Telvision Criticism - Univ. of Iowa

Shot # Video
1 Open to large shot of Blue Sky (Soundtrack/Credits Start)
2 Crow Flies Through
3 Blue Sky
4 Tilt down to tree on top of hill; clearing
5 Cut to LS of two white hands with black sleeves joined together and then they pull away from each other
6 Fade to black
7 Left side cut white hands with black backdrop washing themselves up and down
8 Fade to black
9 Low angle of gurney (black shadow)
10 Tilt up to pale white feet with DOA tag and white sheet covering rest of body on the gurney
11 Fade out from feet to cloudy blue sky
12 Panning sky left to right
13 Quick cut to gurney wheel turning and moving forward
14 Black gurney wheel moving forward on white floor
15 Low left angle shot of gurney
16 Man standing in the distance surrounded by bright light
17 Gurney continues to head toward the camera while man fades in the distance
18 Jump to front shot of pale white feet and bright light
19 Jump to low angle shot of glass cylinder and with opaque shot of man in white coat
20 Man picks something up from other side of the cylinder (Hard to tell what he is picking up)
21 Then man turns around from other side of the cylinder and appears to go to work over by a counter
22 Jump to far right shot of liquid (probably draining from a cylinder
23 Upward pan of draining cylinder
24 jump to closup side head shot of white female corpse
25 CU corpse's eye with cotton ball attached to tweezers
26 CU cotton ball is brushed over eyelid
27 overhead shot of female corpse
28 cut to CU of White Lilies
29 Time Lapse through Lilies wilting
30 Lilies wilt and die
31 Fade to black
32 Low angle shot of coffin in the back of hearse
33 white man in black suit opening door of hearse
34 Light slowly enters back of hearse and reflects off of coffin
35 Side shot of white hands lifting coffin out of hearse
36 Close shot of aged headstone with cloudy skies in the distance
37 Back shot of empty hearse with open trunk and the sun reflecting off it
38 Jump to low shot of black and white pictures on wood table
39 jump to low angle shot of crow walking on rock
40 Jump to mid-level shot of two men carrying away a wood casket
41 As they walk away headstone is revealed in the distance
42 Then headstone is shown in wide shot amongst the rest of the cemetary
43 Jump to shot of crows head
44 Pan shot right to left of clouds in the sky
45 Down angle shot revealing flying crow and tree on top of hill in the distance in the distance
46 Shot pans down to focus on tree and then stops
47 Screen color switches to black and white
48 Six Feet Under appears underneath tree
49 Screen fades to white
50 Color of tree changes to light brown
51 Credits roll
52 Color of tree changes to black
53 Screen fades to white


