Image A Sound A Extras B+
"Pilot," "The Will," "The Foot," "Familia," "An Open Book," "The Room," "Brotherhood," "Crossroads," "Life's Too Short," "The New Person," "The Trip," "A Private Life," "Knock, Knock"
by Bill Chambers Like you, I was enthralled by American Beauty, but its resonance proved short-lived. The spell was broken for me when my friend innocently observed after a screening that men only masturbate in the shower in movies–the whole film mentally unravelled from there, that hanging thread, as I became cognizant of, and progressively bothered by, its oversimplifications. Is it just my imagination, or would Mr. Furley spin in his syndicated grave over the misinterpretation that informs the picture's climax? Though the culturally young are entitled to find American Beauty profound, since it's of that particular kind of Hollywood caginess that takes a trained eye (and is especially cheeky coming from an enfant terrible of the British stage), more people need(ed) to recognize that it's Blame It On Rio with proscenium arches.
"…We found real beauty in this extraordinary script by Sam Mendes… (audience corrects him) by Alan Ball. It feels like he wrote it though, doesn't it?" That's from Kevin Spacey's pompous acceptance speech ("This is the highlight of my day") on the night of American Beauty's victory at the Academy Awards, where it won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director (Mendes), Best Actor (Spacey), Best Screenplay (Ball), and Best Cinematography (Conrad Hall, the one who deserved it most). As horrible as it was of Spacey to degrade Ball's contribution in front of the whole world (Spacey's startup for fledgling screenwriters, triggerstreet.com, smacks of atonement), he has a point: It's Ball's salvation that the fundamentally silly American Beauty is remembered for its cinematic flourishes, leaving the writer with a prestigious credit on his resume (a meal ticket) minus much of the baggage (commercial, artistic) that Mendes brought to his own sophomore effort, Road to Perdition.
| If I have a favourite first-season episode of "Six Feet Under", it's probably "Familia" (1.4), whose didactic qualities are outweighed by its sheer emotionalism. (Runners-up: the comical, multi-layered "The Room," and "The New Person," with Illeana Douglas in another brilliant performance, this time as the Fishers' temporary mortician.) The murder of a Latino gangbanger requires Fisher and Sons to host a funeral with gang members in attendance, and the circle of prayer that climaxes both the ceremony and "Familia" is an unapologetically sad tribute to the cyclical nature of life. Coupled with stoic David finally standing up to corporate shark Gilardi (Garrison Hershberger), it's an intense piece of television. If there's a least favourite in this collection, it's "Life's Too Short", mainly because Canadian director Jeremy Podeswa (The Five Senses) imposes his own claustrophobic aesthetic on a show for which 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' certainly applies. |
Ball, a former sitcom scribe, followed American Beauty with "Six Feet Under", a return to weekly television that recycles the premise of a defunct–and terrible–Howie Mandel sitcom called "Good Grief", transforming it into an exquisite soap opera about living under the constant shadow of death. (Ball seems to credit his source in the casting of "Good Grief" star Joel Brooks as a florist.) In "Six Feet Under", the demise of a patriarch (Richard Jenkins) forces sons David (Michael C. Hall) and Nate (Peter Krause) to take over the family funeral parlour while teenaged daughter Claire (Lauren Ambrose) and wife Ruth (Frances Conroy) both struggle to carve out a niche for themselves in the absence of their husband/father. (Mortality is evidently a man's game.) A Shakespearian gimmick that sees Nathaniel Fisher, Sr. (Richard Jenkins) visiting his family members from beyond the grave turns ineffably rapturous when Ruth tells her dead husband, "I miss what we had." "Then find it again," he replies.
