American Beauty

Closing monlogue from American Beauty:

I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me...but it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst.. And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life... You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure... but don't worry...You will someday.

I love this movie for many reasons, but first and foremost because
this closing line best captures my experience of life. The beauty
in this life is overpowering. It is inexpressible because it is so
direct and simple but so complete. My real purpose in writing this
blog is to try to express this inexpressible beauty.

Now onto the movie: I will make small notes here and add detail
as I can:

What seperates us from beauty?

The various characters in American Beauty give superb witness to
the barriers to our experience of beauty.

Lester Burnham at the beginning of the mover is the perfect
example of a man dead to the beauty of life and as such
demonstrates many of the common obstructions to beauty. His
marriage is loveless and he has resigned himself to this status
quo, causing a general spiritual death that has alienated him
from his daughter. He is a slave to his job and lacks the
courage to do anything about it.

He is shaken from his catatonic state by the convergence of three things:
his pending firing fromhis job, witnessing the liberating example of the next door
neighbor boy, who does what he wants when he wants, and his
arousal at his daughter's friend. Ironically, these events
convince him that he is not a victim, the mantra his wife
repeats again and again at the end of the movie in preparation
of confronting Lester who has found out she has been unfaithful.

In Lester's words, he is just a regular guy with nothing to lose.
What seperates Lester from beauty is fear - fear of losing his job,
his wife, and his so called life. When his job is taken from him
and he faces the sterility of his marriage, he finally has the
courage to make changes.

At first his changes are merely doingwhatever he wants. He empowers
his Id by quitting his job andblackmailing his firm, smoking pot,
working out, buying his dream car, and standing up for himself to his wife.
All this seems like positive change, but it rings hollow in his continuing failure to
connect with his daughter.

He finally moves beyond merely feeding his appetites when he almost
makes love to daughter's friend. He is at last alive enough to actively
respond to her seduction and not be satisfied with fantasies, but when she
tells him that it is her first time, he finally sees her real beauty as a young
insecure girl seeking to escape being ordinary by exploiting her
sexuality.

Lester recognizes her as another person and not merely
an object of his affection. Their aborted sexual encounter leads
to a different kind of engagement. Lester asks about his daughter
and is pleased to hear that she is in love. Angela asks Lester how
he is doing, which causes him to reflect.

Lester makes his peace with life moments before he is shot in
the head. Once Lester has freed himslef of fear and turned
outward to engage the world, he finally sees the beauty.