Studying American Beauty, Jeremy Points, Auteur 2004, £14.99, 86pp ISBN 190366327

Jeremy Points’ A4 sized book on how to study American Beauty (Sam Mendes’ first feature film, released in 1999, based on Alan Ball’s script) covers areas familiar to Film Studies teachers from the ‘the look’ to, via representation, product, distribution, exhibition and reception. As Jeremy is WJEC’s subject officer for film it’s not surprising that he’s more than au fait with the spec; though the guide isn’t designed specifically for this course.

It’s good to see as much emphasis given to the industrial side of the business as the ‘fun’ part of actually watching and analysing the films. As you might imagine, 86 A4 pages, using a three-column grid, there is little of the film that’s left untouched. The layout allows for sidebars of extra information, whether it be explaining who William Blake was or the role of the cinematographer. In addition, the book is liberally strewn (actually the layout is better than this adjective suggests) with stills from the film.

The book is aimed both at the teacher and student, a dual-address that probably has its roots in the commercial prerogative. There are several worksheets that are designed differently from the body of text, presumably with a view to being photocopied (though this isn’t stated) but the address of the main text implies the ‘you’ is a student. This isn’t a big problem. I tried the second, designed (implicitly) to aid students with their ‘micro’ analysis, and it was deemed useful by my neophytes.

The purpose of mining virtually every conceivable approach to individual films from one film is also left unstated. Granted I’m not a fan of the film (though I must confess I shall need to revisit it after discussion based on this book) and I find it hard to imagine ploughing through this text start to finish. Whilst there are obvious benefits from looking at a film from numerous perspectives, how many people could stand to watch the film again after being exposed to Points’ erudition?

And despite the tremendous amount of work that’s gone into this book a number of omissions do concern me. For example, Barthes, Propp and Shklovsky share less than a column between them and to state that "American Beauty is not a 'genre film'"(p.22) is dubious in the extreme. Surely it is a male melodrama, with its focus on a dysfunctional family? In addition, the avant-garde nature of Ricky’s videos is skated over. I could also pick up some points in the industry section.

That said, I can’t imagine colleagues going far wrong with this as a guide and it will be of great use to those new to teaching the subject. I’m less sure how useful it would be for students. The stills, screen grabs from the DVD are of variable quality, (unsurprisingly) black and white, and, to my taste, too small.

Nick Lacey