"Some Time Around Midnight" by bop_radar, commentary by tree
Title: Some Time Around Midnight
Vidder: bop_radar
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Link to vid: Dreamwidth / LiveJournal
Summary: Lee knows that Kara will break him in two.
Warnings: Brief nudity, physical violence.
Commentary by: tree
Note: This is rather image heavy as I got a little carried away with the screenshots. Also, I use the words "perfect", "powerful", and the phrase "I love" kind of a lot.
For me, a song is the skeletal device upon which a vid is hung. It can be a powerful source of narrative in its own right, which is how Sometime Around Midnight by The Toxic Airborne Event is used here. I fell in love with this song in the opening notes and it kind of swept me up and along with it. One of the interesting things is that it has no chorus; it doesn't follow the standard songwriting model of verse/chorus/verse/chorus, etc. As a narrative, it's more like a novel; it builds to a climax through a series of peaks and plateaus. (Also a bit like an orgasm? *ahem*) That's the power of this song in this vid: the way it forces the viewer through it at speed. You can't slow down; you can't take a break. The mood of it, the desperation, is like an avalanche. Given the source material, it's a perfect choice.
I haven't watched BSG since the finale, so I'm coming at this from the perspective of not necessarily remembering the specifics of a lot of the clips. This is beneficial, I think, because it allows scenes to simply be what they are, rather than be weighted with context. Of course it also means I'm likely to be missing some references as well. We shall see!
We begin with motion, in medias res, which is probably my favourite way to begin something. Lee and Kara on New Caprica, dancing. Spinning, actually, which is a nice visual metaphor for ideas about them being bound together, gravity, orbiting. The focus is Kara's face, looking at Lee, basically taking up his entire view. She's all he sees. The music is orchestral, sweeping. It's no accident that the vid begins with scenes from New Caprica. What happened between Lee and Kara there is possibly the pivotal moment of their relationship: where they came together and fell apart almost all at once. Clips from those scenes are referenced throughout the vid, as echoes and reminders of what was possible and what might have been.
The first time I watched this vid, it wasn't until almost halfway through that I realised it was from Lee's point of view. I am such a Kara fangirl that I just go into everything focused on her. Coming to the realisation that we're seeing Kara through Lee was very visceral for me. And this isn't just about him looking at her, it's also about watching him look at her. It's a study of him through how he sees her.
I think of black screen in vids as pauses in the narrative, maybe paragraph or chapter breaks. They signal a change. In this case, the second set of images is unhappy: saying goodbye, at odds with one another, alone, separated. Finally, despair. She's dead. He's leaving.
All of the clips in the first 30 seconds of the vid are from mid-season 2 and later: we're seeing the end first. Now it's time to go back to the beginning.
It starts with Lee coming back from the dead! I love that this is a long section, uncut, so that we see Kara's expression and then Lee's vulnerability against that.
And it starts sometime around midnight
Or at least that's when you lose yourself for a minute or two
As the lyrics kick in, literally "and it starts", we see Kara opening the door to Lee at their first meeting. What follows is a series of clips of significant moments that also fit the lyrics really well, particularly the idea of Lee losing himself "for a minute or two": moments when he felt particularly open to her.
As you stand under the bar lights
I love the play on the meaning of the word 'bar' in these clips: both as a place where alcohol is consumed, and actual bars when Kara is in the brig. It's a clever marriage of meaning with context and it manages to be a tiny but interesting summation of their relationship all at once.
And the band plays some song about forgetting yourself for a while
And the piano's this melancholy soundtrack to her smile
So we have the idea of Lee "losing" and "forgetting" himself in the context of Kara Thrace. I love the scene of "her smile" and the look on his face.
In that white dress she's wearing
You haven't seen her for a while
Even though her dress isn't white, you just couldn't not use this clip for these lyrics. The feeling of the scene just marries perfectly. Cut in between are clips from the first time Lee meets Kara, so that the idea of Lee not having "seen her for a while" is figurative. He hasn't seen her in this context, "just" as a woman, as someone he's attracted to.
But you know that she's watching
She's laughing, she's turning, she's holding her tonic like a crux
So this is generally the part where I get a bit lost simply watching Kara because, like Lee, I'm kind of in love with her. We return to clips from New Caprica where they do a lot of watching each other. This is what the fangirls refer to as eye-frakking.
The room's suddenly spinning
She walks up and asks how you are
Lee spends a lot of time being aware of Kara, watching her. But there are also moments when her focus is on him and he finds it disconcerting.
