This is the line in Ricky's film. When the tearful Ricky and some warm-blooded audiences felt these words, only few people understood that this beauty is like an endless smoke of gunpowder and the ground of corpses, abruptly bright and pure roses.
The title of this film cannot be translated. The first meaning of American Beauty is the name of a rose flower grown in the United States that blooms in all seasons, just like Carolyn planted in the garden, Lester's eyes floated out of Angela's school uniform, and the photo in his hands at the last minute. Between my own blood and brains on the wall, the big bunch in the vase is full. The second meaning is naturally beautiful. I'm afraid it is more of Angela and Carolyn. These typical "American Beauty" all look so glamorous and attractive, which deeply attracts the public represented by the male protagonist. The third meaning is the subject of this article. There is a saying in the West: Beauty is truth. Such wise words also require wise people to experience it for many years...
I don’t want to talk about the technical aspects of the film. Because from this aspect, this is a very traditional American film. The composition is classic and beautiful, the colors are harmonious, the lens position is mostly head-up, and the dialogue is mostly positive and negative. In short, except for the small DV, there is not much. Techniques that make people feel "abnormal". Actor performance is an important aspect of the film's superb level. All 8 main characters have played the top level, especially Kevin Spacey. It is his masterful grasp of expressions and emotions that allows the director to achieve many extremely difficult tasks. Non-line performance.
In terms of connotation, this work uses the first person, or even the absurd third-person first person, to map the image of the new era of the United States. The content of the film is rich. Values, family, marriage, young generation, interpersonal relations, etc., almost include The whole content of a person in the society, including the main and the second, is complete and smooth, and achieves everything in a perfect story script.
In this film, the author can be said to express an optimistic and positive attitude, using extremely real negative figures and slightly idealized positive figures to illustrate his observations of the entire society. Numerous villains are the focus of the film, but the pros are the essence.
Lester Burnham, played by Kevin Spacey, struggled to get up on a half-empty bed in a big house in a small town, and kicked off the story of the film. His wife, neighbors, boss, wife’s colleagues, etc., the walking dead, appeared one after another. , Unfolding daily life in this "cute" corner of America. Among them, values and family drama are the top priority. Lester has been repeating the boring work in a magazine for more than ten years, with no ambitions. The "independent" women of the new era represented by Carolyn are indulging vigorously on the road of pursuing "career." People play a typical new relationship between husband and wife. The wife's strength and superficiality make the man's cowardice nowhere to dodge, while the two simultaneously keep their rebellious and hesitating daughter Jane farther and farther away. In contrast to the new neighbors, the Fitts family, the retired Colonel Frank controls everything in his family kingdom in a dictatorial manner, including the frightened traditional housewife Barbara and the trembling son Ricky. The situation seems to be another typical pattern. All these ridiculously fragile and peaceful scenes shattered almost at the same time. Lester’s depression erupted after another fantasy of Angela masturbating, and Carolyn’s desire was secretly vented by another king of what, Barbara couldn’t face the empty life after learning her husband’s secret, and Frank did. Going crazy after having to remove all pretense.
These scenes are not only American, they are uninterruptedly staged in any corner, marriage without love—"Our marriage is just for show. A commercial, for how normal we are. When we are anything but." Huge The two generations of the generation gap——"So I could see what freaks you and Dad really are?" Young people in China are all familiar with these too. At home, parents self-righteously exhaust all their extremely selfish behaviors to "control" their children, never caring what the children think, as long as they "grow" according to their own wishes, and even more shamelessly call it Do-love to you... If you find out and refuse, what awaits you is Carolyn's slap on Jane's face. (In fact, there have been many pioneering discussions on the concept of "family" in foreign films, including
There is still sex.
Compared with the former, maybe this is one of the ugliness that adults still have the sincerity to face. When the worm goes to the brain, men will hold her face and say: "You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen." Even if she is the same age as her daughter. Women are not to be outdone. Now that the body and mind are liberated together, they can confidently say to the man: "There happens to be a lot about me that you don't know, Mr. Smart Man.
Faced with these ordinary realities, the author turned himself into a quiet but determined knight, with the spear in his hand turned into a dexterous DV, silently looking for the beauty that is truly precious but ignored by everyone. Through the somewhat vague picture, Ricky seems to want to tell everyone that after removing all the beautiful and ridiculous packaging that modern society imposes on people’s hearts, after breaking free of those structures and disciplines, there is no gender, no blood relationship, and no relationship of interest. There are only naked hearts left, and you will find that they are actually very peaceful and easily moved. Jane raised the DV and asked Ricky: "You don't feel naked?" Ricky said: "I am naked." Of course, only naked can you feel this. We quietly hold a heart that we don’t want to be disturbed, look at it quietly, and think quietly, in fact, the true face of this world is extremely beautiful, like the dancing plastic bag, when you think There is no such thing as a plastic bag that "should have", and even when you no longer realize that it is a plastic bag, it is truly a beauty that will completely shock you.
And the author’s hope for certain audiences turned into a girl who was still wandering and suffering, because as an adult, he became disgusted with the circus-like family, school, friends, and society he was in, but there was no answer. , Until finally met the shepherd fortunately. I have always believed in the magic between two seemingly unfamiliar hearts, just like Jane’s smile in the mirror after seeing his name burning in flames after being photographed for the first time, and the first time I went to Ricky’s house to listen to it. After he opened his heart, he squeezed his hand tightly and kissed gently.
The author's expectations for the entire public are pinned on our protagonist, Lester.
Looking back at the structure of the whole work now, it seems like a vivid lesson for the author.
The beginning is Jane's statement to DV, hoping to put him out of the misery. In the whole story that followed, Lester himself told how he was bewildered by the society as a whole. After years of indifference and patience, he finally decided to get rid of the absurd, but went to another kind of indulgence, smoking enough marijuana, and bought Pontiac. Firebird, after finally unbuttoning the shirt button of the little lover in his dream, the reality of the other person's disguise was completely awakened. When Angela asked casually "How are you?", the most ordinary sentence that everyone ignored the meaning, Lester truly realized that the wonderful soundtrack of the film came to an abrupt end with his grateful eyes. "I 'm great!' When Lester spoke, it seemed that he had found peace for the first time in his life, holding the black and white photo in his hand, sighing, and then fell into a pool of blood. ——This is the most touching passage in the whole film. Ricky rushed over after hearing the sound and looked at Lester’s face carefully. When he was surprised to see the serenity, he also smiled. We also know that Jane’s request at the beginning of the article is the author’s earnest hope. It is considered at this moment. finished.
Like all excellent films, this film also has an unparalleled ending. At the moment when each soul knows its way back, at least the author hopes so, that one second of time will indeed extend into eternity, like an ocean of time, the touch of that moment is like every moment when you meet your innocent soul. It's like lying on the grass and watching meteors when I was a child, like maple leaves falling on the way home, wrinkled hands like grandmother's paper, like the Pontiac Firebird I saw my cousin for the first time, like Jane, just like Carolyn... These tearful moments also seem to tell us that Lester's life is not dead, but that the dirty soul has disappeared, in the name of beauty, just as the author hoped.
After writing this, and every time I talk about it with others, the words in my heart are exactly the same as the ending words of this film:
"You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don'
You will someday."
View more about American Beauty reviews
