No Trespassing (Story)

Peggy and her boyfriend Tommy were driving down a lonely stretch of highway at dusk when a thunderstorm came crashing down on them. Tommy slowed the car and they crept their way past a formidable abandoned house. Plastered all over the fences and trees were no trespassing signs. 

A mile past the house, the car hydroplaned. Peggy screamed as the car slid off the road, plunging down into a gully. The car slammed into a large boulder, throwing Peggy violently into the door, before it came to a rest under a pecan tree. Her head banged against the window, and a stabbing pain shot through her shoulder and arm. 

Tommy turned to her. “Are you all right? You’re bleeding!” 

“Arm, shoulder. Feel bad,” Peggy managed to gasp.

Tommy glanced cautiously at her right arm. “I think your arm is broken,” he said, and he tore a strip off his shirt and pressed it to the cut on her head. “I’m going to call for help,” he said when it became obvious that the bleeding was not going to stop right away. But neither of them had their cell phones.

“That house we just passed will have a phone I can use.” Tommy said. 

Peggy’s eyes popped wide open at this statement. Despite her pain, she remembered the creepy abandoned house. “Stay here. A . . . car . . . will come,” 

“I can’t stay, Peggy,” Tommy said, “It could take hours for another car to come, and you‘re losing too much blood.” He tore another strip of his shirt and placed it gently on the cut on her head. Then he went out and retrieved a couple of blankets from the trunk to cover her with. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He raced out into the storm, shutting the dented car door behind him. 

Peggy drifted in a kind of daze. Something at the back of her mind was making her uneasy. She slid down on to the floor and put her head on the seat, completely covering herself with the blankets, head and all. Feeling safer, she allowed the weariness caused by the wounds to take over and fell asleep.

Peggy wasn’t sure what woke her. Had a beam of light shown briefly through the blanket? Did she hear someone curse outside? She strained eyes and ears, but heard nothing save the soft thudding of the rain, and no light shown through the blanket now. If Tommy had arrived with the rescue squad, there surely would be noise and light and many voices. But she heard nothing save the swish of the rain and an occasional thumping noise which she put down to the rubbing of the branches of the pecan tree in the wind. The sound should have been comforting, but it was not. Goosebumps crawled across her arms – even the broken one -- and she almost ceased breathing for some time as some deep part of her inner mind instructed her to freeze and not make a sound. 

She did not know how long fear kept her immobile. But suddenly the raw terror ceased, replaced by cold shivers of apprehension and a sick coil in her stomach that had nothing to do with her injuries. Something terrible had happened, she thought wearily, fear adding yet more fatigue to her already wounded body. Then she scolded herself for a ninny. It was just her sore head making her imagine things. Somewhat comforted by this thought, she dozed again, only vaguely aware of a new sound that had not been there before; a soft thud-thud sound as of something gently tapping the roof. Thud-thud. Pattering of the rain. Thud-thud. Silence. Sometimes she would almost waken and listen to it in a puzzled manner. Thud-thud. Patter of rain. Thud-thud. Had a branch dislodged from the tree? 

Peggy wasn’t sure how long she’d been unconscious when she was awakened by a bright light blazing through the window of the car and the sound of male voices exclaiming in horror. A door was wrenched open, and someone crawled inside. She lifted her head and looked up at a young state policeman.

“Miss, are you all right?” he asked and then turned over his shoulder to call for help. Peggy told the officers her story and begged them to look for Tommy. They deftly avoided answering her and instead called the paramedics. 

As the paramedics carried her carefully up the slope of the incline, Peggy looked back at the car—and saw a grotesque figure hanging from a branch of the pecan tree. For a moment, her brain couldn’t decipher what she was seeing in the bright lights of the police car parked at the side of the road. Then she heard a thud-thud sound as the foot of the figure scraped the top of the totaled car, and she started screaming over and over in horror. One of the police officers hastened to block her view and a paramedic fumbled for some Valium to give her as her mind finally registered what she had seen. Tommy’s mangled, dead body was hanging from the pecan tree just above the car, and nailed to the center of his chest was a No Trespassing sign.

American Beauty

Given that Lester Burnham said in the opening shot of American Beauty was going to die, the ending was, in a way, already in poor condition. However, it is much more than the stock selling climax of the movie, images and music come together to form a truly beautiful and moving culmination of the various arcs of characters, without the need for an explicit dialogue or torrents of exposure .

The late Roger Ebert once said that this film:

All these emotional threads meet during a dark and stormy night, when a series of misunderstandings so strange they belong in a sitcom. And in the end, somehow, improbably, the film snatches victory from the jaws of defeat by Lester, his hero. Not the kind of victory would result in a feel-good movie, but the kind where you try something important, if only to himself.

