Some thoughts on what makes Six Feet Under, and makes it good at that:
- I mentioned Crewdson in writing about the first two seasons; the dvd cover for season 3 is much in that vein, while taking cues from Hopper too, not least in the staging of the characters, none making eye contact with any other (nor with the viewer).
- Indeed, there's a painterly eye to many of the shots throughout the series, particularly the interiors, and particularly in the Fisher's house, which contributes a lot to the show.
- The flights of imagination, conversations with dead people (whether the patriarch Nathaniel, other significant figures like Lisa, or those being prepared in the embalming room) and dream sequences are also important to the show's tone and feel. And they're only sometimes obviously fantastic, so that being brought out of them is sometimes jarringly disorienting; a special case, perhaps, which does something quite interesting with the subjective experience implied by those depictions, is the recurrent deja vu throughout the episode in which Nate recovers from his collapse.
- Six Feet Under is very good on relationships and on interactions. I recognised a lot that was familiar from my own experience in it, even where the personalities being depicted were quite different - which, of course, prompts the question: just how different are they, actually?
- It's also striking that the show's very committed to giving as many of its characters as possible real inner lives, even the relatively minor recurring ones.
- It feels like a very adult show. I don't think I could have got anywhere near as much out of it as I have, had I been watching it during its original run (2001-2005), though probably I would've responded to aspects of its sombre, slightly surreal palette.
- After googling, I remembered Lauren Ambrose (Claire) from seeing her in Can't Hardly Wait, way back when. Funny how these things stick with you, somehow.
- Ruth is the character who's most touched me, I think.
- Oh and the finale. What a closer. I think it's congruent with everything that's come before, and strikes just the right tone...it's memorable.
