American Beauty (1999 Sam Mendes)

"Like you pointed out earlier, I don't quite understand what I'm doing most of the time... I just feel it" - Conrad Hall to Sam Mendes. Magritte and Edward Hopper come up in conversation over Sam's beautifully drawn, well-prepared storyboards in which he sounds like he definitely knows his film shit (referencing The Apartment and Welles' Othello). But Conrad would often bring a new idea, especially for the shot, and in bringing 'peace' to a scene. Mendes also comments on how Conrad often lights the foreground of a shot with a key light to give it depth where most people would light the background. In fact if you look at it, it's often the thing that isn't important to a scene that is lit.

Conrad's initial problem - that the audience might not feel empathy for the lead character - was dealt with by Mendes asking him 'Don't you ever have bad thoughts, eye your daughter's girlfriend?' But Sam admits having had that conversation was important for him to keep in mind.

The acting is also great and it's odd how little you hear of Thora Birch, Wes Bentley and Mena Suvari (good). With Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening (particularly good), Chris Cooper, Allison Janney and Peter Gallagher.

Conrad catches that red symbol the whole way through, and that ending (gun pans to head, pans to wall, to red) is one of those unbeatable cinematic moments, as is camera chasing plastic bag. Really well written by Alan Ball, with a tremendous and simple score by Thomas Newman (using all manner of exotic percussions) who with Bening and editors Tariq Anwar and Christopher Greenbury were Oscar nominated - wins went to film, director, screenplay, actor and cinematography.