Between the Shadow and the Soul: A Film Analysis of Beneath You

[angearia]

I've been wanting to analyze a BtVS scene ever since I took a film analysis course and Marta's Meta Comment-A-Thon finally inspired me to give it a try.  So here's my brief analysis of some of the technical elements of the final scene in Beneath You.  (Here's a good reference for film analysis terminology.)

Comments

[frelling_tralk]

Wonderful analysis :)

[istar]

I also love your analysis and am looking forward to rewatching. The role of color and costuming in different types of storytelling is just fascinating.

[passionrlsusall]

Neat. I LOVE that scene. It makes me cry every time.

[kwritten]

This is brilliant! You should be so proud.

(A good friend of mine was a TA in a basic undergraduate film class where the only writing assignment was an essay like this - analyzing a scene from every angle. She would giggle-text me about the worst/best of them. And I can tell you - none of them came close to this.)

There's an irony here in how Spike's bleached hair, the bad boy persona, is this pure white color on top of his head -- within this color dynamic of light as good and dark as bad, the artificial color of Spike's hair seems almost like an indictment of his attempts to be bad. Even when he's bad, he's still coloring himself in good.This is lovely and astute. I love it

[angearia]

HI KELS <3

This is brilliant! You should be so proud.

*takes a saucy bow*

Yeah, I love talking about the duster, too, in terms of how its meaning transforms for Spike. Obviously, it starts out as a trophy, a sort of second skin to reassure him of his badassery and wildness, his need to feel alive. Or, you know, actually, it's almost as if the battles with the Slayers themselves are what make him still feel alive. I'm thinking of his joyous howl as his head's smashed through the subway window, right. And it's only after he's killed them that he almost settles in to his own skin. Feeding off their life. *shivers* It's very ~warrior~ culture, yanno. Absorbing the power and vitality of one's enemies.

And it's primarily about him standing above the Slayers, the only thing a vampire fears. But then he strips himself of his duster in Seeing Red, becomes this naked human need that's monstrous because it's not about being a demon overwhelmed by demonic urges for blood and violence, but the very human urges that want and demand.

[red_satin_doll]

But it's the voices that really decorate the scene and I'm not sure how, but somehow the actors sound as if they're whispering even as their voices remain clearly audible. I had never really thought about "how" that occured; it's possible it was achieved in post dubbing, but it sounds so natural. Perhaps it was simply a matter of well-placed microphones? Because the echoes of their voices don't have the flat or slightly artificial quality that dubbing in post sometimes does