The film, “American Beauty” instantly thrusts the viewer into a mundane world of repetition, depression, and nothingness. In every single shot, we see an aging man going throughout his life with nothing inside a trap, a trap that he is so accustomed to that he expects nothing less. He is pushed against the wall, laying in a bed without rolling over to speak to the woman who lays beside him, and he goes about what seems to be the epitome of boredom. His family has some tensions, of course, but nothing in the world stands out at first. Part of how this environment is created is through the power of film space, an aspect that is critical to establishing the world and tone of the film.
To create a powerful and successful visual story, a plethora of techniques are utilized to ensure that the story is as strong as possible. When listing these techniques a couple of things come to mind: shot design, camera movement, color, and performance. All of these elements are critical elements of the medium; however, there are many additional factors at play that are commonly overlooked. One of these details that make a major impact on visual storytelling is the various spaces placed within a film, which can be explained as a cinematographic and production design technique that creates depth perception within a shot. In shots with flat space, it creates an illusion that characters are being pressed against the wall, as if they are trapped. On the other hand, deeper space allows us to see every last detail in the room, making the viewer feel as if a lot can be going on, and giving the character more freedom to move within the space.
Returning to the specifics of the film, the story is stuck in this period of flat space with almost no breaks for the bulk of the first act of the film, with only a shot or two breaking this established norm. As the story pushes forward into the second act, Lester is woken up, realizing that he has fallen into this trap of boredom, because of the introduction of Angela. In the scene when Angela is introduced to Lester, the audience sees her sitting in Lester’s daughter’s bedroom flipping through some sort of magazine. In this sequence, the space would still technically fall under the flat category; however, there is a bit more depth and this room contains a fair amount of color not present in the scenes that filled the first act of the film.
Quickly after hearing the conversation between the two girls, Lester begins to change as a character, which remains the driving force of conflict for the remainder of the film. For the first time in forever, he feels desired and young. He begins to take more risks, progressively devolving into someone much more wild. He gets a car, tries drugs, and attempts to begin relations with this teenage girl. In these mid-life crisis scenes, there is still a bit of a flat feeling for the shot, but color progressively enters the film and the spaces become slightly deeper. A particularly important sequence in the film is the dream sequences of Angela. In these the space feels deep in a sense, as the set is barren and all the light is concentrated on her, but the space still is flat, reminding the viewer that these moments are nothing more than a fantastical delusion inside the mind of our protagonist. Then, as we delve deeper and deeper into his regression, he begins to have conflict with his wife and in these scenes the spaces become deeper, but when they are in their normal states the space remains as flat as it is in the first act.
Then, as the film approaches the end, flat space is disregarded completely. During the scenes that follow Lester, the space approaches the territory of deep space. While scenes with other characters may contain a bit more variety in terms of spaces, as each one is somewhat tied to a level of flat space, his shots have been completely transformed. He is liberated from his own life and the trap he had become accustomed to. Then, as the film approaches and reaches its logical conclusion, Lester has died. In death, the flat space is fully gone, as he has finally achieved a permanent nirvana, far away from the dullness that tainted his life before he made the choice to rediscover himself. In one particular shot, the viewer sees his bedroom in a similar way from one of the establishing shots, but now it is deep, showing that it is no longer what it once was to Lester.
Throughout the film, the power of film space allows the viewer to have heavy access into the mind of Lester and helps externalize the de-evolution of his moral character. It allows unspoken threads of story to appear and provides a powerful insight into the mind of a man going through the final transformation of his life. From good to bad, from safe to scared, from trapped to freed, and most importantly, from life to death.
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