Subject: Re: American Beauty
From: Mattis Fishman (mattis@argoscomp.com)
Date: Tue Feb 22 2000 - 12:54:53 EST
Dear Fishes,
I appreciate all of the comments that have followed my remarks
about the movie, American Beauty (I, like Ed Fenning and
most of my generation, start humming "Sugar Magnolia" at the mention of
these words). I certainly see your points and must disqualify myself
from further discussion due to not having actually seen the movie.
It is obvious that a movie-viewer's impressions are shaped by much more
than the script.
I am sure that I had mistakenly assumed that the one-dimensional negative
nature of the characters which struck me, would be obvious to anyone
who had seen the file, even it had been obscured by the drama of
the murder and the mysticism of our videoholic seer. I am more than
willing to admit that it was a film about personal development of the
main characters, and not about the American Dream, and even willing to
admit that the movie does not cast its characters in the negative way
which I perceived. This is pretty much saying that we are not discussing
the same work, so all bets are off.
As for the American Dream, and a paradigm outside of culture, I think
it should be noted that it is one simply outside of *American* culture
that is the issue. For my part, though, I do not believe that my remarks
were at all connected to anyone's vision of this Dream, but rather
to what I perceived was an oversimplified portrayal of failed, corrupted,
people (and our willingness to embrace this portrayal), a perception
which, I repeat, was not necessarily accurate.
such a long, long time to be gone, and a short time to be here,
all the best,
Mattis
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