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

[lynnenne]

You know, for an atheist, Joss really does know his religious symbolism, doesn't he?

In addition to providing a cool palette, the blue lighting is religious in nature. It's typical of stained glass windows, but it's also a color often found in Catholic iconography. The Virgin Mary is nearly always portrayed wearing blue robes; Christ is sometimes shown wearing a blue sash over his white garments. That's why I found it interesting that Spike dons a blue shirt as his "costume." In the end, it couldn't save him; he couldn't hide.

I like your observation that the echoing of their voices "makes the distance between Buffy and Spike seem even greater." It also emphasizes the fact that they are in a church, a place of reverent prayer and hushed confessions. Spike isn't just confessing to Buffy in this scene. For me the most gut-wrenching moment is when he turns his eyes heavenward and asks, "It's what you wanted, right?" His voice rises, and it echoes off the ceiling, and there is the sense that no one is listening, that forgiveness is nowhere to be found.

The music has the tone of a funeral dirge; not uplifting, not a saving grace, but a punctuation of how all human life ends. Whedon's church is the church of humanity, of humanism. There is no loving, all-powerful deity looking out for us. The best we can ever hope to do is look out for each other.

[red_satin_doll]

Whedon's church is the church of humanity, of humanism. There is no loving, all-powerful deity looking out for us. The best we can ever hope to do is look out for each other.

I like this observation very much. It's one of Joss' saving graces, I think.

BTW - he definitely knows his symbolism. The Christ-like pose of Buffy's dive off the tower in the Gift is well-known, but less discussed I think is that her face in the portal very much resemble's Bernini's Saint Theresa; and I couldn't help but notice that the color of Dawn's gown is the exact same shade of light purple or violet cloth used in adornments and vestments when I went to (Catholic) church as a girl, the color of "pain and suffering [also mourning and penitence]. It is sometimes used ...to symbolize both the impending birth of Jesus yet also foreshadowing his death."