Script Analysis and Narrative Structure: American Beauty "... a narrative [is] a chain of events in cause-effect relationship occurring in time and space... Typically, [it] begins with one situation; a series of changes occurs according to a pattern of cause and effect; finally, a new situation arises that brings about the end of the narrative." (Bordwell 90) This is an extension of David Bordwell's definition of classical narrative cinema in which he refers to the necessary cause-effect …showed first 75 words of 2006 total…

…showed last 75 words of 2006 total…didn't need pot the night he was killed--would the Colonel still have his motive intact? Similar questions could be asked of other circumstances, but the point would be lost. American Beauty plays much the same way in which life does: when something happens, something else must be affected. Cause and effect is a balance of nature and of life. Bordwell, David and Kristin Thompson. Film Art: An Introduction. 5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography**