Lester Burnham - Hopelessly Hallucinating

I recently sat back on a Tuesday night to enjoy one of the most critically acclaimed feature length films of the 1990s—American Beauty. The winner of five academy awards was directed by Sam Mendes, written by Alan Ball and photographically directed by Conrad L. Hall. Besides revealing the emptiness, contradictions and duplicity of American suburban life, the film pushes the definitions of right and wrong, beauty and ugliness by focusing on the midlife crisis of Lester Burnham. Hall and Mendes push many of these themes with careful technical choices of framing and defining this main character. Focusing on the depiction of Lester in and opening scene compared with his dream sequences demonstrate this thematic development.
Within the first ten minutes of the movie, the audience learns that Lester finds his life uninspiring and boring. He risks loosing his job, a fact that is revealed in a one-on-one scene between Lester and his boss Bradley. This back and forth dialogue occurs between two shots. One focuses on Bradley from a lower-angle, giving him power and stance, shooting from this “worm’s eye view” makes the character wield more power, which he does the fate of Lester’s career. Lester however is filmed from a higher angle; the camera looks down on the pitiful 45 year-old as he accuses his boss and defends his job. Furthermore, the Director of Photography chooses a medium close up to film Bradley, probably with a telephoto lens so that the businessman takes up a third of the shot. The audience sees Lester in a long shot; the door plant and two corners of the room leave the grappling employer in about half the amount of screen space as his boss. These camera techniques accentuates Lester’s hopeless, cynical and powerless attitude in the beginning of the narrative.
Lester finally finds a distraction for his mundane life—a sixteen-year-old classmate of his daughter. When he sees her at a dance competition, the audience knows within seconds that he is absolutely smitten by this beauty. Camera angles, slower shots and strong zoom-ins, tell the audience that they are leaving reality and entering the fantasy world of the main character. A strong zoom-in on Lester’s dumbfounded expression crisscrosses with the image of Angela Hayes’ dance routine. Specific lighting centers around her to usher in the complete switch to daydream. A series of close-ups and extreme close ups on Lester’s face and eyes mirror his complete engrossment by this teenaged hottie. The director’s choice to replay the image of her unzipping her cheerleading jersey from varied angles, culminates in the flow of rose petals from her chest—an important symbol and image. Not only does this dream sequence trigger a change in the character, it sets up a strong break from the normal cinematography and sets a strong distinction of dream and reality which the director returns to throughout the remainder of the film.
The technical reveal of Lester Burnham reveals many of American Beauty’s strong themes. The Director of Photography makes a lot of strong choices to show both Lester’s hopelessness and hallucinations.