American Beauty Work-

Lester Burnham- 

He is trapped; Explain.

When we first see Lester, (from a birds eye view) he is in bed, in the shadows of the curtains, in the dark. From then on, it becomes apparent that he is somewhat trapped, behind bars of a sort. For example, when he is in the shower, the scene is shot from outside of the cubicle, so Lester is behind the shower screen. The fact he puts on slippers indicates that his is trapped by his wife, maybe she makes him wear them? When Lester is looking at his wife from behind the window, the shot we see, makes him look like he is behind prison bars, is Lester a prisoner in his own house? On the way to work in the car, he is made to sit in the backseat as his daughter Jane, sits in the front with her mother, this suggests that Lester is treated like a child/teenager instead of being treated like an adult. At work, we see Lester's reflection in his computer, that also looks like he is behind bars, even at work.

Colour is used in a very interesting way; why?

The colours used in the first few minutes are, red, white and blue and basic neutral colours, the neutral colours link to the atmosphere in the house, they also make the red, white and blue stand out, the motif in this film is a rose, so when the roses appear in the scene, they are very obvious as the colour stands out. The colours create a representation of a repetative routine, like the music being played throughout these scenes.

Lesters wife, Carolyn, is the dominant member of the Burnham family, being stereotypical here, she acts like the man of the family...
- Up and ready before everyone else
- Driving to work, beeping the horn impatiently to hurry eveyone up
- The look of disgust and dissaproval when made even more late for work

Lester states that his wife and daughter refer to him as some kind of 'gigantic loser', and by the looks he gets from them both, it is evidently true.

Normally in an average family, the herarchy goes...

Father
Mother
Children

But in the case of the Burnham Family, the herarchy goes...

Mother
Daughter
Father