The Cinematography Of American Beauty Film Studies Essay

The filming Of American Beauty Film Studies EssayCinematography is an art form, not undecomposed an aspect of a moving- take care show. Cinematography affects the climate and tone of a movie as well as the viewers feelings plot watching a movie. In American Beauty this is show beautifully with camera techniques, lighting, and the framing of the stab. Camera techniques include aerial, abstr utilize center, pan, shallow focus, slow motion, downlike focus, and the tracking shot. dismissal is much than respectable shining a light on a character. The cinematographer must know how to manipulate the lighting to create the temper and the correct bring in of the light. He must know when to use subdued light and when to use hard light to create the lines and shadows desired. The framing of a shot overly adds to a movie. Framing the shot is the placement of objects and people in a scene to create the mood or to direct the viewers focus. These ar all elements to think about w hen watching a movie and they argon all shown superbly in American Beauty.American Beauty is narrated by Lester Burnham, the husband of Carolyn Burnham and father of Jane Burnham. He informs the audience that he has less than a year to live just in reality he is already dead and the whole movie mature a lines back at his life with his eyes. Lester Burnham is a 42-year-old who is unhappily married and is despised by his wife and daughter. piece of ass the red adit of their home, the family is falling a jump. The dinner table is a battleground, where the develop and father tear apart one another s sad lives and their daughter retreats into a balanced yet flawed reality she has no thought of being loved. Carolyn is only driven by success and Lester has just had enough. He makes friends with the cool, confident Ricky Fitts (who supplies him with drugs) and be germs a rebel, no longer even feigning to accept his family s criticisms. Meanwhile his wife has an affair with the re al ground King, Buddy Kane, and even when Lester mothers out he does not c be. Lester develops an obsession with his daughter Jane s friend Angela and his only goal in life is seducing her because he believes she is the personification of beauty. Ricky likes to film things that are beautiful which includes Jane. At first this freaks her out, nevertheless in the end the two develop a relationship. Lester attains his chance with Angela but he discovers that he has been living a fantasy and she is nothing more than a scared little girl. In the end, Lester is killed by Colonel Fitts (Ricky s father).The movie opens with an aerial shot of the street where the Burnhams live. The nameless, one of many streets in the city, provides a consciousness that the Burnhams are lowly and unimportant in the world. For the first part of the movie, Lester is shot from above and small in the shot, qualification him appear small and unimportant. However, as the film progresses and Lester becomes m ore powerful, shots of him tend to come from below, depicting his power. withal in the office the camera shoots a still deep focus shot, or a shot that keeps the entire image in dandy focus, of the cubicles in the office showing the ceiling. The shot of the ceiling with the lights glaring coldcock makes the scene feel oppressive, like the office is more powerful than man. When the neighbors come to welcome the Fitts to the neighborhood, the camera shows Colonel Fitts opening the door and when the door swings in breast of the camera, it switches to a shot of the people at the door. Cutting the scene when the door swings by makes the scene appear seamless and smooth to the viewer. A lap up pan, or a very fast panoramic camera causa, is utilize when Ricky is filming Jane through his window and his dad comes in yelling. Ricky turns fast to look causing the camera image to blur giving a sense of chaos to the scene. After Lester is shot, he talks about his life and remembers the n ice times. A left to right tracking shot is use for this scene, making all the memories flow together smoothly and the left to right movement of the camera imitates his life. These are just a few samples of the camera techniques used in American Beauty to help bring the movie to life.Lighting also plays an important role in the audience s perceptions of characters while creating the mood for the scene. Lester has a dream where he walks down a vestibule and finds Angela in a bathtub in a room fill with steam at the end of the hall. The entire scene is in soft light, light not directly from the source, to provide the impression of a phantasmagoric state. Also whenever Jane and Ricky are together, they are filmed in low soft light. The darkness and the soft light help add to the romantic mood and create a kind of calm feeling about the shot. Lester wants to get in shape for Angela so he goes down to the garage to find his old weights. He then undresses and looks at his reflection in the window. The shot of Lester looking at his reflection is lighted from above to make him seem overly chubby.One of the best example of framing the shot are the shots of the Burnham family at the dinner table. Carolyn is seated at one end, Jane in the middle, and Lester at the other end of a long table. This long shot tramp that includes all the people and some of the surrounding environment shows the distance amongst Carolyn and Lester and yields the impression that Jane is just caught in the middle. After an argument at the dinner table Lester talks to Jane in the kitchen. The camera shot from outside through the window shows the window pain splitting Lester and Jane as a variety of dividing line between them giving the impression of a wall. Another example of framing the shot is that of Carolyn driving home from the gun range and the camera shows her gun sitting on the seat next to investment books, suggesting that coin kills.Many people share the opinion that American Beau ty is a great movie. Michael Wilmington and Jay Carr, two men that review movies, both agree. Its a picture with a great cool shiny surface, and it boasts superb actors, witty and iconoclastic writing, vigorous and imaginative direction and brilliantly stylized cinematography states Wilmington (Wilmington). Also, a millennial classic says Carr (Carr).American Beauty received five, well deserved, academy Awards one of them for cinematography. For cinematography to be good, the techniques used should not be unembellished to the viewer they should only add to the movie. Conrad Hall shows his style and mastery of the camera and lighting in American Beauty. The audience is not consciously assured of the techniques used but subconsciously they have a big clashing on the viewers emotions. Truly, Conrad Hall is a master of the big screen.