So you can smell her perfume, you can see her lying naked in your arms
Because he's attracted to her from the very beginning and, later, in love with her. The first time he kisses her it's after she returns from Caprica. It should be a greeting from one friend to another, from the CAG to his pilot, but Lee can't hold back. He reveals himself in that moment.
And so there's a change in your emotions
I love that bop_radar places this during Kara's return from Caprica, when he tells her he loves her. And she makes fun of him. The irony is that the only change in Lee's emotions at this point is that he's finally acknowledging how he feels about her.
All these memories come rushing like feral waves to your mind
Of the curve of your bodies like two perfect circles entwined
The clips here are images of flight, battle, camaraderie. It's really fucking sexy the way that shot of Kara posed at the hatch slides under "feral waves to your mind". I love that this is how he sees her: a warrior, a little wary. And because there is something feral about Kara. She's a wild thing that might hurt you without meaning to, trying to escape.
Then the clip of Kara ramming Lee's viper to get him back onto Galactica for "the curve of your bodies", followed by them hugging, interspersed with more flying for "like two perfect circles entwined". The visual metaphors here are just so perfect. This is really where the vid became visceral for me: the emphasis on their bodies, and machines being an extension of that because they're pilots. It's not just what they do, it's who they are and it's part of how they relate to one another. None of their other partners can get them the same way because they're missing the connection of flight.
And you feel hopeless and homeless and lost in the haze of the wine
The music begins to spiral more tightly and the scenes become more chaotic. I especially adore the clip on "homeless" from Unfinished Business with Lee just watching Kara like she's home and he can't ever have her. The association there is so powerful.
Then sexy tiems! I never, ever tire of watching these clips. It's interesting that, again, the idea of Lee being "lost" in her, about her, is related to him being vulnerable to her, this time physically. They finally act on their attraction: he's "lost", "forgetting" himself.
Then she leaves with someone you don't know
Sam is the obvious choice here, but the clips of Zak add another dimension. Clearly, Zak isn't "someone you don't know" because he's Lee's brother. But his death and prior relationship with Kara represent another barrier he has to overcome. The shifting movements of the clips between time echo the way the past butts up against the present in the song. And the way past is present in the show.
And she makes sure you saw her
She looks right at you and bolts
As she walks out the door your blood boiling, your stomach in ropes
Lee's hurt, frustration. His broken heart. He's beaten down. Their relationship is not, can never be, simple.
And when your friends say, "What is it?"
You look like you've seen a ghost
And here his devastation. I love the use of the fight imagery to reflect his emotional state. Then on the word "ghost" the shot of newly-married Kara representing the death of his hopes and his own naked anguish reflected back at him.
This is the startling thing about Kara: she's hurt just as much by what she's done, and seems just as bewildered by it as Lee. She's afraid. Of her feelings and of him.
Fast flashbacks of their physical intimacy and his declaration of love. Then the clips are cut to the beat and every other clip is Kara and Lee. But overtaking them are clips of Kara and Sam, then the photo of Kara and Zak holding each other with Lee standing to the side and looking uncomfortable. Another beautiful visual metaphor.
Lee gets further and further from her with clips from Zak's funeral. The music and the sense of pain feels like climbing up a hill. Near the top of that hill is their antagonism, pain, and a shot of Gaius Baltar that I can't place. Is it a reference to Kara having sex with him and calling out Lee's name? That's the only explanation I can find, although it's a jarring moment for me in an otherwise flawless build.
Then they fight and I love that the punches land on the beat. Maybe it's a fairly basic technique but it's so visually and emotionally satisfying. They fight, she's yelling, and she shoots him. In this context it looks like it's intentional, although I know it was an accident. Still, there's that jolt. Which is carried forward by angry faces, exploding vipers, Lee yelling!
Then you walk under a streetlight
And you're too drunk to notice that everyone is staring at you
Finally, he can't take it anymore and he punches her. Their fight in Unfinished Business is one of my absolute favourite scenes. And basically they just beat the hell out of each other. Everyone literally is staring at them. This is the pinnacle of that hill we've been climbing up. What they couldn't reconcile with fucking, they reconcile with fighting.
You so care what you look like
The world is falling around you
Lee doesn't care about anything anymore, except Kara. We're emotionally back to the beginning of the vid, where she's all he sees. Again there's irony in "the world is falling around you" because it has been, literally, for years, but it's Kara that counts and that he can't have.
You just have to see her
You just have to see her
You just have to see her
You just have to see her
You just have to see her
This montage is about love, desperation, desire, and what it says on the tin: he just has to see her. How much time he spends watching her. All the glances to check where she is in the room. She's everything.
