It took me a while to realize it, but this season of the United States of Tara has not been using its theme song, which I think is kind of a travesty.

This sequence was directed by Jamie Caliri, whom you may remember as the director of Marcy Playground’s video for “Sex and Candy.” And honestly, the parallels are pretty interesting. Watch:

Caliri-as-auteur has some interest in barren, forbidding, and dream-like landscapes, with single heads rising out of the ground. Everything, including interior shots, looks delicate and handmade, seemingly a child’s fully-realized fashioning of a fantasy.

In the case of Tara, the setup is a pop-up book about Tara’s alters. The ones established at the beginning of the series (Alice, T, and Buck) make appearances doing what they do, but it’s not until the last moment that we see Tara herself - not just not altered, but it is also our first glimpse of her face. This is kind of a strong reveal, as Toni Collette’s face is what makes the show. To watch Toni Collette as Tara transition between alters is a weekly face-acting lesson (is face-acting a thing?). To make a show where the bulk of the ensemble is played by a single actor (be quiet, Tracy Ullman) you need someone who can not just play all the characters but can also demonstrate when she’s transitioning. You either get Anna Deveare Smith or you get Toni Collette, and Anna Deveare Smith is busy.

The song is by The Polyphonic Spree, who as far as I can tell are incapable of making music that’s downbeat. The song’s complaint that “this mess is getting high” is preceded by its own solution: to “open up the skies.” The world can either make space for us or not, but we’re not going to change to fit its dimensions (this is visualized in Tara’s head’s enormous expansion out of a house that can’t contain her at the end of the video). Even though sometimes (especially at this point in the third season) it doesn’t always feel this way, we will be just fine. The second season finale, when this family unit realizes that they can live through their dysfunctions, is kind of emblematic of that. They should really bring back this sequence (even though Tara’s alters have increased in number since it was produced). It’s so good.

Update! Apparently the show was just canceled. Bummer.

Shameless is yet another recent addition to Showtime’s slate. The song here is called “The Luck You Got” by The High Strung, and I think it’s meant to be ironic because the family on Shameless ISN’T lucky. They’re unlucky (because they’re poor). It’s a good song, though, even if it does sort of smack of the “wealthy people making shows about poor people” vibe (see also: anything that uses the song “Ain’t We Got Fun?”).

The title sequence, the real star of this post, was directed by Erin Sarofsky (she’s also responsible for the excellent title sequence for Community!). The DP was Adam Santelli and the Production Designer was Naomi Slodki. Sarofsky further describes the production details: 

Because this was a live action production, we designed and constructed the bathroom set, then shot the cast in Los Angeles using the RED ONE camera. 

Hey, Red Cameras! Everyone loves those, you know?

Writing on the sequence, Hitfix.com’s Alan Sepinwall said:

The sequence places a fixed eye on the lone bathroom shared by the sprawling Gallagher family. …  We watch Fiona and her brothers, sisters, friends, neighbors and everyone’s assorted boyfriends and girlfriends use the bathroom for both its intended purposes and many others, from sex to the toddler using the toilet to brush his teeth.

That’s “Shameless” in 30 seconds or less: messy, overcrowded, unapologetically frank and, at times, darkly funny.

Sepinwall isn’t wrong, for the most part. I love the messiness of this sequence; it definitely gets you into the tone of the show, for the most part. But I’d like to focus on the camera itself (the Red Camera, you may recall). Sarofsky refers to it as “slightly voyeuristic.” Sepinwall calls it a “fixed eye.” But Sepinwall’s wrong.

Watch the camera throughout the sequence. At a few points, it jerks a bit. There’s a jump cut, and the camera moves slightly. This actually gives the sequence even more of a documentary feel. It conjures up a story: This family has been given a camera with which to document their lives. As something of a prank, they set up the camera to tape their bathroom. But throughout the day, the kids borrow the camera to tape, you know, whatever. Someone has cut out everything that isn’t a shot of the bathroom. Hence, jump cuts and movement. This subtle kineticism, in my opinion, ADDS to the messy feel of the sequence. This may be a stretch, but watch it the way I described it. I’m kind of right, right?

