American Beauty
This film was developed from the script titled "American Rose" and the flower itself is a recurring motif all along the story. The deep reds and blues are heavily dominant in the color scheme of the movie: from costumes, to production design and cinematography.
Road to Perdition
As is common with gangster-themed periodicals, the color palette of the movie was influenced heavily by steely grays and smoky air. The umbrella is both a psychological and physical symbol of vulnerability and power that hints at the rainy Illinois locations and the sad, blue-note tragedy of fathers and sons losing each other for the sake of power.
Jarhead
No matter what it falls into, this war biopic is all about coming of age in a violent, realistic, jarring way. The browns, yellows and harsh shadows are all that the camera shows us about wars and losses. The camouflage isn't really a camouflage unless you're burnt alive by the reality of the desert. These are the visual colors of a boy who becomes a man wearing the same skin all his life.
Revolutionary Road
Falling in love, getting married, moving to the suburbs, earning enough to buy all that you want, a nice school for the kids, a lazy afternoon—ain't that the American dream? But what do you do when you look to your right, and left and see that everyone is exactly the same as you, that you are no different from the hundreds who trap their childhood dreams in the society's plan for adulthood and despair? Do you follow your dream or the others'? Do you stay the same, or break out in a revolution? The physical symbol of home is what is recurrent in this movie, and what makes it extraordinarily unique.
Away We Go
Whenever is it time to settle down? The movie is all about a couple looking for people to build a nursery for their future daughter with, but eventually realize that the baby's home is not when everyone else is functional and appropriate, but when they trust each other. The warmest shade of pink is the story undertone of hope mixed with doubts that eventually fall away after journeying across the country in search of perfection.
