30 Days of Screenplays — Day 3: “American Beauty”
Read 30 movie scripts in 30 days.
Read 30 movie scripts in 30 days.
Why?
Because whether you are a novice just starting to learn the craft of screenwriting or someone who has been writing for many years, you should be reading scripts.
There is a certain type of knowledge and understanding about screenwriting you can only get from reading scripts, giving you an innate sense of pace, feel, tone, style, how to approach writing scenes, how create flow, and so forth.
So each day this month, I will provide background on and access to a notable movie script.
Today is Day 3 and the featured screenplay is for the movie American Beauty (1999). You may read the script here.
Background: The script was written by Alan Ball. The movie is #66 in the IMDB Top 250.
Plot summary: Lester Burnham, a depressed suburban father in a mid-life crisis, decides to turn his hectic life around after developing an infatuation for his daughter’s attractive friend.
Tagline: … look closer
Awards: Ball won an Academy Award and the WGA Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Trivia: According to his Oscar speech, Alan Ball was sitting at the World Trade Center plaza when he saw a paper bag floating in the wind and was inspired by it to write the film, which was originally conceived as a stage play.
OBSERVATIONS: I confess I’ve read the script a number of times before, but this time, I really honed in on what Angela means to Lester. Let me break down what I saw this time through the script by looking at the what Lester wants (External World) and what Lester needs (Internal World).
In the very opening sequence, Lester speaks (in V.O.) directly to his Disunity state (P. 1): “I’m forty-two years old. In less than a year, I’ll be dead.” So he is a walking dead man — one very clear definition of Disunity. Even without the foreknowledge that he’ll be dead within a year, Lester realizes that he is lifeless (P. 5): “Both my wife and daughter think I’m this gigantic loser, and… they’re right. I have lost something. I’m not exactly sure what it is, but I know I didn’t always feel so… sedated.”
Sedated. Lifeless. Or Life Less. Then The Hook where Lester fantasizes about Angela during her cheerleader routine on P. 17, where she “dances only for Lester,” her movements taking on a “blatantly erotic edge as she starts to unzip her uniform.” From this moment on, it is clear what Lester wants: To have sex with Angela. So when on P. 39, Angela tells Jane, “If he built up his chest and arms, I would totally fuck him,” that inspires Lester to start lifting weights, jogging, and getting into shape — inspired by his fantasy of a Sexualized Angela.
But what inspires Lester to:
- Start smoking pot
- Quit his job and extort a killer severance pay
- Get a job at Smiley’s fast food joint
- Make his dinner declaration (“I’m sick and tired being treated like I don’t exits”) and fling a plate of asparagus
- Buy a GTO
I don’t think it’s the Sexualized Angela. I don’t think it’s what he wants. In fact, Angela basically disappears from Lester’s life from P. 43–86, during most of his Reconstruction process. In fact, when given the opportunity to fulfill his fantasy with a vulnerable Angela (P. 98), Lester looks down at her with a different set of eyes: “This is not the mythical carnal creature of Lester’s fantasies; this is a nervous child.”
It’s quite telling what happens next:
- He grabs a blanket to cover her nakedness
- He reassures her that she is beautiful, that everything is okay
- He hugs her and strokes her hair, rocking her gently
Then in the kitchen (P. 100–101):
- He makes Angela a turkey sandwich because she’s “starving”
- He asks if she wants another sandwich
These are not the actions of a horny guy; these are the acts of a caring father. So in this critical moment in Lester’s life, when he pushes away the possibility of having intercourse with Angela, it’s like all that sexualized energy disappears. And what is finally free to emerge is the fruit of his efforts to reclaim his life — being a Dad.
So while he may want to have sex with Sexualized Angela, what he needs is the invigoration of Life-Giving Angela — the connection she represents to his youth, to a passion, not for sex, but for life, to his own family, Angela as a projection of a younger, alluring, a much-loved wife Carol, Angela as a projection of his own daughter Jane.
I think this is on the right track because check out this quote from Ball:
Lester’s a man who in midlife has completely lost his passion about living, as do many people who have mind-numbing corporate jobs. And he knows that he needs to get back in touch with that passion, and Angela [his daughter’s Lolita-like girlfriend, played by Mena Suvari] is the catalyst for that. But he thinks she’s the goal and she’s really just the knock on the door. At the risk of sounding incredibly lofty and pretentious, he needs to get back in touch with his spiritual connection to living. And he does, you know, right before he dies. Better then than never!
“He thinks she’s the goal (Want) and she’s really just the knock on the door… he needs to get back in touch which his spiritual connection to living.”
Lester Burnham is a great example of a Protagonist, like so many in movies, who has a Want and a Need. The emergence of their Need, during their Deconstruction-Reconstruction process, feeds and often reorients their thinking, fueling their transformation process.
How about you? What did you see when you read American Beauty?
To see all of the posts in the 30 Days of Screenplays series, go here.
This series and use of screenplays is for educational purposes only!