🅔🅝🅖 Euphoria - Sam Levinson
septiembre 27, 2020
Usually I don't analyze a TV series cause it takes so much time, but Euphoria deserve it cause it's FUCKING amazing and a masterpiece.
If you haven't seen it yet, I don't know what are you waiting for. This analysis contains spoilers and I don't wanna ruin you the series, so watch it and then come back here to read what I'm going to tell you.
Have you seen it? Okay, let's get started
The series is divided into 8 episodes and, at the beginning of each episode, they develop every character's childhood. The first chapter is about Rue, the main role and the narrator of the story. Every information we know it's according to her point of view, and it can be true or not. Actually, maybe she's not reliable and she tells us herself:
Rue has obsessive-compulsive disorder, and that's why the scenes visually are so dynamic. In fact, there are hardly any cuts and almost every camera movement is energetic, makes turns, loses gravity and so on.
Also when the camera points on some character, instead of having a cut, the camera follows the persona. Even the camera jumps from person to person like it was passed the baton. Here are some examples:
As the camera movements are so dynamic, there are many shots at an overhead angle.
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| 16.16 |
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| 9.59 |
I would like to highlight two scenes of the camera movements, that in my opinion, there are two of the best camera movements of the series:
1. Rue's scene doing a powerpoint presentation about dick pics. I know I've said it to many times but it's SO dynamic. Frankly it looks like a teleshopping advert, cause it breaks the fourth wall talking with us. Besides, in this example we can appreciate further how it works Rue's brain:
2. The Kat's mirror scene: It's like a fake mirror because we can see Kat and her reflection, but then it looks like Kat is her own reflection and not herself. I interpret this sequence as representing the duality of Kat's character: Kat and Kittenkween. At the beginning of the series, we have seen a shy Kat, who evolves to a outgoing person. That confident Kat take control herself and that's why the camera ends up going with her reflection. It's a bit confused to explain so here is the example:
In fact, there is a scene that shows the painting of Ophelia's death, from Hamlet. The purport I attribute to this is the representation of old Kat's death cause it appears when Kat's sex tape circulates around the institute, and Troy (McKay's brother) spreads that wasn't her. Coincidence? I think not.
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| Millais, J. (1852). Ophelia [Oil on canvas]. London, Tate Britain Museum |
Each one had dreams and aspirations in life, but those wishes were broken when they crashed against the wall calls reality during the adolescence.
Basically, Rue says life sucks. But why does she shows us everything with all kind of color lights and glitter instead of show it with dark tones and shadows if life sucks? It's because our special narrator it would be under the influence of drugs while she's telling us the story. Also this visual experience express how she feels and see everything when she gets high.
I'm going to give you an example where Rue goes out from Jules's house after felt the temptation to do drugs. Immediately she takes her bike and it loomes some colour lights. Those lights shouldn't be there cause in a regular street doesn't appear usually that kind of lights.
I'm going to display to you some interesting frames:
- When Rue do drugs in a party. She's reflected in the mirror of the bathroom. A curious mirror cause it may be broken or there are three mirrors. In any case, this frame reflects the different Rue's personalities. In fact, she told us that she has bipolar disorder.
There is, actually, a video of Sam Levinson talking about how they made this scene. It's very interesting, so I leave it here for you if you want to see it
- The carnival day begins very well but ends very bad. Each character has his own issues and everything is a chaos. But it's a great mess because It's very well represented thought the music and a sequence of shots of Rue and Jules searching for Gia. This whole sequence deserves an ovation because it must have been very complicated to shoot it. It's so long, it has camera movements with cranes, with a lot of extras, and also it is a sequence shot, which means no cuts. The level of coordination must have been brutal and stressful. But the results are amazing.
- In this shot we can see Kat and Ethan in class. Ethan is sitting backlit by the projector. This could be paranoias that my brain creates, but this image reminds me of rays of the virgin Mary. Friendly reminder: Kat didn't want to hook up with Ethan at first cause he was virgin.
- Jules on her way to meet ShyGuy118. That relationship is not going anywhere. I think the image speak for itself.
