American Beauty (1999 film) as Lester and Angela get closer, finally taking the roses—and thus Carolyn—out of the shot. Lester's epiphany at the end of the film is expressed by rain and the use of red, building to a crescendo that is a deliberate contrast to the release Lester feels. The constant use of red "lulls [the audience] subliminally" into becoming used to it; consequently, it leaves the audience unprepared when Lester is shot and his blood spatters on the wall. Pennington argues that "American Beauty" defines its characters through their sexuality. Lester's attempts to relive his youth are a direct result of his
Carolyn Rouse in the people around her, which prompted a turn toward documentary film, then eventually a master's in visual anthropology and a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Southern California. Rouse's siblings are both academics; her brother is a professor of physics and her sister, Cecilia Rouse, is the dean of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Rouse's brother-in-law (Cecilia's husband) is Ford Morrison, son of Nobel Prize-winning author and Princeton professor emeritus Toni Morrison. Carolyn Rouse Carolyn Moxley Rouse (born c. 1965) is an anthropologist, professor and filmmaker. She is Professor and Chair of the Department