In reflecting on my experience of The Sixth Sense, I read Scott’s blog for some coloring, if you will. It got me thinking about the ways in which the subtext of a film in certain formal elements such as sensory motifs (ie the visual repetition of the color red) are meant to be interpreted and how they affect the viewer’s experience of the film. There are several levels on which the film is operating – and the viewer is positioned as passive or active depending on a subscription to diagetic or formalist theories respectively. According to Bordwell, the viewer constructs the fabula based on narrative logic, time and space. The manner in which the Syuzhet is constructed, using tactics such as communicativeness/uncommunicativeness, gaps, delay, sequencing, flaunting, suppressing, retardation, and self-consciousness. Aaron brings up a good point in his blog about the red motif in The Sixth Sense as a way for the film maker to directly communicate with the audience, since the red does not resinate in their diagetic world, it is clearly meant for us. But because it is not essential to the story in the sense that at least I did not find myself noticing it or looking for it in my first viewing, it does not help the viewer construct the fabula. Its function is more stylistic – and since after in depth analysis, we discover that it signifies the presence of a dead person, I’m left wondering what the purpose of the device is. In effect, the suspense tactic of the film only works once, and each subsequent viewing, as Lavik and Aaron point out, is to re-visit the text and re-create the fabula based on the reveal. But the red motif, although apparent on subsequent viewings, doesn’t add new information. It provides a hidden visual motif of clues that can really only be completely perceived and enjoyed on subsequent viewings. The clue involving a temperature drop is more visceral, in that we keep it in our minds and wonder, why does that keep happening? It aids in the general suspense and active formalist viewing of a film. But the red motif is a different kind of stylistic choice, one which may even be the influence of an art designer. A visual choice can often be added post screenplay/story conception, during the conception of the art design of the movie. In this way, its even possible that the choice began as more aesthetic, and moved into the realm of the story world. In the case of subtext – its unclear whether red is there to serve the viewer’s construction of the fabula, or whether it is more artistically motivated. Is it there to provide a richer experience in order to reward people for multiple viewings, or is it the result of an artistic vision? I have no memory of the red motif, but I find it to be a productive topic for analysis. Ambiguity of communicativeness may be intentional, in order to allow people like me to ponder the meaning of red, and from where it came, and why etc, etc etc. I guess it also just looks good. Maybe sometimes a color is just a color. But when it comes to big Hollywood movies, I wouldn’t count arbitrariness in the realm of possibilities. The world is so specific, so intricate and tightly constructed that every detail is more than it seems. Essentially, the film is then training us to read into everything, to notice the subtext. Eventually, when it becomes apparent and overt, the subtext ceases to be subtext. It becomes part of the text. And then we look deeper…deeper…but where will it end?