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

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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?”

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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