Work of Art. American Beauty.

Lester: “I'd always heard your entire life flashes before your eyes a second before you die. First of all, that one second isn't a second at all. It stretches on forever, like an ocean of time. For me, it was lying on my back at Boy Scout camp, watching falling stars. And yellow leaves from the maple trees that lined our street. Or my grandmother's hands, and the way her skin seemed like paper. And the first time I saw my cousin Tony's brand-new Firebird. And Janie. And Janie. And ... Carolyn. I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me, but its hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst. Then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain, and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life. You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry. You will someday. “


This clip is the ending scene from "American Beauty" is the story of middle-aged Lester Burnham who has recently found himself in a mid-life crisis. He begins to question how he is living life or actually is not living. He decides to make changes and finds himself quitting his job, buying a mustang, and working out. With his new change he describes his wife’s distance from their marriage and her recent developed affair. Lester also realizes he does not know his teenage daughter and she also knows very little about him in return.

I found the ending scene to this movie an example of the deepest and most personal confession made in art. Lester faces the greatest shock of all in the movie, discovering life was racing past him while he forgets he was even alive. Like many of the poets, Lester was depressed and stuck in a life he did not even recognize. The scene I chose is my favorite of the entire film because of the clarity in Lester’s thoughts and his remembrance of the simple things in life because nothing really simple that simple as we become older. The dark film finds light in its message to live simply and openly to everything around one’s life. It questions what memory will be your most cherished, your most beautiful. The film questions the phrase, “a second before you die your life flashed before your eyes“, but how do you fill an entire life in one second. I think Lester is right when he says it stretches out much longer than it, your life stretches out like an ocean, forever. What we fear in life is what cripples us from living at times and finding ourselves simply getting by. Confessional poetry is a release of all that fear. Poets put it out into the world as a way to rid themselves of it, so maybe, just maybe they can truly live. If they do purge themselves of all that cripples them how do they really know they are living. Signs of living are similar to Lester’s thoughts, it is genuine happiness that you feel from your core by being yourself without any phoniness. It is seeing everything in your pretentious, sometimes empty life and finding it beautiful. There is beauty out in the world and it is not the typical kind apparent to each eye. It is hidden under darkness and becomes brighter with each moment one stops and look. Lester attempts to find beauty by throwing away all of his responsibilities and cynicism as a way to find himself and truly life. In the end he has no anger for the man that killed him because he finds the living after death much large than how he was living before.