Editing American Beauty (1999 film) (section)

===Multiple interpretations===
Scholars and academics have offered many possible readings of ''American Beauty''; film critics are similarly divided, not so much about the quality of the film, as their interpretations of it.<ref name="booth 129">{{harvnb|Booth|2002|p=129}}</ref> Described by many as about "the meaning of life" or "the hollow existence of the American suburbs",<ref>{{harvnb|Hall|2006|p=23}}</ref> the film has defied categorization by even the filmmakers. Mendes is indecisive, saying the script seemed to be about something different each time he read it: "a mystery story, a kaleidoscopic journey through American suburbia, a series of love stories;&nbsp;... it was about imprisonment,&nbsp;... loneliness, [and] beauty. It was funny; it was angry, sad."<ref name="booth 126" />

Literary critic and author [[Wayne C. Booth]] concludes that the film resists any one interpretation: "[''American Beauty''] cannot be adequately summarized as 'here is a satire on what's wrong with American life'; that plays down the celebration of beauty. It is more tempting to summarize it as 'a portrait of the beauty underlying American miseries and misdeeds', but that plays down the scenes of cruelty and horror, and Ball's disgust with [[mores]]. It cannot be summarized with either Lester or Ricky's philosophical statements about what life is or how one should live."<ref name="booth 129" /> He argues that the problem of interpreting the film is tied with that of finding its center—a controlling voice who "[unites] all of the choices".{{refn|Some postmodernist readings would posit no need for an identified voice; see [[Death of the Author]].|group="nb"}}<ref name="booth 126">{{harvnb|Booth|2002|p=126}}</ref> He contends that in ''American Beauty''{{'}}s case, it is neither Mendes nor Ball.<ref name="booth 128">{{harvnb|Booth|2002|p=128}}</ref> Mendes considers the voice to be Ball's, but even while the writer was "strongly influential" on set,<ref name="booth 126" /> he often had to accept deviations from his vision,<ref name="booth 128" /> particularly ones that transformed the cynical tone of his script into something more optimistic.<ref name="booth 126–128">{{harvnb|Booth|2002|pages=126–128}}</ref> With "innumerable voices intruding on the original author's," Booth says, those who interpret ''American Beauty'' "have forgotten to probe for the elusive center". According to Booth, the film's true controller is the creative energy "that hundreds of people put into its production, agreeing and disagreeing, inserting and cutting".<ref name="booth 129" />