In the film "American Beauty", this scene represents Lester's feeling toward his dead-end job. The feeling of imprisonment.

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image showing In the film "American Beauty", this scene represents Lester's feeling toward his dead-end job. The feeling of imprisonment.

gabzorr on September 20th, 2017 at 01:20 UTC »

There is also another scene where he is driving to/from work where the the shadows on his driver-side window/windshield look like prison bars.

RamboTerminator on September 20th, 2017 at 01:39 UTC »

There's a good director's commentary track on DVD.

Sam Mendes is talking how throughout the movie there are many shots of Kevin Spacey's character being in his "jail cell", and how the movie is exactly about that - imprisonment and escaping from it.

ZonaPeligrosaLana on September 20th, 2017 at 01:59 UTC »

Sam Mendes stated he tried to do this as much as possible throughout the first act

window shot