The Rose of England

Sam Mendes tells a black comic tale of American suburbia.

Rich in detailed characters, with a winding storyline that uncoils itself like a king cobra, American Beauty is a nightmarish story of suburban awakening. Chalk that up to director Sam Mendes, his choice of actors and his wise way with a script that’s delicious as is. There’s something of the prestidigitator in Mendes, the British-born theater director whose credits include The Rise and Fall of Little Voice (with Jane Horrocks), Troilus and Cressida (with Ralph Fiennes) and The Cherry Orchard (with Judi Dench). In the United States, it’s Mendes’ Broadway restaging of Cabaret with Natasha Richardson and the bare-assed The Blue Room with Nicole Kidman that won him favor. As he did for those stage productions, Mendes took his film debut’s look from the works of favorite painters. He called from Los Angeles, anxious about the look and the fate of his film.

Q: Do you find it annoying that people think you’ll never return to the stage simply because you’ve done a movie?

A: (laughs) Yes. Ugh. There’s a sort of arrogance in the film world that goes "surely you don’t want to go back to this" once you’ve made the big time. Theater is a more romantic process, literally, as the play emerges organically from the mist. There’s more mystery on a theatrical set than on a movie set. Film is about extreme practicality — like building a garden shed. Film is romantic in the cutting room.

Q: Couldn’t a lengthy or in-depth rehearsal process combat that?

A: Yes. We did do a valuable two and a half weeks. But I had to fight for it. People try to drag you away to do other silly things. I had to insist on staying and getting eight hours a day rehearsal time. In that time, the actors become their own authors as well as friends.

Q: Jump back to Cabaret and Blue Room. What were you looking to infuse those plays with visually? And with those plays as a model, how did you enter the normally cluttered world of suburbia?

A: For Cabaret I was influenced by ’30s art: Otto Dix, George Grosz. I wanted a rougher club atmosphere, a raucous, mischievous sexuality. Blue Room was an experiment about the impossibility of conducting relationships at the end of the 20th century. That was influenced by my theater space in London, the Donmar Warehouse, which is really a deep roughshod spot. The aesthetic that the Donmar imposes is very freeing; it has nothing to do with scenery. I hate scenery. I like atmosphere.

For American suburbia I took away all clutter. I was inspired by Magritte, Edward Hopper and Diane Arbus. I wanted simple poetry and compositional emptiness — very linear. I wanted stillness and isolation, coolness. I wanted a lonely world. Plus [cinematographer] Conrad Hall is a genius with light. He embraced the storyboards. The reds and hot colors in the first half were limited to the rose petals and the front door. That is a journey to the blood at the end. The colors tell the story of escape from imprisonment. The characters are imprisoned from the start and through rites of passage are liberated.

Q: Was it difficult to find young actors who could radiate adult strength up against a Kevin Spacey or an Annette Bening? What were you looking for in your young cast?

A: I wanted something knowing. I was aware that these three kids — Wes Bentley, Thora Birch, Mena Suvari — had to be still. To look and to watch and to play the complexities of these characters. Though Wes’ is the unexpected turn, Mena especially had to be one person for the majority of the movie, then [act] as an object of Lester/Spacey’s fantasy, then reveal herself in the third person. And she’s utterly moving when she reveals that vulnerability. I saw a lot of kids. I was amazed at how many great kid actors turned up. These were young roles that didn’t talk down to youth. It wasn’t fucking a piece of pie.

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