Diverting away from the narrative

So I have been meaning to get back to this topic of music videos for a while.

Months ago, I was reading an analysis of an Aphex Twin video written by Tom Gersic. His essay was the original impetus for the commentary on Ganxtaville I did a while back. For what follows here. I want to trace some common themes and interesting connections between a series of music videos that come from disparate periods and genres. I think that there is an aesthetic that can be outlined. So here we go.

One of my favorite videos of all time is Peter Gabriel's Shock the Monkey. One of the things I like best about it is how the images and the "narrative" of the song don't quite sync up. Gabriel "performs" the song, singing along with the music, but this is not a performance video. Instead, the song lyrics are woven into a disorienting set of images that menace the viewer (and Gabriel himself) both through their content and their disconnectedness:



Now, getting from here to Aphex Twin might take some work, but I see a line that can be drawn between them. At first it might seem like these are apples and oranges. However, I think Gabriel's video is a precursor in some key ways. It sets the stage, but there are some other elements as well to consider.

First of all, I recommend watching the following short clip from John Carpenter's late-model horror classic, The Prince of Darkness, as it gives a good example of another aspect of this aesthetic that I will define in a moment:




What we see above is a style with some identifiable features: 1) disturbing, unexplained images 2) shot in handheld video, with 3) diegetic but sub-audible or garbled voices speaking. It's freakin' creepy. I remember the first time I saw this film in the theater in high school with all my crazy pals. We laughed at a lot of it (it's pretty laughable) - but this part was disturbing.

Another example is the handheld footage incorporated into M. Night Shyamalan's Signs, when we first get a glimpse of one of the aliens. The combination of documentary-style with the uncanny is effectively disorienting (I don't have a clip to show, but the DVD is readily available). Both of these movie moments created a very particular feeling in me.

So that's one piece. Then, one night a couple years ago, I was traveling for my job with Outward Bound, and was staying the night at a hotel in Chattanooga. I couldn't sleep, and turned on the TV, and was flipping channels when I ran across the beginning of Paul Hunter's video for Marilyn Manson's The Dope Show:



As you can see, there is a resemblance to the aesthetic in Prince of Darkness I described above. But even more, there was a resemblance in the creepy feeling I had watching it. Needless to say, I did not sleep well in that motel room that night.

One last piece I want to add to the mix is the old David Bowie video for Ashes to Ashes. I think the similarities to the Manson video will be immediately obvious. The blown-out colors in Bowie's version are due to early video effects pushed into hot overdrive, but you can easily see how it influenced what's going on in the Manson video. Plus, note the strange chorus/entourage in black here that parallel the weirdos in Manson's limo. Also, this video is contemporaneous to Shock the Monkey, and offers a similar style of non-performance-performance and disturbing disconnectedness:



So now several pieces are in place. 1) In Gabriel's video, we have the "little people," attacking and biting Gabriel and menacing him inexplicably, and inexplicable interactions with presences who are not really "there," but move from film/video presence into "reality" with the "true" characters. 2) We have the documentary-style menace of John Carpenter - slanted handheld video and diegetic sub-audible voices, 3) we have the androgynous skinny-creepy creature of the Manson video, who seems alternately menaced and menacing in the "narrative," and 4) we have, in Bowie's video, the character of the "old woman," who in the Bowie video walks beside him on the "shoreline." We can see all of these elements resurfacing in the Aphex Twin clip.

Keeping these elements in mind, take a look now at the Aphex Twin video for Come to Daddy:



This is not, of course, to imply that Chris Cunningham's work here is not original and striking. On the contrary, it is a synthesis of the highest order, drawing all such elements together and bringing them forward in astonishing ways.

I don't have any grand conclusions to draw from all this. I just think these sorts of close readings are cool. A sort of genealogy, if you will, of these twenty-five years or so of visual music.

Hope you enjoyed them like I have. Thanks for watching.