garden and more or less every room in the dwelling have red roses Furthermore , in they are the focus to the table in the dining room . It is worth to note that it at this table that the family is delineated

The petals of the red rose are also used to represent sex . They are shown surrounding Angela (Gavrelis ) for Lester the roses burst out of Lester 's mouth when he romanticizes of kissing her , they also pop out of Angela 's blouse , and also they fall onto his face from the ceiling when he thinks of her . The colour red is also significant as a central motif in the film as shown with...