You know that she'll break you in two
Because he loves her, she can break him.
The final montage is a closure of sorts, but it's a painful one. They're still comrades, they still love each other, but they're a battle -- with themselves and with each other.
At 4:25 this vid hits a huge kink of mine, which is KISSING WITH HANDS ON FACES, in all their doomed, despairing, impossible glory.
Then at 4:42 there are more hands: shaking, clasping, holding onto each other; coming together literally and figuratively. Their physicality here again parallels the way they fly together. They're hugging, their bodies coming together. Even without sex, their relationship is always very much about touch, or its absence.
The final scene is a goodbye. It's not the final goodbye of the show, but it's an important one. Emotionally, this goodbye is much more satisfying than what we get in the final episode. And while it's an expression of their romantic love, it also transcends that and becomes this amazing expression of grief and sorrow and love and friendship.
Because it's Lee comforting Kara, almost as though she's a child. That wild, feral thing he can't have and has to let go. He kisses her face and he holds her to him and that's the final image we're left with. He's no longer lost and floundering and at her mercy. And it's beautiful and heartbreaking.
The first few times I watched the vid, I didn't catch that the final scene is also used at the very beginning. And I think that's because in the separate contexts it seems completely different. The meaning changes based on its position in the narrative. Here we've come full circle. I said at the beginning of this commentary that clips from New Caprica are echoes and reminders of what was possible and what might have been. It's the contrast between that then and what now is that's heartbreaking.
One of the defining characteristics for me about Lee's relationship with Kara is yearning, and this vid expresses that beautifully. Right now I actually have a Kara/Lee background on my desktop. I don't know who made it, but it's one of my favourites. It's an image of them with their foreheads pressed together and below that is a quote from To Lucasta, Going to the Wars by Richard Lovelace: "Yet this inconstancy is such / as you too shall adore; / I could not love thee, dear, so much, / loved I not honour more." The original poem is actually a play on the idea of courtly love, but when taken at face value the words fit Lee so perfectly. Lee is no less an immovable object than Kara, just for different reasons. And his sense of honour is the defining feature of who he is.
In the end, this vid reminds me how much I loved these characters and how much I still love them. It convinced me to go back and watch the show from the beginning, to take the journey with Kara and Lee all over. Because, as the Cylons say, all of this has happened before and all of it will happen again.
Vidder: bop_radar
Fandom: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Link to vid: Dreamwidth / LiveJournal
Summary: Lee knows that Kara will break him in two.
Warnings: Brief nudity, physical violence.
Commentary by: tree
Note: This is rather image heavy as I got a little carried away with the screenshots. Also, I use the words "perfect", "powerful", and the phrase "I love" kind of a lot.
For me, a song is the skeletal device upon which a vid is hung. It can be a powerful source of narrative in its own right, which is how Sometime Around Midnight by The Toxic Airborne Event is used here. I fell in love with this song in the opening notes and it kind of swept me up and along with it. One of the interesting things is that it has no chorus; it doesn't follow the standard songwriting model of verse/chorus/verse/chorus, etc. As a narrative, it's more like a novel; it builds to a climax through a series of peaks and plateaus. (Also a bit like an orgasm? *ahem*) That's the power of this song in this vid: the way it forces the viewer through it at speed. You can't slow down; you can't take a break. The mood of it, the desperation, is like an avalanche. Given the source material, it's a perfect choice.
I haven't watched BSG since the finale, so I'm coming at this from the perspective of not necessarily remembering the specifics of a lot of the clips. This is beneficial, I think, because it allows scenes to simply be what they are, rather than be weighted with context. Of course it also means I'm likely to be missing some references as well. We shall see!
We begin with motion, in medias res, which is probably my favourite way to begin something. Lee and Kara on New Caprica, dancing. Spinning, actually, which is a nice visual metaphor for ideas about them being bound together, gravity, orbiting. The focus is Kara's face, looking at Lee, basically taking up his entire view. She's all he sees. The music is orchestral, sweeping. It's no accident that the vid begins with scenes from New Caprica. What happened between Lee and Kara there is possibly the pivotal moment of their relationship: where they came together and fell apart almost all at once. Clips from those scenes are referenced throughout the vid, as echoes and reminders of what was possible and what might have been.
The first time I watched this vid, it wasn't until almost halfway through that I realised it was from Lee's point of view. I am such a Kara fangirl that I just go into everything focused on her. Coming to the realisation that we're seeing Kara through Lee was very visceral for me. And this isn't just about him looking at her, it's also about watching him look at her. It's a study of him through how he sees her.
