A

Movies reviewed here...
At Close Range
American Beauty

Reviewed by E. Leon Anderson, Ohio University

This feature film, starring Sean Penn and Christopher Walkin, is a movie with a powerful double punch. It combines superb acting and cinematography with a brutally violent tale of crime, filial love, and parental betrayal based on a true 1978 story. The film also provides a fine-textured study of a young man's search for identity, which is well suited for use in courses on crime and deviance.

As the story begins, we find Brad Whitewood, Jr. drifting through his late teens as a rural Pennsylvania semidelinquent. The only focus in this young man's life beyond television, popping pills, and smoking marijuana appears to be his budding romance with Terry, a 16-year old farm girl (played by Mary Stuart Masterson).

Enter Brad Sr., who shows up one afternoon at the family home to give some money to his ex-wife. Brad Sr. has been away so long that neither he nor his son recognizes the other. "Little Brad" is fascinated with his father's brief appearance and smooth-talking, big-spender style. When he is thrown out of the house by his mother's live-in lover. Brad Jr. calls his father, who takes him in and introduces him to the Whitewood gang. The son is slowly drawn into the gang, out of admiration for his father as well as for more instrumental reasons. Father and son feed on identification with each other. As they drive together through the countryside, the father exclaims, "Anything that moves has a name written on it: 'Bradford Whitewood. Hold for Delivery.' "Little Brad replies with proud recognition,' "That's my name too."

Brad Jr. and his youngest brother form their own juvenile gang, modeled on their father's exploits, and before long Brad Jr. has a chance to join up with his dad. The son wins over the cold-hearted gang members with his guts and enterprise. The close identification between a proud father and his son is short- lived, however. When Little Brad witnesses the gang's cold- hearted murder of a police informant, he is repulsed and tries to dissociate himself from his father and the gang. Seeking a way out, he schemes with his sweetheart to run away to Montana, but is arrested when he and his buddies attempt a tractor theft. As he sits in jail, he is questioned by the FBI, which has convened a grand jury investigation of his father's doings. The son staunchly refuses to cooperate, telling them, "I don't say nothing against family." When Brad Sr. rapes his son's girlfriend, however, Brad Jr. angrily begins to tell what he knows.

Meanwhile, the father and his gang kill off members of the juvenile gang, fearing their turning witness to the grand jury. When Brad Jr. is released from jail, he rushes to get out of town with his girlfriend, fearing for their lives. As they prepare to leave, however, they are shot in the car and left dead. The drama has taken its final sinister turn.

Slowly the car door opens, Brad Jr. lurches from the car, blood dripping from his shoes. After washing himself he goes in search of his father. In the following scene Penn gives a sensational performance, confronting his father about the string of killings. Holding a gun in his father's head, Brad Jr. is primed to kill, but doesn't. "No," he tells his father, "no, I ain't you." The search for identity has come full circle now, as the son defines himself in opposition to his father.

The final scene reinforces the painful recognition as Brad Jr. is called to testify against Brad Sr. When asked by the attorney what their relationship is, the son chokes and can barely respond. Finally, with tears in his eyes, he blurts agonizingly, "He's my father."

At Close Range can breathe a powerful dramatic air of idiographic reality into deviance and criminality courses, which are so often characterized by a recitation of disembodied theories and statistics. The knowledge that the movie is based on a true story adds an edge of authority and power. The movie lends itself well to discussions of anomie, differential association, and control theories. It can be used to help students work through theoretical ideas with concrete examples. I find the film particularly suited to a discussion and a writing assignment based on the idea in Chapter 2 of Erdwin Pfuhl Jr.'s Deviance Process. In this chapter, "Breaking Rules," Pfuhl outlines the interactionist perspective on the individual's orientation to rule-breaking behavior. Drawing on Matza, he emphasizes the relationship among personal biography, affinity, and self-ordination. He also treats the issue of the various ways in which "supportive others" can enhance an individual's propensity for deviant acts, and the issue of motivation for engaging in deviant behavior. I have found the following two questions based on this chapter particularly useful:

1) At what points in the movie does Brad Jr. change his orientation in regard to criminal activity (both for or against)? Why does he change? That is, how does the protagonist relate who he is to who his father is and to what they are doing? How does he define himself and the criminal activity? At what crucial points do these definitions change?

2) Discuss what motive(s) Brad Jr. had for engaging in deviant activities. Did he have one motive or more than one? Did his motive(s) change during the course of the movie? How? Why?

Students' response to this assignment has been highly favorable. Their papers and discussion helped me assess their grasp of conceptual material and the need for further discussion.

The only problem I found with the movie is that Brad Sr. is characterized as pure evil, which enables some students to cling to notions of deviance as a black-and-white, all-or-nothing affair. For this reason I find it imperative to focus discussion questions fairly exclusively on Brad Jr., with whom almost all students feel at least some sympathy.

