North by Northwest & American Beauty

           Having never seen North by Northwest before I was skeptical on how suspenseful a movie from 1959 could actually be when compared to today’s suspense movies.  I was quite blown back by how well Alfred Hitchcock was able to make this a suspenseful movie.  The movie kept me in suspense throughout the entire film.  Hitchcock used several establishing shots in this movie.  For me, two of these really stuck out.  The first was the establishing shot of the United Nations Headquarters.  The second was the establishing shot of Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota.  The house on the top of Mt. Rushmore reminded me very much of a place I have visited in Pennsylvania.  This place was Falling waters, which was the home to the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright.  After doing research the house was a set that Hitchcock wanted to look like buildings designed by Wright.

            Arguably the most famous scene in the whole movie is the crop duster scene.  I knew Thornhill was being set-up and that he wasn’t actually meeting up with Kaplan in the middle of nowhere.  It gave me a great sense of suspense as to what was going to happen to Thornhill.  When the car had pulled up and let the guy out who was waiting for the bus out, I thought for sure he was sent there to kill Thornhill, or Kaplan.  I saw the crop duster in the background, but never paid it any attention until then man noticed something funny.  He turned to Thornhill and states that it was weird that the crop duster wasn’t actually dusting any crops.  At that moment I had a gut feeling it would be coming after Thornhill.   To me that was the best scene of the movie, and most action packed.

            I have only ever seen bits and pieces of American Beauty.  After watching the whole movie I thought it was pretty good.  We learn right away that Lester will die by the end of the movie, and it had me guessing the entire time how he was going to die.  It created a sense of suspension right from the get go.  My first suspect was Ricky because after Jane had been complaining about her father, Ricky had asked if he wanted him dead and she said yes.  That lead me to believe Ricky was going to kill him.  I think we are giving hints to his true murderer early on.  After the gay neighbors welcome Ricky and his father to town, Ricky and his father have a discussion about how homosexuals make them want to barf.  We learn right away Ricky’s father is uncomfortable with the idea.  It wasn’t until after Lester is dead that I realized it wasn’t his wife who shot him, but rather it was Ricky’s father.

            The red roses are used as a motif throughout the movie.  They symbolize true love.  I think it’s interesting how whenever roses are involved in Lester’s dreams about Angela, they are rose pedals, and everywhere else in the movie they are full roses.  To me this symbolizes a false love.  A full rose represents love, but when you take it to just rose pedals, it’s not really a rose anymore.  So in Lester’s dreams the love is real to him, but when he finally gets to the moment to have her, he realizes that it was never real love, but just lust.