Episodes is a new Showtime sitcom not about a white woman who is keeping a big secret. I know, right? Do we even know anything real about this world AT ALL?

The premise of the show is two British television writers come to America where their show is adapted to American television and thusly ruined. Now, if ever there were a title sequence that told this story, here it is. A script is in England (cup of tea, Big Ben) and flies across America (luckily there’s some beautiful country to watch during how long it takes to finish the credits), finally reaching Hollywood, where it’s shot like a bird. Get it? Get it?

Weeds has its detractors, but I am not one of them. But the show has changed. In its early seasons it was a critique of upper-middle-class suburban banality and hypocrisy, and an insightful one at that. Since season four, it has become a show about how easy it is to find oneself doing sincerely sinister things. If the marijuana is locally-grown by reasonably-paid farmers, there is absolutely nothing immoral about selling it. So when we meet Nancy Botwin she’s someone doing a reasonable thing to support her family. Once she leaves Agrestic it becomes clear that we’re watching a larger, more epic story: the story of a woman who is willing to compromise any values she ever had, chasing after a false notion of what it takes to protect her family. I think it’s riveting.

But that’s not what this blog is about! I want us to talk about the theme song, from when the show was all about the suburbs. This sequence shows us how everything in the suburbs looks identical, so someone like Nancy - a transgressor - would stick out like a sore thumb. Every now and then we get a reminder that, deep down, Nancy is just like a lot of the people we see in this sequence. She drives and SUV and SLURPS her iced coffee drinks super loud. Basically the fact the she interacts with black people ever (I miss Romany Malco on this show) is the only thing that sets her apart from, say, Celia Hodes.

The song choice is a fairly obvious one. “Little Boxes” has been anthemic since Malvina Reynolds (who sings it in the show’s first season) wrote it and her bfff (best folk friend forever) Pete Seeger covered it. But, if we can be honest for a second, this song misses its mark a little bit.

Tom Lehrer, famous crotchety individual, allegedly called “Little Boxes,” “the most sanctimonious song ever written,” and while I believe there are more sanctimonious songs, he’s not wrong about the sanctimoniousness. The houses made of ticky-tacky, that all look just the same? Those were people’s first homes. Immigrants, children of immigrants, poor people, and minorities were suddenly able to own property because of these cheap building materials. Identical ticky-tacky houses may well have not been the most original things to look at, but they did a lot of good for a lot of people, and essentially created a middle class.

Listen, nobody’s trying to defend conformity or The Suburbs. But little’s black and white in this world. A point well-made by Weeds, in general. </wrap-up>

Dexter has one of the all-time great opening sequences. This song is composed by Rolfe Kent, who has scored a lot of movies, but I hope he’s remembered forever for this. This song feels like it’s being meticulously plucked on its various instruments (mostly strings). The notes don’t blend into each other, they stand in stark contrast with each other. And Dexter is not a man who allows the notes of his life to blend. He’s a family man and police consultant, and he’s also a serial killer who KILLS SERIAL KILLERS (spoiler alert). The music draws along strings as delicate as the ones Dexter uses to draw lines in his life, and also to mark lines of blood splatter in his line of work.

As far as the video goes, it is the strongest argument for HD in all of history. Watch it in standard definition:

It is Just. Not. The Same. The video was largely supervised and edited by Eric Anderson (edited with Josh Bodnar, directed with Colin Davis), and designed largely by Anthony Vitagliano, animated with Nick Campbell and designed with Lindsay Daniels. This crowd works over at Digital Kitchen, who’s responsible for the opening titles to True Blood AND Six Feet Under.

This sequence has to accomplish two things. One is that it shows day-to-day life as being unspeakably grisly. We know the show’s about a serial killer who KILLS SERIAL KILLERS so we look throughout for clues about Dexter’s bloody crimes. Tight zooms-in let us see the violence in making Canadian bacon for breakfast, in shaving, in tying your sneakers.