The strongest–the representation of high-school girl outcasts–and weakest–the portrayals of homosexuality and the middle-class homemaker–elements of American Beauty resurface in "Six Feet Under" to greater dividends. Claire, whose heart bleeds but whose tongue is laced with acid, has the most tragic arc as her innate empathy from growing up amongst mourners comes to betray her. David is a closeted homosexual more than ready to assume control of the business yet too immature to handle a relationship with sage, incidentally African-American police officer Keith (Mathew St. Patrick). And though Conroy begins as a clucking caricature of anxiety, as Ruth's loneliness emerges, manifesting itself in a desperation to connect with Claire, the only other female presence in her household, the character becomes almost ceaselessly affecting. She's not a shrew like Annette Bening's one-dimensional control freak Carolyn Burnham, but a woman plundering her proto-June Cleaver existence for meaning.
If the radiant "Six Feet Under", possibly the only TV show on the air right now concerned less with actions than with consequences, has a stumbling block, it's Ball's forced ambiguities and trashy gags, apparent Achilles Heels. American Beauty's mysterious voyeur Ricky has an analogue in Billy (Jeremy Sisto), a photographer with incestual ties to sister Brenda (Rachel Griffiths), Nate's new girlfriend. Billy even has a subplot wherein he seduces Claire through his lens, à la the taped confessionals in American Beauty, and the overall obtuseness of Brenda's family of psychos/psychologists reminds of Ricky's comatose mother and ex-marine father. (Nate and Brenda's rocky courtship is the motor of the first season; although compelling, it's the least interesting storyline in retrospect, steered as it is by figures of such arcane motivations that the writers lose their grip on them and fall back on suspense-driven motivations.) And let it be said that Ball used to work on the Cybill Shepherd vehicle "Cybill", a bit of whose burlesque finds its way into "Six Feet Under", particularly those episodes he wrote by himself. The commercials for tools of the death trade that frame the pilot, for example, are grotesque like an aging diva and long for the satirical touch of Paul Verhoeven's jabs at American advertising in "RoboCop" and "Starship Troopers".
THE DVD
HBO collates all thirteen episodes of "Six Feet Under"'s first season on four discs in a package that opens uncannily like a coffin and boasts of the best audio-visual transfers of televised material I've seen since HBO's DVD set of "Band of Brothers". Each hour is presented in its original fullscreen (1.33:1) aspect ratio with pin-drop clear 5.1 Dolby Digital audio that surprises with its depth of activity, especially during the pilot. Unfortunately, compression artifacts materialize on those platters with four episodes instead of three. (Note: the manner in which they're divvied-up does not accurately reflect the table of contents printed within the DVD's gatefold.) One thing I adore about HBO is their inclusion of a detailed synopsis, animated previews, and previously-on/next-on teasers within episode sub-menus.
Ball provides commentary for "Six Feet Under: The Complete First Season"'s premiere and finale ("Pilot," "Knock, Knock"), the two episodes he directed. Some of his insights are invaluable (he says the show takes place in L.A. because it's "the world capital of denial of death"), others utility (process plates were a necessary evil). Although it's interesting to hear how his style underwent a learning curve, in truth the tracks are dominated by his praise of the cast and thus a bit on the dull side. Disc 1 includes a deleted scene (with a pair of optional commentaries, both by Ball) in which Claire, coming down from a crystal-meth high, is Nate's passenger on the way to the supermarket, in addition to the mini-doc "Under the Main Titles" (16 mins.), which takes you through the creation of the opening credits sequence from Thomas Newman's music to designer Digital Kitchen's search for the perfect iconic tree.
Disc 4's lightweight though not insubstantial "Behind-the-Scenes Featurette" (21 mins.), created just prior to the premiere of Season 2, contains interviews with key actors–Ambrose is far more chipper than her on-screen alter ego–and Ball, who says he has learned to let instinct be his guide for the series. Michael Hall tells a dryly humorous story of a previous job selling knives door-to-door that I found endearing. Newman's main theme plus Kid Loco's gratuitous remix, cast/filmmaker bios, an episode index (like the bios, an extra on every disc), and an awards listing finish off the fourth platter. Brace yourself for tearjerking menu music.
60 minutes/episode approx.; NR; 1.33:1; English DD 5.1, English Dolby Surround, French DD 2.0 (Mono), Spanish DD 2.0 (Mono); CC; Spanish subtitles; 4 DVD-9s; Region One; HBO
