Sam Mendes' film, American Beauty, left me thinking. The movie features detailed characters, an in-depth story-line, and amazing acting. Still, as the credits scroll by, I feel as though I missed something. That, even though I saw the entire film, I hadn't. I'm hoping that by breaking down the characters and examining them more closely, I will be able to understand the movie better. Maybe get a better grasp of what the writer and director were trying to portray. I'd like to do this by examining each character based on the one thing I saw each have in common: Wants.
My hope is to connect the characters in a way that they can best be examined as a whole, by showing how they are different. The only way to see differences, is to know how something is the same. Without first seeing the color green, you cannot make an argument as to what color the grass is. Of course the characters go much deeper than I'll get into, however I think examining a common thread throughout a story helps to gain a better appreciation for it.
In Plato's dialogue, The Symposium, many historical figures are brought together to have fictional speeches regarding the Goddess of Love. One of the characters, Pausanius, tries to explain a duality of Love: coming up with a “Heavenly Love” and a “Common Love”. Heavenly Love being a love that is true or honorable. Common Love is the opposite; deceitful, dishonorable, manipulative. I believe I see a direction connection between the Love Pausanius sees, to the Want I see in American Beauty. I define “Want” as being everything you aspire to obtain. This may be people, items, to have a certain image to others, power, wealth, etc... “Love,” I feel, is much more simple: It's the desire for something or someone. More than just something or someone you want to have, but something or someone that you can't live without. A focused, uncontrollable, often irrational form of “Want,” pertaining to one item/person above all else. Looking more on the general “Want” than the more specific “Love”, I feel we can gain more insight into the characters, possibly the most important aspect of this film. First, the “Common Want”:
Starting off with one of the peripheral characters, Buddy, we have someone that has built his life around his Wants. His main want is Image. He wants everyone to see a him as a certain thing. His nice suit at the party where we meet him, his beautiful wife
that later leaves him, his unwillingness to stay with Carol after their affair is discovered, even the way his face is plastered on each of his signs outside of for-sale homes; each of these show an image of success or money. What makes this a Common Want, is his willingness to use people for his own gain. When we first meet Buddy, he is standing next to his wife. Clearly, she is not having a good time; and clearly, Buddy does not care. She is only there to make him look better. After his affair with Carol is found out, he suggests that he and Carol not be seen with for a while; since he's facing a potentially very expensive divorce. This shows that he doesn't care for Carol at all. He is unwilling to sacrifice anything for someone else. His needs will always come before anyone else's. A cowardly and dishonorable trait.
Stepping back just a little, we reach Carol. While Buddy has reached the Image he was looking for, Carol has not. She wants the same thing Buddy does: to be the perfect Image of success. Much like Buddy, Carol is willing to use others to gain this Image. As they enter the party, she tries to make Lester adopt an Image that he is not, to make her look more successful. She even goes as far as telling him not to be weird, when he was just being himself. The best example of her Want being Common comes at the very end of the movie. After discovering her husband has been shot, the first thing we see her do is hide her gun. We don't see her call for help, or cry over he husband's body, but hide what may incriminate her; or “hurt her Image”. If it was found out that she could have killed her husband, she could never be the successful image she is looking for. In Carol's logic, “No one would buy a house from a suspected murderer.” Even after a tragic moment, her thoughts are of her.
