Ouch. I Have Lost Myself, Again.

[bcholmes]

My brain mostly associates music with video. Like, I'll hear a tune playing in the project room, and I'll immediately think about some movie where I first heard the song. A few months ago, "Where is my Mind" by the Pixies came on and I was, "Oh, that's the music playing over the final scene of Fight Club." Similarly, Rogue Traders' "Voodoo Child" will always be associated with Dr. Who in my brain.

The other day, I was playing the soundtrack to Lemony Snicket: A Series of Unfortunate Events; I really like the tune from the closing credits which is fun and perky while at the same time managing to be a little dark and broody. (The tune is here, starting about 30 seconds into the video. It was also reused in the trailer for the Dead Like Me direct-to-DVD movie).

One piece on the soundtrack suddenly stood out to me: part of the tune reminded me, strongly, of the soundtrack to The Shawshank Redemption, and I was off to IMDB. Sure enough: Thomas Newmann composed both Lemony Snicket and Shawshank.

My latest fascination is with "Breathe Me" by Sia, which is the tune that plays over the final sequence of the final episode of Six Feet Under. I've played it probably two dozen times in the last few days. I like the simplicity of the song. I also like the pause that occurs about a minute and a half into the tune and seems to hold just longer than I always think it will.

An interesting thing I found myself thinking about after watching the video for "Breathe Me" was how much both the video and the piano reminded me of the Bell ad from a few years ago: the one with the cyclic pan out of people holding pictures. I dunno why; after watching them both, they're not that similar, but there's something about them that seems similar in my mind.

Speaking of the series finale of Six Feet Under: I thought the final sequence was absolutely beautiful. There's so much to squee over.

I mean, first, Prius love. I grinned as soon as I saw that Claire replaced the lime green hearse with a Prius.

Second, I love the way the music starts as diegetic, with Claire pulling out the CD and putting it into her car stereo. Even as we see the image of Nate's ghost jogging in her side mirror, we're still hearing the music as diegetic, but at some point, wham, the music leaks out of its confinement to a single time and place and becomes soundtracky.

I think that the visual economy of the flash-forward scenes is fascinating. Each one builds on enough of what we know to tell a complete story. Ruth opens her pet-sitting business at Sarah's house. David passes on skills in the funeral business to Durell. Keith has clearly opened his own security business when we see his violent death (the armoured truck is clearly labeled "Charles Security"). Brenda remains close to the Fisher family (seen at Willa's first birthday, and the picnic where David dies). I like how the white title cards which had been a staple in the series are used to close off the stories of each of the characters.

I also love how the flash-forwards are constantly interspersed with images of Claire driving on her long journey to New York. I think it's a good visual leitmotif of life as a journey. I also really like how the image has been adjusted. The world outside of Claire's car is sped up, and looks unreal.

And I especially like the parallelism of the two shots of Claire's eyes before and after the title card announcing her death. Just before, we see "old Claire", now 101 years old, on her deathbed with cataracts in her eyes. The the title card announcing her death. Then present day Claire: the same framing of the shot. With the whole drive ahead of her.

I do think that Rico gets short shrift, though. I never thought the character really had as much of a story as the others.

I think the editing of the images around the music is very well done. The speeding up of the world outside of Claire's car matches the speeding up of the beat of the music. And there's a powerful shift just at the end of David and Keith's wedding where the cut to Claire's car happens perfectly in synch with a strong beat in the music.

(I also thought, "hey, they're using one of the three FASS endings: everybody dies!")

A lot of the comments I've read about the ending was that people found it sad to see all these characters' deaths. Me, I don't find it sad at all. It feels full.

"You get what everyone gets. You get a lifetime."

Comments

[lollo.livejournal.com]

It makes me cry. Mostly because it reminds me of my mortality. The upside to the final scenes is that everyone got to live a long life. I felt the most sorry for Brenda dealing with her brother all the way to the end.

[tedrick-james.livejournal.com]

A lot of the comments I've read about the ending was that people found it sad to see all these characters' deaths. Me, I don't find it sad at all. It feels full.
I positively wept. I thought it definitely felt complete, and I adore Alan Ball, but I was going to (and still do!) miss those characters. Plus, that was my age 14-19 (or 14-20, or something like that), watching Six Feet Under, and I own all the seasons on DVD, so I've watched it Episode 1 to End, and it's totally crazy to watch 5 years of some action-packed time (and all the emotions I remember feeling around it) in a matter of days and weeks.

..and, insert S1xEp1 icon :-P