Safety is presented Lester in “American Beauty” as a bit of a loser. Far from a reliable person, Lester is moderate at work and at his own door he fares no better. Once in the door of his dreams, he is bullied by his wife. Inside and outside his own front door is made to feel inadequate loser, he thinks he is. Repeated visual references to the outer door of Burnham. It is bright red one is supposed to dream! I interpret this as a visual representation of a portal between our external and internal me. Lester feels in the heart of his being a victim, the transition between the world outside his front door and more internally within the world does not change this fact. The contrasts between the beauty of the bright red door and sorrow of the true spirit of the owners is remarkable. It is a pictorial device deliberately confuse the viewer and make us uncomfortable. How does a person living in the vicinity of this house, the American dream, as an emotionally fragile human being?
The red rose is also a very powerful visual image. The roses chosen to represent the love and sexual desire are red, same color as the door of the building previously. This color is repeated printed on the retina by the announcement of a reference to the entrance to Burnham.
During the bittersweet domestic drama, the story is told from the perspective of fathers. His wife is insensitive to the slippery slope, they are all like a family place. It is the perspective of female colleagues “, a character quite understandable. His domestic work and work based on behavior, his own inimitable absorbed and will eventually contribute directly to the peak domestic flows. Jane, daughter, shares a similar internal landscape than his unhappy father. Instead give them an opening to the mutual self-understanding, has the opposite effect. Jane hates her father for his lack of sufficient safety and makes clear his dislike him. Again, the Burnham lives in the house with the door of dreams, but they are emotionally close.
That door closed repeatedly Lester, his inner landscape is more lonely and dark. Then all the changes, the queue of red roses and a midlife crisis. Suddenly, the red door of the dream is a visual reference to sexual awakening. Lester is in love with a woman half his age. A young woman who also a friend egocentric (negative) of his daughter. The door of the dream is still another destructive received in its dominance.
The contrasts keep coming at you, between the outer door of dreams, the beauty of youth and landscapes of these discordant internal facades coverage. All is not entirely hopeless, however. Lester is a good strong man end his life in a difficult environment. The craze is just that, but it does kick start it into positive action. Literally, positive action, it starts running, weight lifting, watching his diet, the usual. Taking extra care of his physical body has a domino effect for him to prove his value.
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Doors