This is perhaps the revealing feature of the image; "Beauty" American Beauty. The film is heavy in its final act, when the most part had been almost a cheerful and comic to the trials and tribulations of suburban America look. But the ease and mastery of such emotional significance is - not only a credit to the actors and director (Sam Mendes) - the mark of a script sharpness and a screenwriter really a sign of his office was given. Taking its dialogue and wonderful story out of the equation gives such statement, as history fully capable of telling the story through images alone.

Perhaps the first thing to focus first is the use of color and motif. Throughout the entire film, rose, American Beauty, was often a symbol of lust and desire to Lester and Angela. In his fantasies, the girl is wrapped in roses, covering her body, betraying the fact that these are, in fact, his passionate reflections rather than reality. When Lester however, kills the viewer can detect a bouquet of roses set on the counter beside his body. The image is striking; because the flower had been so associated with sexuality and infatuation seems a little odd to reappear in death.

What does this suggest? What does that mean? Well, it could be any of a number of things. Remember that this is not the first time the public sees these flowers are a recurring motif throughout fact. Showing them again here, in a non-sexual (and indeed, in real life) scenario you could say that symbolize the contributing factor why Lester had to be killed. It was his wish. His dissatisfaction with a worldly existence. His desire to ignore the responsibilities of a materialistic way of life, and the way they approached the job of weathering the storm there was a midlife crisis. These are the feelings and emotions of American Beauty it represents and its presence in this scene solidify the theory that these are the things that led to his untimely death Lester.

It's almost like Lester's lust for Angela lit the fuse throughout the downward spiral of events. If he had not obsessed with her, he had not started working out. If I had not started working out, Colonel Fitts would not have seen him working out naked. If Colonel Fitts had not seen him, I would not have thought that his son, Ricky, was sleeping with him. Then I would not have come out as gay and tried to kiss Lester; and if he had not, he would not have been driven to kill him. It was beauty killed the beast.

However, do not forget the meaning of the red color represents in the film - danger. Why is this so? It is because it is the color of blood? writer Jim Emerson draws attention to a quote from Jean-Luc Godard is no blood is red, "referring to his 1965 film Pierrot le fou. Maybe that's why the color works so well in that sense, it is a symbol of blood, and therefore, a subconscious indicator death and danger.

That certainly is the case of the closing sequence in American Beauty. Not only the color of the flowers, indicate the imminent demise of Lester Burnham, but yes, but hold in a number of other shots to create suspense and string along the audience subconsciously asked what character killed the protagonist. Every minor character in the aftermath of the death of Lester is using or near anything that is red. A more detailed analysis, you might even suggest that the amount of red shown in the United States each shot along strings as the identity of the murderer gradually revealed.

For example, Angela puts on red lipstick in the bathroom when the Ball. Ricky and Jane are lying on the bed sheets red. Carolyn wears a red dress - and holding a gun - which leads us to believe that he can be her. Finally, we see Colonel Fitts blood cake with the murder weapon. The color becomes more and more prominent as to the murderer inches, which could be read as growing advice as to the likelihood that these characters are the executioner (Angela at least, Colonel Fitts most).

Color and supports however, are not the only things that really progress the story and most importantly, the message. One has to think about camera angles, camera work and editing, and the ability to work together. When the gun is pressed Lester's head, the camera moves away from the gun and beyond the American beauties before the shot was fired. This will not only add to the ambiguity of the scene, but also sets the guesswork film that follows.

In a move similar camera, monitoring camera side as each character is shot here, passing by at that fleeting moment. Not only this chronicle of his reaction to the sound, which helps to clear his name of any wrongdoing. However, it also sets the flashback sequence. As the camera moves across the sky, moving through the cast of characters, their reactions and eventually moves to the identity of the murderer. This is where the issue really helps tell the viewer what is happening. Lester past scenes are spliced ​​with the current chain of events, indicated by a change in color palette to black and white. This gives an idea of ​​what it feels like Lester as his life flashes before his eyes. He is looking back on his best memories in his last moments.

However, this may say more? These minute windows in a past that have never seen or been part of so far. The only thing we have known throughout the film is the continuing dissatisfaction with the materialistic tendencies Lester of America nineties. This is what meant Ebert in his review of the film. As Lester dies, snatching the lives of those few things that make you the happiest - or most of the content. It was never about the sofa, or ass-kissing by him ( "everything is just matter," jokes earlier in the film), no, Lester it was redefining itself as something that matters, something visible but with a feeling so intangible. Like the plastic bag floating in the wind on the final shot, which refers to the only existing, were carried out in this thing called life - and he was there to enjoy the ride. Think of it as a club of the fight of the middle class.

Alan Ball and Sam Mendes had something really important to say with American Beauty - it's just amazing that they were able to do with nothing but such beautiful images.