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| 45.18 |
The next theme I want to talk is about music. But don't forget Nate's character, cause it's related to what I'm going to talk about now: LEITMOTIV
I've divided the soundtrack of Euphoria in two types of songs:
1. Those who were composed for the series
2. Those who are from other artist and were borrowed to supplement the plot.
Some who were composed are assigned to some characters or some moments of the story. That's Nate's case, who has his own musical accompaniment:
Nate is not the only one who has a leitmotiv. Rue's character has musical theme too. Usually appears when she feels some culpability about about her addiction :
I leave you the link to a internet site where I've checked the songs of the series. It's a great page cause you can consult every soundtrack of series, film or even videogames and all kind of information:
I want to make a shout-out to the composer of the most of the soundtrack of Euphoria: Labrinth
He explains better than myself all about the soundtrack and it's very interesting:
In the last episode Rue's mother tells us how Rue experience her disorder, and she said:''If you listen closely, you'll understand her more''; ''The counting, the repetition, the need for symmetry''; '' That it's about balance. Stability''.
The need of harmony is reflected in the composition of the image. Here's some examples:
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| Directional lines (lances) point the look into the center of interest |
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| Pyramid structure |
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| Pyramid structure |
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| Symmetry |
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| Natural framed |
Now I'm going to talk about two things before talking about the ending music video, my opinion and stuff.
1.As I've said before, there are too much characters in this series and it's difficult to introduce each of one and remember them. Most of them are introduced directly by Rue at the beginning of each episode. But it's not the case for some like Daniel, Ethan or Ali, who appear through the context. I shall give you an example, where it's very clear how the camera relate Daniel to Cassie indirectly. This happens before we meet Daniel.
2. I don't want to deepen in this area cause it isn't my cup of tea, but I wanted to emphasize on the importance of the marketing and how has been introduced. Promoting some product in a series not only benefit the brand, but also benefits the series too cause brings more realism to the film.
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Those ups and downs are represented by the movement and the choreography.
I almost forgot to make reference to a painting cause my blog without mention any artwork, even if it was intentionally or not, wouldn't be my blog. That pile of people reminds me of romanticism paintings in France.
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| Géricault, T. (1819). The raft of the medusa [Oil on canvas] Paris, Louvre museum |
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| Delacroix, E. (1830). Liberty leading the people [Oil on canvas] París, Louvre museum |
And actually I think the artistic movement of the romanticism represent very well Rue's feelings, cause the aim of the romanticism was to exalt the passion, the pain, the feelings, the mystery, etc.
Finally One last thing I would like to comment. There is a camera movement that appears in episode 8 that reminded me of a scene in the film 'La la land' (2016) by Damien Chazelle. I leave here the video with the two scenes:
And that's all my analysis. I thought it would be longer, but I've tried to sum up all the information.
I hope you like it and I'm sorry if my english is not perfect. I've tried my best.
Now it's time for... drumroll: My favourite frames. Actually I'd say the entire series but there are moments to highlight:
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| Lovely |
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| Dressed up as Bob Ross. ICONIC |
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| A totally mood |
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| Mood Homer simpson be like |
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| Bitch, I FUCKING LOVE the detective Bennet moment. And when Rue says to her mom: ''Mom, I'm a fucking genius''. I need a t-shirt with these scene |
And finally, my opinion:
I've freaking loved it. Every detail was carefully prepared, the cast is freaking awesome and the first season ending, ended on a high note. The endings matters a lot to me, even if they do a second season. Because if the finale was poorly done with a flash forward or something like that, I would be very upset.
I love that it's not just any high school series. Euphoria doesn't romanticize the problems, doesn't focus on the cliclés, there are more diversity of people and they aren't stereotyped.
About the censoring, I have mixed feelings. On the one hand I think life isn't easy and that has to be shown. But on the other hand, some scenes were a bit traumatic.
Also the series represents very well the adolescence reality talking current issues and how we feel.
I haven't talked about makeup because I don't know much about it. It sounds to me that makeup also has a certain meaning and evolves with the personality of the characters. But I'll just say that it's a great thing and all the make-up artists have done a magnificent job.
To say something I didn't like, I'll say:
1. It's fantastic to borrow some artists songs cause it's promo for the musician. But when the song has his own history and context, sometimes doesn't fit for me. As in the case of Malamente by Rosalía.
By the way, is it just me or Fez looks like the rapper Mac Miller? In fact, he died in 2018 from an accidental drug overdose. Coincidence? I think not
And last but not least:
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| Remember this is a teamwork😉 |
DIKRA.
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