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Rock Videos. Pop videos. Choreography. Pouting. A
third world debt’s worth of push-up bras, blusher and
flattering lights. ‘Artsy’ slow-mo and unnecessary use
of black & white. Lame CGI. Lame narrative. Reoccurring
artiste close-ups as constant reminder of product. Empty
sexuality. All the fireworks in Texas (hello, Audioslave!).
Or big room, stage, two cameras, endless supply of ugly
gurn-any-which-way-to-get-on-TV fans and band playing
live. Or as near as they can manage. And another heap
of slow-mo. Music videos, like fossil fuels and Richard
and Judy, we take very much for granted. Most of us
grew up with MTV in existence if not within immediate
reach. MTV let people know they could see music with
their eyes, but they did that with such ease by, for
the most part, bypassing the imagination. Most of us
are therefore unaware that most of what we are peddled
is actually dead horse meat, marketing jism, pre-artistic
flotsam. We demand nothing. They are just there. Music
videos exist to buy the head of EMI a new car. Or for
Sophie to lumber along to absent-mindedly in the gym.
There are, granted, numerous exceptions to this rule,
some even make it to or gatecrash the mainstream. But
you’re unlikely to see most of them unless you’re an
insomniac and you haven’t already had enough of MTV2
by 1am. But the directors are out there, not that you’d
know it. MTV2 used to begin it’s videos with the direction
credit, though that indulgence has long been buried
beneath adverts and sponsorship packages. You only know
their work as That Radiohead One In The Woods
or That Sigur Ros One With The Downs Syndrome
Kids. But they are out there, and with their imaginations
intact. For instance Jake & Jim (That Super Furries’
One With The Dogs) have been quirky and attention grabbing
for years, if a little hit and miss. Shynola
(That Rapture One With The Flyers and That Semi Animated
QOTSA One With The Lady Spreading Her Legs Over
A Road) has been consistently stylish. And there are
others.
But there are 3 contemporary directors who in this modern
age have been consistently synonymous with quality,
ambition and disturbing fucky freakiness. And Englishman
Chris Cunningham, Frenchman Michel Gondry
and American Spike Jonze had the good grace to
get their shit together and put out compendiums of their
work, the music videos, the short films, the commercials,
the documentaries, the interviews, the rarities. To
let you know who they are, rather than just the bands
they give such personalities to through selfless artistic
goodwill. Et voila.
The Work Of Director Michel Gondry – Rating:
****
Michel Gondry has a number of obsessions. The most notable
of these being repetition, graphic reproduction and
thoroughly deconstructing music only to build it back
up entwined with a symmetrical visual foil and a sense
of the absurd. You will already know him, particularly
for the White Stripes’ One With The Lego, One With The
Trashed House And The Projections, and One With The
Ridiculous Equalizer-esque Reproduction Of Jack And
Meg. Then there are his victorious mind-melting visuals
for The Chemical Brothers’ ‘Star Guitar’ where to the
untrained eye it appears he has choreographed the whole
of France from a train window, and to the trained eye
like he’s a meticulous genius. Then there’s the psychedelic
mind-warp of ‘Let Forever Be’, transforming musical
desperation into necessity. He may have embraced constantly
reoccurring themes through his body of work (Daft Punk’s
‘All Around The World’ does look like an affordable
demo for ‘Star Guitar’) but he still lets each song
speak for itself and take ownership of the video. And
with ‘Everlong’ he produced the only Foo Fighters video
worth sitting through till the end. Achievement all
around. Not every last music video is a cast iron work
of infinite genius, but most are a blast and there is
a benchmark he never descends below. Just remember to
watch French band Oui Oui’s numerous videos with the
sound off. His commercials and short films are all worth
repeat peeps too, ‘La Lettre’ in particular being a
stunningly sweet ride. In an interview, Bjork attributes
his style to a hippie upbringing, which may actually
correlate with our guess, LSD.
The Work Of Director Chris Cunningham – Rating: ****
As perfectly affable as he probably is down the pub
with a bitter and a cigarette on a Sunday afternoon,
as far as character scans go, this doesn’t conjure a
pretty picture. If he lives as he works you can bet
he’s not at the top of many Christmas card lists. He
has the freedom of the city of your darkermost thoughts,
and he goes there all the time. Although this collection
does paint (pixellate?) him out as a broader artist
than many who just know him as the guy who sewed Aphex
Twin’s face onto all those little gingham-dressed girls
and scared the bejesus out of you the first time you
stumbled on ‘Come To Daddy’ in the early hours of the
morning may believe. However, in ever single instance
he seems to be similarly playing chicken with the musical
track. Inevitably though neither move an inch and he
dislocates limbs-a-plenty in a numerous creative head-on
smashes. From the vamp-serenity of Madonna’s ‘Frozen’
and soft bliss of Porishead’s ‘Only You’, to the staggering
cold mechanical passion of Bjork’s ‘All Is Full of Love’,
to the harsh disorientation and dark humour of Leftfield’s
‘Afrika Shox’ and certainly in Squarepusher’s outrageously
frantically hilariously distorted ‘Come On My Selector’,
he is magnifying the atmospheric premise of the song
and hijacking it, staffing it from his own warped worldview.
Exactly which world isn’t clear, if it’s this one it’s
looking through one hell of a lens. His adverts aren’t
as much cop but his ‘Monkey Drummer’ video instillation
is exactly the kind of craziness TV screens were made
for.
The Work Of Director Spike Jonze – Rating ***
Spike Jonze is a slightly different prospect to his
DVD series colleagues, though in his own way no less
valuable. He doesn’t dig deep into the tune and excavate,
he doesn’t manipulate imagery with technology to any
fantabulous degree, he doesn’t turn a concept upside
down and shake it beyond normality. He’s more likely
to just turn the camera upside down if he thinks it’d
be, like, cool. His own gift is his angle on situations,
the giddiness with which he often shoots, his lack of
respect for conformation, and his ability to make his
characters and subjects shine. And of course his, like,
umm, really cool ideas. He’s more prone to slip into
normality than the other two and for that the two discs
may be stretching things a teensy bit. Stuff like the
golf across New York narrative to Dinosaur Jr’s ‘Feel
The Pain’ would be fine throwaway stuff for a Weezer
clip, but doesn’t cut the Marmite here. But then Weezer
have got the smile-guaranteed world-conquering Happy
Days ‘Buddy Holly’ vid, so you won’t be hearing a grumble
about their side of the deal. And on top of that one
there’s the Beastie’s celebrated ‘Sabotage’, The Pharcyde’s
excellent ‘Drop’ (predating Coldplay’s backward ‘The
Scientist’), Fatboy Slim’s ‘Praise You’ dance troupe
and the Christopher Walken (and dancin’) starring masterpiece
‘Weapon of Choice’ and Bjork’s (incidentally the only
artist to appear on all 3 DVDs) gleaming showpiece ‘It’s
Oh So Quiet’. If he wasn’t making videos and films he’d
probably be sat at home watching Jackass. So just thank
god it didn’t start in the 80s.
Relevant sites:
http://www.directorslabel.com/
James Berry for Crud Magazine 2003©
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