I think of black screen in vids as pauses in the narrative, maybe paragraph or chapter breaks. They signal a change. In this case, the second set of images is unhappy: saying goodbye, at odds with one another, alone, separated. Finally, despair. She's dead. He's leaving.
All of the clips in the first 30 seconds of the vid are from mid-season 2 and later: we're seeing the end first. Now it's time to go back to the beginning.
It starts with Lee coming back from the dead! I love that this is a long section, uncut, so that we see Kara's expression and then Lee's vulnerability against that.
And it starts sometime around midnight
Or at least that's when you lose yourself for a minute or two
As the lyrics kick in, literally "and it starts", we see Kara opening the door to Lee at their first meeting. What follows is a series of clips of significant moments that also fit the lyrics really well, particularly the idea of Lee losing himself "for a minute or two": moments when he felt particularly open to her.
As you stand under the bar lights
I love the play on the meaning of the word 'bar' in these clips: both as a place where alcohol is consumed, and actual bars when Kara is in the brig. It's a clever marriage of meaning with context and it manages to be a tiny but interesting summation of their relationship all at once.
And the band plays some song about forgetting yourself for a while
And the piano's this melancholy soundtrack to her smile
So we have the idea of Lee "losing" and "forgetting" himself in the context of Kara Thrace. I love the scene of "her smile" and the look on his face.
In that white dress she's wearing
You haven't seen her for a while
Even though her dress isn't white, you just couldn't not use this clip for these lyrics. The feeling of the scene just marries perfectly. Cut in between are clips from the first time Lee meets Kara, so that the idea of Lee not having "seen her for a while" is figurative. He hasn't seen her in this context, "just" as a woman, as someone he's attracted to.
But you know that she's watching
She's laughing, she's turning, she's holding her tonic like a crux
So this is generally the part where I get a bit lost simply watching Kara because, like Lee, I'm kind of in love with her. We return to clips from New Caprica where they do a lot of watching each other. This is what the fangirls refer to as eye-frakking.
The room's suddenly spinning
She walks up and asks how you are
Lee spends a lot of time being aware of Kara, watching her. But there are also moments when her focus is on him and he finds it disconcerting.
So you can smell her perfume, you can see her lying naked in your arms
Because he's attracted to her from the very beginning and, later, in love with her. The first time he kisses her it's after she returns from Caprica. It should be a greeting from one friend to another, from the CAG to his pilot, but Lee can't hold back. He reveals himself in that moment.
And so there's a change in your emotions
I love that bop_radar places this during Kara's return from Caprica, when he tells her he loves her. And she makes fun of him. The irony is that the only change in Lee's emotions at this point is that he's finally acknowledging how he feels about her.
All these memories come rushing like feral waves to your mind
Of the curve of your bodies like two perfect circles entwined
The clips here are images of flight, battle, camaraderie. It's really fucking sexy the way that shot of Kara posed at the hatch slides under "feral waves to your mind". I love that this is how he sees her: a warrior, a little wary. And because there is something feral about Kara. She's a wild thing that might hurt you without meaning to, trying to escape.
Then the clip of Kara ramming Lee's viper to get him back onto Galactica for "the curve of your bodies", followed by them hugging, interspersed with more flying for "like two perfect circles entwined". The visual metaphors here are just so perfect. This is really where the vid became visceral for me: the emphasis on their bodies, and machines being an extension of that because they're pilots. It's not just what they do, it's who they are and it's part of how they relate to one another. None of their other partners can get them the same way because they're missing the connection of flight.
And you feel hopeless and homeless and lost in the haze of the wine
The music begins to spiral more tightly and the scenes become more chaotic. I especially adore the clip on "homeless" from Unfinished Business with Lee just watching Kara like she's home and he can't ever have her. The association there is so powerful.
Then sexy tiems! I never, ever tire of watching these clips. It's interesting that, again, the idea of Lee being "lost" in her, about her, is related to him being vulnerable to her, this time physically. They finally act on their attraction: he's "lost", "forgetting" himself.
Then she leaves with someone you don't know
Sam is the obvious choice here, but the clips of Zak add another dimension. Clearly, Zak isn't "someone you don't know" because he's Lee's brother. But his death and prior relationship with Kara represent another barrier he has to overcome. The shifting movements of the clips between time echo the way the past butts up against the present in the song. And the way past is present in the show.
And she makes sure you saw her
She looks right at you and bolts
As she walks out the door your blood boiling, your stomach in ropes
Lee's hurt, frustration. His broken heart. He's beaten down. Their relationship is not, can never be, simple.
