10 Things You Didn't Know About American Beauty
1. Do You Ever Feel Like A Plastic Bag?
The most iconic scene in the movie is when Ricky shows Jane footage of a plastic bag being blown around in the wind. He describes it “dancing” with him like “a little kid begging [him] to play with it”, and rhapsodies about there being “so much beauty in the world”. \This leads to a spiritual awakening when he interpreted the incident as a “benevolent force” letting him know “there is no need to be afraid”.
This was based on a near-identical experience Ball had while sat at the World Trade Center plaza. He elaborated in an interview: “I had an encounter with a plastic bag! And I didn't have a video camera, like Ricky does. I'm sure some people would look at that and go, "What a psycho!" But it was a very intense and very real moment”.
He related the experience to “a Buddhist notion of the miraculous within the mundane” and stated that “we certainly live in a culture that encourages us not to look for that”. In regard to Ricky’s video, Ball explained that “it's not the video he's focused on; it's the experience itself. He's very connected to the world around him”.
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