American Beauty

Reviewed by Caroline Leng

People are often very passionate about movies; they either "love" them or "hate" them. When I told my roommate I was writing a paper on Sam Mendes', American Beauty, she heatedly exclaimed her distaste for "that movie" and told me, "Some things did not need to be portrayed in a movie." After I questioned those feelings that made her uncomfortable she stormed away from the table and was under the impression that I was attacking her beliefs. Few people react in this extreme manner, but I have found that when questioned specifically about their thoughts on American Beauty, not a single person said that it was "just okay." Although not one movie review of this film has dubbed it as such, I believe American Beauty to be a religious film according to Spranger's Religious Values.

The list of Spranger Values declares that, "the highest value for the religious man may be called unity" (Reel Values, 13). My claim is that in American Beauty, Lester Burnam played by Kevin Spacey is on a search for "unity with a higher reality" and accomplishes it on the last day of his life. Another might argue Esthetic as the primary value of this movie, and unless otherwise educated, I would have previously agreed. Throughout the movie Burnam is experiencing an extreme mid-life crisis. He fanaticizes about his sixteen-year-old daughter's friend, Angela, quits his job for one with "the least amount of responsibility," buys his dream car and begins to smoke marijuana. It seems as though "each single impression is enjoyed for its own sake," and that his "chief interest [is] in the artistic episodes in life," which would make him an esthetic man (12). This idea is contradicted several times throughout the movie, however. At the outset of the movie, Lester Burnam introduces himself in a monologue saying, "I have lost something. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but I know I didn't always feel this sedated. But you know what? It's never too late to get it back." Without knowing it, Lester has set off on a journey to find beauty, or unity.

Burnam begins his travel when his boss informs him of their company's downsizing. He tells Lester that "management" is what assigns value to people and salvation occurs when management deems it necessary. Burnam decries this to his wife, "alright, let's just all sell out souls and work for Satan cuz it's more convenient that way." Lester, much to Carolyn Burnam's chagrin, refuses to let a company define his worth and he quits, not before manipulating a deal providing him with a full years salary with benefits. His fantasies about Angels provoke him to get in shape, which enhances his lifestyle. He lusts for the beautiful teenager and imagines that his culminating point would be when they made love, so he diligently works toward that point. He claims, "I'm just an ordinary guy with nothing to lose."

Lester Burnam is given a magnificent foil; his wife Carolyn, played by Annette Benning. She is a very prominent economic valued person who is "characteristically interested in what is useful" (12). She is very practical and often confuses luxury with beauty, wanting to surpass others in wealth (13). She thinks that crying is a sign of weakness and often slaps her own face to quell these pent up emotions. Her husband is exasperated with what she has become, and she views him as a "complete loser" for not sharing in her quest for material goods. Lester declares, "This isn't life! This is just stuff and it's become more important to you than living. Well honey, that's just nuts - I'm only trying to help you." The interactions between Lester and Carolyn are often angry and heated arguments, leaving the audience with feelings of pity for their broken marriage. These scenes only further exemplify Lester's religious quest for a purpose in his life.

This movie is almost pantheistic in nature. God is equated with beauty and each symbolic reference is about finding the beauty in everything: death, falling stars, family, and yellow maple leaves. Burnam's parallel character is his eighteen-year-old next-door neighbor, Ricky Fitts. Ricky is a much more obviously religious character in that his, "mental structure is permantly directed to the creation of the highest and absolutely satisfying value experience" (13). Lester states in awe that Ricky is his personal hero. Ricky films everything he encounters as if to preserve that moment in time for everlasting future enjoyment. One such insightful experience he states was when he saw a dead homeless woman on the streets of New York City. "When you see something like that it's like God is looking right at you - just for a second. And if you're careful you can look right back." Ricky Fitts sees beauty in the face of God projecting through death. He sees it again in the borderline morbid scene of Lester's murder; Ricky steps closer, eyes fixated on Lester's still warm face.

On the whole, American Beauty was an amazingly well crafted movie that obviously required thought for every aspect of each scene. While not religious from the Christian vantage point, I do think that this movie possesses very strong religious undertones. Lester Burnam eventually breaks down all the barriers in his life and comes to the realization that he is in love with his family and nothing should hinder him from expressing that love. Ironically, his sexually repressed, homosexual, homophobic neighbor shoots Lester the moment he comes to grasp his unity with the world. This dark comedy leaves the audience with no remorse for his death because he achieved his purpose; his life was complete. Lester's parallel character, Ricky continues living and absorbing the beauty in his surroundings. Carolyn breaks down and comes to grips with her inability to be in control of everything when she walks in her closet, grasps at all of Lester's clothing and crumples into tears. The postmortem Lester Burnam tells the audience, "I guess I should be pretty pissed off about what happened to me, but it's hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty in the world...I feel gratitude for every single moment of my stupid life. You have no idea what I'm talking about I'm sure. But don't worry, you will someday." Not everyone will understand my claim that religion permeates this film, but that is acceptable. Someday, people will realize that viewing scenes that make them uncomfortable need to be portrayed so that they can grow spiritually.