And when your friends say, "What is it?"
You look like you've seen a ghost
And here his devastation. I love the use of the fight imagery to reflect his emotional state. Then on the word "ghost" the shot of newly-married Kara representing the death of his hopes and his own naked anguish reflected back at him.
This is the startling thing about Kara: she's hurt just as much by what she's done, and seems just as bewildered by it as Lee. She's afraid. Of her feelings and of him.
Fast flashbacks of their physical intimacy and his declaration of love. Then the clips are cut to the beat and every other clip is Kara and Lee. But overtaking them are clips of Kara and Sam, then the photo of Kara and Zak holding each other with Lee standing to the side and looking uncomfortable. Another beautiful visual metaphor.
Lee gets further and further from her with clips from Zak's funeral. The music and the sense of pain feels like climbing up a hill. Near the top of that hill is their antagonism, pain, and a shot of Gaius Baltar that I can't place. Is it a reference to Kara having sex with him and calling out Lee's name? That's the only explanation I can find, although it's a jarring moment for me in an otherwise flawless build.
Then they fight and I love that the punches land on the beat. Maybe it's a fairly basic technique but it's so visually and emotionally satisfying. They fight, she's yelling, and she shoots him. In this context it looks like it's intentional, although I know it was an accident. Still, there's that jolt. Which is carried forward by angry faces, exploding vipers, Lee yelling!
Then you walk under a streetlight
And you're too drunk to notice that everyone is staring at you
Finally, he can't take it anymore and he punches her. Their fight in Unfinished Business is one of my absolute favourite scenes. And basically they just beat the hell out of each other. Everyone literally is staring at them. This is the pinnacle of that hill we've been climbing up. What they couldn't reconcile with fucking, they reconcile with fighting.
You so care what you look like
The world is falling around you
Lee doesn't care about anything anymore, except Kara. We're emotionally back to the beginning of the vid, where she's all he sees. Again there's irony in "the world is falling around you" because it has been, literally, for years, but it's Kara that counts and that he can't have.
You just have to see her
You just have to see her
You just have to see her
You just have to see her
You just have to see her
This montage is about love, desperation, desire, and what it says on the tin: he just has to see her. How much time he spends watching her. All the glances to check where she is in the room. She's everything.
You know that she'll break you in two
Because he loves her, she can break him.
The final montage is a closure of sorts, but it's a painful one. They're still comrades, they still love each other, but they're a battle -- with themselves and with each other.
At 4:25 this vid hits a huge kink of mine, which is KISSING WITH HANDS ON FACES, in all their doomed, despairing, impossible glory.
Then at 4:42 there are more hands: shaking, clasping, holding onto each other; coming together literally and figuratively. Their physicality here again parallels the way they fly together. They're hugging, their bodies coming together. Even without sex, their relationship is always very much about touch, or its absence.
The final scene is a goodbye. It's not the final goodbye of the show, but it's an important one. Emotionally, this goodbye is much more satisfying than what we get in the final episode. And while it's an expression of their romantic love, it also transcends that and becomes this amazing expression of grief and sorrow and love and friendship.
Because it's Lee comforting Kara, almost as though she's a child. That wild, feral thing he can't have and has to let go. He kisses her face and he holds her to him and that's the final image we're left with. He's no longer lost and floundering and at her mercy. And it's beautiful and heartbreaking.
The first few times I watched the vid, I didn't catch that the final scene is also used at the very beginning. And I think that's because in the separate contexts it seems completely different. The meaning changes based on its position in the narrative. Here we've come full circle. I said at the beginning of this commentary that clips from New Caprica are echoes and reminders of what was possible and what might have been. It's the contrast between that then and what now is that's heartbreaking.
One of the defining characteristics for me about Lee's relationship with Kara is yearning, and this vid expresses that beautifully. Right now I actually have a Kara/Lee background on my desktop. I don't know who made it, but it's one of my favourites. It's an image of them with their foreheads pressed together and below that is a quote from To Lucasta, Going to the Wars by Richard Lovelace: "Yet this inconstancy is such / as you too shall adore; / I could not love thee, dear, so much, / loved I not honour more." The original poem is actually a play on the idea of courtly love, but when taken at face value the words fit Lee so perfectly. Lee is no less an immovable object than Kara, just for different reasons. And his sense of honour is the defining feature of who he is.
In the end, this vid reminds me how much I loved these characters and how much I still love them. It convinced me to go back and watch the show from the beginning, to take the journey with Kara and Lee all over. Because, as the Cylons say, all of this has happened before and all of it will happen again.