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My roommate and I were chatting about Serenity and she brought up the rage that people in the fan forums she found (non-LJ) were feeling over the treatment of Wash's death in the latter half of the movie. For a while I was at a loss because his death seemed to be treated consistently within the world of Firefly.
But....then again, it wasn't treated consistently with normal cinematic codes.
To explain, lets all flash back to Firefly, episode 1; specifically, Kaylee's Death Scene, or rather, Simon Finding Out About Kaylee's Death. When there was all dramatic music? Slow-mo? Blurry faces of extreme sentiment and woe?
That, I think, was as much Joss' poking fun at the conventions as he was doing a comedic turn; and Wash's death seen in light of this makes more and more sense. Of *course* time can't stop for Wash, they're in what amounts to be a war, there's no time for music, no time for sluggish movement, no time for your eyes to go blurry.
But...God. Wash, pinned to the eye of Serenity. Like the bodies Mal pinned to the outside of Serenity. Like a Reaver's ship.
Joss "desecrated our home", with Wash's death. And those parallels make such an awesome amount of sense to me, 'cause it explains some of the feelings around Wash's death relative to the movie. The body of Wash as desecrating the body of Serenity the movie.
And damn, that's guts, to trust in his movie enough that he knew that the impact of Wash's death would be felt even if he left out the codes of High Drama. He trusted that Wash made enough of an impact that he wouldn't *need* to manipulate the audience into feeling the tragedy.
Which, dude, bravo!
But....then again, it wasn't treated consistently with normal cinematic codes.
To explain, lets all flash back to Firefly, episode 1; specifically, Kaylee's Death Scene, or rather, Simon Finding Out About Kaylee's Death. When there was all dramatic music? Slow-mo? Blurry faces of extreme sentiment and woe?
That, I think, was as much Joss' poking fun at the conventions as he was doing a comedic turn; and Wash's death seen in light of this makes more and more sense. Of *course* time can't stop for Wash, they're in what amounts to be a war, there's no time for music, no time for sluggish movement, no time for your eyes to go blurry.
But...God. Wash, pinned to the eye of Serenity. Like the bodies Mal pinned to the outside of Serenity. Like a Reaver's ship.
Joss "desecrated our home", with Wash's death. And those parallels make such an awesome amount of sense to me, 'cause it explains some of the feelings around Wash's death relative to the movie. The body of Wash as desecrating the body of Serenity the movie.
And damn, that's guts, to trust in his movie enough that he knew that the impact of Wash's death would be felt even if he left out the codes of High Drama. He trusted that Wash made enough of an impact that he wouldn't *need* to manipulate the audience into feeling the tragedy.
Which, dude, bravo!
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In a way...I think I registered it less as men grieving and women grieving rather than immediate family grieving (Zoe, who got the closeup) and the extended/found family grieving, which was the long shot of the graves and the sequence of repairing the ship. I think it might be due to how I connect allowing grief to allowing healing, so the extended sequence when they were shown fixing Serenity with the music layered felt as bittersweet as grief...the sadness carried through and then past it.
because I feel narratively he added an element to the ensemble that is now lost
Which is how a loss *should* feel, I think. Death without a real loss doesn't matter...