Six Feet Under
As Six Feet Under begins, there is a kind of stall in time, yet the intro is moving at a regimented pace with complete segments. An important point to note really is the nature of how it is launched and the potential connectedness within a greater narrative the introduction offers. One then has to call into question what was behind the creation of such an intricate narrative within the introduction and whether the creator, Alan Ball, meant for the audience to carefully read into it. Detailed introductions that present segments provide the potential to hold the audience consistently. An introduction to a classic sitcom may be ignored after the 3rd or 4th viewing due to its simplistic nature. While a more detailed introduction may hold the attention of the audience for a longer period of time. It also holds a certain nostalgic sensibility about it.
The intro to Six Feet Under then serves as a launching point to the mysterious world of death. As the viewer you are taken on a journey through the process involved from the time of death, the soul leaving the body, to being taken away to the mortuary, then embalmment, the funeral, and the burial that falls in line with the title. This sequence of events plays out as if you are right there while it is happening. There are also other symbolic elements that align themselves with death such as crows, bright lights, dying flowers, and old pictures. The intrigue brought in by the background instrumentals supplies the viewer with curiosity about the content of the show, but also a foundational narrative.
The intro is then broken down into 20 individual sequences. It starts out with a wide angle shot of the blue sky. A crow flies through the sky and the music starts and then back to the blue sky. The first segment is foreshadowing the story with the crow serving as a symbolic representation of death. Much like how a stork symbolizes life. After the crow, disappears you are then left to wonder what’s next and is death right around the corner? This leads into the next short segment featuring a tree on top of a hill in a wide open area.
As the credits continue to roll, two white hands appear on the left side of the screen against a black backdrop. The hands appear to be engaged in a cleansing or washing process. This is symbolic in terms of death and also biblically. The two hands being washed may be in direct connection to Pontius Pilot and the death of Jesus Christ. It can also be looked at as sort of a cleaning process, maybe cleaning one’s soul. Another connection could be to a doctor or the person at the mortuary who is doing the embalming. It seems to have more to do with a person dying than anything else giving the following sequences.
As the hands disappear and the screen goes back suspense starts to set in, the music continues to play, and upon initial viewing you do not know what is going to happen next. As a black shadow appears out of a low angle shot, the viewer then realizes that there are wheels and then the camera tilts up. It is revealed that you are following a gurney of some sort that is moving at a steady pace. The camera then tilts all the way up showing that it’s a gurney with a shot of two pale white dead feet. The left foot has a blank DOA tag attached to it. This all fits within the conventions of death that most people have become accustomed to. The rest of the body is covered with a white sheet and since it’s a close-up of the feet, as the viewer, the rest is left to interpretation.
Then it cuts right away back to the blue sky. The camera continues to pan the sky from left to right. This may/may not be significant of the person’s soul leaving their body and going up to the sky.
Then cut back to the gurney as the wheel turns and it commences to move forward. And the wheels of the gurney appear in a low left shot of the screen. There is a man in the distance surrounded by white light and a gradually he becomes further and further away. The highlights the journey of the soul from the body to the distant bright light, of which, there has never really been a concrete explanation. It’s more of a presumption that this is how it would happen. Thus, why the man appears blurry and not distinguishable.
As the man fades into the distance, there is a jump to an overhead shot of the white feet with a bright light surrounding them as the gurney continues to travel down the hallway. This signifies a transformation and completion of the soul exciting the body.
Next, there is a cut to a low angle shot of a glass cylinder. There is then a man wearing a white apron who appears to have blue jeans on underneath and he comes from behind the cylinder to pick something up and then walks away. This is all done through an opaque shot through the cylinder which does not reveal anything about the man or what is taking place. It is presumed that the setting has changed to a morgue and the dead white person is now being embalmed by the man in the white apron. The cylinder serves to highlight the scientific process that is now taking place.
The next sequence cuts to a shot of liquid draining from what appears to be a glass container of some sort. The liquid continues to drain with various angles of it being shot. This is relevant of the embalming process and the insertion of formaldehyde that takes place during this process. The genius of this is that nothing happening is completely overt. Each reference is subtle of what the alleged process that goes down surrounding death and basically the dead body is the reappearing focal point in all this.
The next segment features a close-up of a headshot of a pale dead white female corpse. She has blonde hair and is probably in her 20’s. This leads to a close-up of the woman’s eye with a cotton ball attached to tweezers, but you cannot make out who or what the tweezers are attached to as the cotton ball is moved across the eyelid of the dead woman that leads into an overhead shot of the female corpse. The shot then shows the woman now in a dress with one hand folded over the other.
What is more telling is the very nature of how this is all laid out as natural and potentially how most people have allegedly pictured the process of embalming unfolding. All the cues throughout each sequence have been subsequently nonverbal, yet revealing in that they appeal to socially held norms toward death and dying. Further, cultural implications are shed light upon in that this whole process is prompted as being normal and expectedly routine and mundane. What brings the viewer in really is then the intrigue as to what else this world of death really has in store.
The shot is then cut to what appears to area close-up of White Lilies in the corner of a funeral home. The flowers start out as white flowers in full bloom. Then the time-lapse starts as the flowers commence in dying. Since flowers are a staple element of a funeral, particularly white flowers and the theme of the show centers around death the flowers indicate their temporal symbolic presence. Then the screen fades to black that also is an indication of death.
Then there is a jump to a low angle shot of a coffin in the back of a hearse. Then a white man in a black suit opens the hearse door. Light enters the hearse and reflects off the coffin. Then there is a shot of white hands lifting the coffin out of the hearse. This is all continually symbolic of the process surrounding death and all the events that unfold after someone dies in connection with both their physical and spiritual bodies. This sequence involves shots of the hearse and in and the removal of the coffin combined with a preview of the headstone. The visual imagery continues to map out the story of death that is unfolding throughout the narrative of the introduction.
The next segment features a jump to black and white pictures on a wood table allegedly back in the funeral home. These pictures are familiar in that they highlight the common practice of showcasing photos of the deceased at funerals. The cultural significance of this practice is then shown as a normalized reverence for the dead, much like the shot of the white lilies.
Segment #40 starts with a shot of two white men carrying a wooden coffin and then shot of the headstone followed by a wider shot of the cemetery. This is showing that the woman has been placed in her final resting place and also an indication that the narrative may be done since the day’s job in handling the deceased is coming to an end. This also illustrates the near completion of the narrative of the introduction, but nothing has been revealed yet about the characters in the show, aside from the fact that the main set is a funeral home.
The next sequence goes back to a shot of a crow’s head and then the sky is panned followed by a shot of the crow flying. Since the woman has just been buried the crow senses death and is reacting to it.
The shot pans back to the tree that then fades into black and white with the title, Six Feet Under, featured beneath the tree. The screen fades, then the tree changes to light brown, credits roll, tree changes to black and screen fades to white. The tree represents dead bodies becoming part of the earth and contributing to new sustainable life through decomposition. This is all significant of the decaying process that is then taken on by the tree. Thus, the only things that live throughout the introduction are the anonymous institutionalized workers and the crow. Everything is still then symbolic of death.
Thus, the introduction to Six Feet Under is priming the audience to think about all their cues relating to death by bringing in all the visual elements commonly related to the process that unfolds after someone’s died. The introduction as a complete narrative takes you through the process of death in the eyes of the dead woman where as the viewer you experience everything she does. This all unfolds visually offering clear aesthetic references to the process surrounding death.
A key part of this analysis also appears in the reinforcement of continual “whiteness” throughout the narrative. The workers are all white men and the corpse is a white female. Death is typically represented through the colors white and black which are evident. Yet this is also problematic due to the nature of the show focusing on predominantly white characters except for a couple minorities that appear in the whole series. Further the introduction is not only foreshadowing death but also the dominance of “whiteness.”
Masculinity norms are being reinforced by depicting a female corpse and male workers. Therefore, men throughout the narrative represent a dominant role over the female. This is present as the viewer is introduced to the corpse until the burial at the end of the introduction. What is even more telling is the fact that there is a man surrounded by light in the distance upon the death of the woman.

Labels: SixFeetUnder Death