Dream Doors By Catherine James At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

Security figure, Lester is presented in ‘American Beauty’, as a bit of a loser. Short of being a secure individual, Lester is subjugated at work and behind his own front door he fares no better. Once inside his own dream door he is bullied by his wife. Inside and outside of his own front door he is made to feel the inadequate loser he believes himself to be. Repeated visual references are made to the Burnham’s exterior door. It is bright red, supposedly a dream door! I interpret this as being a visual representation of a portal between our external and internal selves. As Lester feels to the very core of his being, a victim, the transition between the world outside of his front door and the more domestic world within does not alter this fact. The contrast between the beauty of the bright red door and the true bleakness of the owners mind is stark. This is a deliberate pictorial device to disconcert the viewer and put us ill at ease. How can a character living within such beautiful domestic environment, the American dream, be such an emotionally vulnerable human-being?

The red rose is also a highly potent visual image. The red roses chosen to represent love and sexual desire are the same colour red as the properties front door. This colour is repeated imprinted on the views retina via reference to the Burnham’s front door.

Throughout the bitter sweet domestic drama, the story is told from the fathers’ point of view. His wife is oblivious to the slippery slope they are all as a family heading. She is, from a fellow working females’ point of view, quite an understandable character. Her domestic and work based behavior, are inimitably self absorbed and will ultimately directly contribute to the unfolding domestic climax. Jane, the daughter, shares a similar internal landscape to that of her unfortunate father. Instead of this giving them an opening for mutual self understanding, it has the opposite effect. Jane hates her poor needy father for his lack of security and makes her dislike of him crystal clear. Again the Burnham’s are living in the house with the dream door but they are emotionally closed to one another.

As doors repeatedly shut on Lester, his internal landscape just keeps getting lonelier and bleaker. Then it all changes, queue the red roses and midlife crisis. Suddenly the redness of the dream door becomes a visual reference to sexual reawakening. Lester becomes head over heels in love with a young woman half her age. A young woman who is also a self centered unsupportive (friend) of his daughter. The dream door is receiving yet another destructive character into its dominion.

The contrasts just keep coming at you, between the external dream door, the beauty of youth and the discordant internal landscapes these facades cover. All is not completely without hope however. Lester is a good strong human being ultimately living in an unsupportive environment. His infatuation is only that, but it does kick start him into some positive action. Literally positive action; he starts running, lifting weights, watching his diet, the usual. Taking some additional care of his physical body has the knock on effect of making him see his own self worth.

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