Media Series - TV
Characters


Representation – Page 3
EDUQUAS

How is Durst constructed as a “monster” in the pre-credit sequence (00:00-03:40) before he even appears on screen?

  • The monster’ is created through the hyperbolic language and mode of address in the opening sequences as the dismembered body is described.
  • We are positioned by the 1st person VO and then the POV shots in the car with Det. Gary Jones and share his horrified reaction
  • VO – “young kid” found a “torso” – emotive
  • The generic signifiers of the crime drama or police procedural (evidence markers, plastic gloves, sirens and cop cars etc.) and the audio track with police radio create verisimilitude
  • The crime is constructed as particularly grisly – “had to get my fingers through its throat”- graphic and chilling. “I recall seeing a toe” – victim as disposable/paralleled with the paper carton. “A leg” with the graphic outlining its position. Stills of limbs have severance marks at the edges of the frames.
  • The stills shots are accompanied by bass notes which are filled with foreboding
Show suggestions
Print

How does the construction of Durst reinforce/challenge this representation in the rest of the episode?

  • Credits (03:40-04:54): The Eels soundtrack – “Fresh Blood” – Durst as almost vampiric (emphasised later by his pallor and the downlighting which highlights his skull)
  • Profile shots connoting duality reinforce his representation as enigmatic.
  • The boy – the home movie footage (football, beach) implies innocence and happiness. The graphic match from boy to man suggests he has been formed by his childhood – a ‘poor little rich boy’
  • Shot of watching his mother on the roof is grainy, disturbing and seems sadistic. Accompanied by eerie audio track of musical saw
  • Chiaroscuro lighting suggests hidden secrets. The attack on the woman is cinematic, slow-motion, parallel framed through the door. Red curtains connote danger. The sequence seems stylized and therefore unreal
  • The silhouette in the penthouse against the window and isolated figure seated alone and centre frame suggest his loneliness
  • Low angle shot of him in prison orange walking towards the camera/us
  • The superimposition of cutting hair/shaving head has intertextual resonance (Travis Bickle, the outsider vigilante in Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” )
  • Throughout, he is constructed as an enigma - different viewpoints from different people
  • The still at Pennysylvania Prison – the tiny, frail old man between 2 tall, muscular prisoners
  • His dry wit – he is amusing and bizarrely engaging “Cause he’s a pussy”
  • The closed and parallel frames and motif of prison bars suggest he is trapped with no escape
  • Vocal – his voice is deep, gravelly and almost hypnotic
  • He is fragile– spectacles, physical size, thin skin, his tics and twitches
  • High angled shots emphasise his weakness
  • Air of candid honesty juxtaposed with sense of him as a performer – “rehearsing” his responses, staring at the cameras
  • In court – “Did they say not?”
Print

Look at the characters.
Analyse how they are represented and how this representation has been constructed.

Robert Durst

Andrew Jarecki

Debrah Lee Charatan

Jeanine Pirro

Cody Cazalas