Abstract: American Beauty was the biggest winner of the 1999 Awards of the Movie Academy of America. It is the engagement with a host of controversial contemporary issues concerning the concept of masculinity in a post-feminist and post-industrial society. This paper tries to analyze “beauty” in the film. With the analysis of the material selection, the structure, the cinematography, and the symbol in it, this paper tries to discover the beauty in the movie. The movie stems from the most noble and honorable motives, which attempt to fulfill the ancient dictum that fiction should instruct as well as entertain, and which also help us to recognize a social issue that we might otherwise overlook. American Beauty shows much more than we can imagine. By learning from it, we know how to seek and appreciate the beauty of the life besides the drama.
Key Words: American Beauty; understanding of beauty; crisis
Introduction 1
1. Literature Review 1
1.1 Research on Crisis of Masculinity 1
1.2 Research on Spiritual Crisis 3
2. Analysis on the Beauty in the Content 5
2.1 The Content of the Film 5
2.2 The Concept of Beauty in the Film 6
2.3 Authentic Material Selection 7
3. Analysis on the Beauty in the Technology of the Film-making 7
3.1 Success in the Adoption of the Structure 7
3.2 The Shot 9
4. The Movie Itself Is A Kind of Beautiful Culture 11
4.1 The Medium As the Message 11
4.2 The Analysis of the Problem 11
4.3 Beauty Reflected in the Symbol--- The Rose 12
5. Conclusion 14
Bibliography 17
