Both Citizen Kane and American Beauty's opening scenes reveal what we the audience believe is the climax. In Citizen Kane we first discover a mansion with a No Trust passing sign and in it is a older man holding onto a snow globe. Kane being the man, then says his last words "Rosebud" the only one to hear Kane's last words is his nurse who then reports it to press and becomes the center of attention. Who is Rosebud? What is Rosebud? What does it mean? The entire movie focuses on Rosebud and its significants.
Through out the movie we learn about Kane's life and we look through the eyes of others to tell us his story and what Rosebud could possibly mean. Though in his life many people just looked at his money more than they did he. By the end of Citizen Kane we view his things burning and learn that Rosebud was his sled and its significance is him not being able to have a childhood, which was the one thing he truely missed and wanted. Once his childhood was taken innocence and happiness was gone too, his life raised into money forced him to be this way. This movie also says to the audience materialistic things does not matter but more what u do with yourself and how you let those materials affect your life.
In American Beauty we see a different approach about death and power. In this movie the protagonist is Lester Burnham, Lester is literally crying out for help, his life has fallen from its climax and at a crucial stand still. To change it another character who also finds Lester's daughter his main interest begins to bring his youth back which also comes with pride, and hope with a side of fries.
Lester begins to take life not as serious, and begins doing things he use to want to do but never had the chance to.
We also know Lester will die by the end of the movie but we don't know how
"My name is Lester Burnham. This is my street. This is my neighborhood. This is my life. I am 42 years old. In less than a year, I will be dead. Of course, I don't know that yet, and in a way, I'm dead already. Look at me, jerking off in the shower. This will be the highlight of my day. It's all downhill from here. That's my wife Carolyn. See the way the handle on those pruning shears match her gardening clogs ? That's not an accident. That's our neighbor, Jim, and that's his lover, Jim. Man, I get exhausted just watching her. She wasn't always like this. She used to be happy. We used to be happy. My daughter, Jane. Only child. Janie's a pretty typical teenager - angry, insecure, confused. I wish I could tell her that's all going to pass, but I don't want to lie to her. Both my wife and daughter think I'm this gigantic loser. And they're right. 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."
As we see Lester moving himself past his midlife crisis we also see his death, the one happy part where we the audience thinks about him changing is the part where he dies. An average man who gained confidence just getting use to his life.
The design elements of both movies together suggest that we play mind games with ourselves, making our own labyrinth in our lives, bars and columns were very excessive in both movies having the feeling of being trapped.
We also see the different meanings for colors:
Red- flowers in the black and white film,Citizen Kane, and red in American Beauty all represented DESIRE and LUST
Blue- seemed to have an ENLIGHTENMENT feeling on each character.
White- the white bag....represented freedom a sense of mortality.
