Lighting and Mood for American Beauty

Watching Sam Mendes's 2000 movie "American Beauty" made me think how much the lighting can affect the design and mood of a scene.

The scene i chose to comment on is the second family dinner, whereby Lester is forced by Carolyn (his wife) to tell his daughter Jane about his day at work. Lester cheerily tells his daughter that he quit and blackmailed his boss for almost sixty thousand dollars. Lester and Carolyn then begin to fight viciously,Lester greeting Carolyn's belittling statements with sarcasm and vitriol of his own.

The bright light is now covering the whole table, this light brings out a different mood to the scene. Following this, around the table is dark. The different shades of light shows the intensity of this scene. The light that is directly aimed at the whole table shows how they would love a normal family dinner. However, the darkness around the table shows the anger and emptiness in the family affairs. This scene marks a hard turn in the movie, whereby Lester (Kevin Spacey) starts to live for himself, and in my opinon the best moment to bring it up in the movie.