American Beauty

Paper Summary:

This paper is an examination of the film, American Beauty, directed by Sam Mendes, looking at one of the Oedipal structures in the film and considering why this particular relationship holds such fascination. The relationship studied is that of the Fitts family

From the Paper:

" This paper is an examination of the film, American Beauty, directed by Sam Mendes, looking at one of the Oedipal structures in the film and considering why this particular relationship holds such fascination. The relationship studied is that of the Fitts family. The father, a career Marine, rules the family with a strict hand, but he is unable to control the fact that his discipline has turned his wife into a nearly catatonic figure and his son into an extremely successful drug dealer and voyeur. By the film's end, the son has rebelled against the father and managed to destroy him, in a remarkable completion of the Oedipus myth, as reinterpreted by Freud. The story is compelling and involving, in part because of some exquisite performances that help to illuminate the complex psychology of the participants and in part because the story, even though extreme, is so..."

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