Way back in college I took a class called “Post-Modernism in Film” which was NOT exciting but DID count toward my major (which was not film). The teacher was a world-renowned anti-futurist (what?) who showed us the opening scene from Pixar’s Toy Story, where young Andy tosses Woody around his house. He bumps Woody into banisters and walls, and generally treats him with the carefree abandon of a small child with a toy. The teacher paused the movie. “Andy or Sid?” he asked. While I still don’t care for this class, it definitely helped me understand the way that context is key. We know Andy loves Woody, so we don’t register what he does as violence. We know Dexter kills people, so we read his every action as dangerous.

Jim Emerson at the Chicago Sun-Times observes the real sinister nature of the opening sequence; the thing that actually DOES tell us Dexter’s a serial killer, even if we went into the show without knowing it.

Creating, assembling, integrating, asserting, and maintaining a personality is routine for most of us, but there’s no denying it’s hard work. Some of us have to do it from scratch every day.

This is not just a day in the life of Dexter Morgan. This is EVERY day in the life of Dexter Morgan. His routine is vital to his ability to keep his act together, and his ability to convince us he’s normal. And, like a Michael Haneke movie, Dexter lets us in the audience know that he sees us there, and he dares us to stop him. Emerson again:

We get a clear view of Dexter’s face for the first time. He looks us in the eye. For just a little too long. It’s uncomfortable. For us, not so much him. He’s pretty sure he can present a “normal” face to the world. He’s been doing it all this life, every day.

We see Dexter pulled together, the complete look, as he leaves his apartment and heads out into the world in the harsh light of day. His shoulders are a little hunched, held a bit too high. His walk, his taut expression, even his wardrobe — something’s off. They’re all stiff. Over-determined, controlled. Dexter catches our eye and flashes an unconvincing but polite smile. Cordial without being warm. Sociopathic. He knows we know. But nobody else does. It’s our little secret.

Time for a feature called FOCUS ON: THE EMMYS. This morning the Emmys nominations were announced, and that includes Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music (which, by the way, is a ridiculously long name for a category). So what say we do some chatting on the nominated titles?

The tune was written by Wendy & Lisa, a duo made up of Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman, formerly of Prince and the Revolution (!). The sequence was created by Mark Gardner, Corey Weisz, Cara McKenny, and Steve Fuller, who is also the dude who uploaded this to vimeo. As to the filming of it, he has said:

This was shot with the Phantom camera over 4 different shooting days (long story) at speeds ranging from 48fps to 1000fps. Some really nice (and expensive) Zeiss lenses were used which gave us some nice focus falloff.

All of the objects were shot at 1000fps. Since they were small and very close to camera the move faster through frame so you need faster frame rates. Faster frame rates require more light. At one point our light was brighter than sunlight and we were cooking the camera. We had 3 fans on the camera so it wouldn’t melt.

Edie Falco was also shot at high frame rates. As we widened out we gradually went to more normal frame rates (30-120) since she was further from the lens.

Now all that means nothing to me, as I don’t know thing one about cameras, but maybe it will interest you?

What’s more important, I think, is noting how much critics HATE this opening sequence. On twitter, Alan Sepinwall said, “Emmy errata: awesome Human Target theme nominated in same category as heinous Nurse Jackie theme.” As a matter of fact, Myles McNutt has devoted an entire post to how much he hates the sequence, called “Why Nurse Jackie Has The Worst Credits Sequence In Television.” I don’t want to retread his arguments, and I don’t agree with that thesis, but I can observe some things that make this title sequence weak.

First, it’s very stylized and fancy-shmancy. This is fairly common in cable, and it’s certainly not a negative on its own, but it has given some shows license to create these expressionist title sequences that are more like music videos than title sequences - they don’t always have a ton to do with the show itself, they just happen to feature a list of the actors on the show. Nurse Jackie is far from the worst offender here, but you can see the strains of that here.

What Nurse Jackie does that makes its weaknesses stand out is that it tries to use this artsy-fartsy style but apply it to the network-y idea of “the audience might not understand the premise of the show without this sequence.” So we get, as a result, something that tries to have it both ways: Jackie has this trippy dream sequence about the various vices in her life. It sort of tells us about the show, if all the show’s about is about her vices (it isn’t), and it sort of tells us nothing about the show. In my opinion, it does not deserve the Emmy this year.