The DVD of American Beauty is your standard, souless transfer. As usual, everything is hunky-dory if the picture is bright and there is lots of contrast. When it gets dark — and it does in this film — look out!

Subwoofer channel is a bit heavy-handed. My subwoofer emits a loud THUNK every time someone closes a door!

American Beauty is a strange one for me I think. I guess I like it because it deals with many aspects of modern life that I have always puzzled over: sex, dope, weightlifting and what it implies about a person, loveless marriages, real estate people. I have been puzzled over all of these things ever since they began to creep into all of our lives. But Beauty does it in such a very pleasant easy-going manner. This has to be the first Best Picture Winner to have a line of dialog along the lines of "Oh, I'd fuck your dad in a second; I wanna suck his big fat hairy dick." Charming.

Normally, a film with a line like this one would have a lot of trouble being taken seriously by me. I have heard a good smattering of information on how American Beauty came about. But one thing is for sure, the combination of subject matter and rigorous clinging to telling a story has yielded a film for which most people will, sort of "check their (usual objections) at the door" so to speak.

©1999 DreamWorks LLC. All rights reserved.

The writer of the film, Alan Ball, who seems like a particularly good example of "too much too soon," thanked Billy Wilder in his Oscar acceptance remarks. One of the first things I noticed about American Beauty was the name of Kevin Spacey's character, Lester Birnham. Is it my imagination that the odyssey Birnham goes though in this film owes more than a jot to what Ray Milland went through as Don Birnham in Wilder's The Lost Weekend (1945)? Is it a coincidence that the film is narrated by a dead man, á la Joe Gillis in Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (1950)?

I sort of look at this film from the point of view of it being a cinematic farce. I suspect that what audiences find so interesting here, is that films rarely bother with this sort of thing on such a broad scale anymore. They run into it so infrequently that they dig it. From the famous shower jerk-off, "This will be the high point of my day"; to the gay couple in the neighborhood named Jim and Jim. From the way that Lester talks to people on the phone at his idiotic job at the advertising trade magazine to the way Carolyn and the "King" of Real Estate yell at each other while screwing, all of this really smacks of Wilder's way with things.

This poking fun at the things that we find ourselves doing these days has its roots in what people find funny (funny strange, not funny ha-ha) nowadays — from the unisex bathrooms of Alley McBeal to the jokes about the indignities the characters on Sex in the City go through. For many people, a rich source of humor is how we all manage to show everyone how self-centered we are as we attempt to find happiness — whatever that is.

© 1999 DreamWorks LLC. All rights reserved.

This is what they now call a black comedy. That if you have anything negative to say, say it in an ensemble TV show. But as they say, if we "look closer" the film allows us to experience many different moods and tones. There are so many shifts in this film that it becomes quite dizzying — like life itself, sometimes.

Lester's dilemma in American Beauty is funny in a sad kind of way, because you would have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to see it. Admittedly the scenario here is designed to make things reasonably clear, but I suspect people all across America have noticed that as the girls mature sexually earlier and earlier, the male parents are heading into some dangerous waters regarding their own sexual fulfillment and desires. Lester is the kind of character that many men relate to. We look at ourselves as people who do what we can (that hideous magazine Lester works for), in order to do the right thing (wife, kid), until something in us snaps and our inner spirit comes into the fore. The spirit who tells us we are still only 20. The one who just wants to get laid and play basketball and work at the fast-food joint.

While Lester is thusly free-floating merrily down the stream, all of these other things are going on around him. The dope dealing kid next door, Ricky (Wes Bentley) who acts more like a mature man than Lester does, the trash-talking Angela (Mena Suvari) "I really have a shot at becoming a model." Her weird attempts to play up to Lester's desires, the relationship between Ricky and Jane and the looking at the video of the plastic bag. It's all mesmerizing.

American Beauty's cinematographer, the great and funny Conrad Hall, was being fêted at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art not long ago. He was asked to select some clips, and the one he chose from American Beauty was the scene of Jane and Ricky watching the plastic bag on TV and their first kiss. Upon first viewing it might not seem like much, but the more you look at it, it's an incredible use of light and shadow, perfectly appropriate to this strangely romantic moment between two characters. The reel at the Museum continued into the great "Pass the asparagus" scene. It was an interesting choice of scenes and one that I admired, because all Hall wanted to talk about after the clip was what he was trying to do with the characters and the scene.

© 1999 DreamWorks LLC. All rights reserved.

Many people like American Beauty for its funny scenes ("you are so busted") and so on, but I suppose that the reason I like this film so much is because they are trying to draw us a picture of life as it is lived these days. There is such an obvious concern on the part of the filmmakers to tell the story and make the characters and situations come across, that you have to admire it on that level alone if not on any others.

It's really a shame that Carolyn (Anette Bening) isn't a more fully fleshed out character. And I say this despite Bening's whole-hearted playing of the character. I suppose that America is filled with women like her — I don't know any, thank God.

But the relationship that she has with Lester has to be combative, or we have no movie. There is a scene that is just brilliant in its construction. Lester is seen slouching and drinking a beer in the living room. Carolyn comes in and wants to know whose muscle car is in the driveway (Lester is obviously reverting to adolescence now). She begins to upbraid him for this purchase, when Lester tries to make love to her one more time. Carolyn is about to give in, but she is mindful of the fact that Lester might spill his beer on the expensive sofa. This sums it all up for Lester. "This isn't life, hon. It's just stuff." And this from a man who just bought a 30 year-old sports car! The complexities are endless.

I have just been reading a set of comments from Sam Mendes, the film's director. He mentions that even he is not sure how it all works. He says that instinct was his guide during the shaping of the film. It will be interesting to see of this will go down as one of the better films of this particular era. Will it even be regarded as entertainment in the same way we regard it now? There may be a time when the commercial cinema will be so overgrown with escapist material, that perhaps in the future, they will say, "Thank goodness they made that movie."

9.22.02