Good music videos rock. No matter your musical preferences or taste in films and TV shows, a bumpin’ music video can transcend all personal prejudices and make you want to jump up and dance. Unfortunately, MTV and Muchmusic seem to have forgotten the magic of music videos in favour of boring programming consisting mostly of so-called reality TV. So where can disowned members of the MTV Generation such as ourselves go to get our fix of music videos? Why, to the museum of course.
Until October first, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MAC) is screening a selection of 26 music videos from the present all the way back to the medium’s origins with Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody in 1975. The series, entitled simply Music Video, can be seen in the cavernous Beverly Webster Ralph hall, which is in the building’s basement and free of entry during the MAC’s opening hours. Much better than confining the videos to their traditional flickering boxes, the projection takes up an entire wall in the room, and the powerful speakers behind the screen give the music the power it deserves.
The videos selected for the projection show the evolution and progression of the music video form, all the while illustrating the recurring tools and tropes used by filmmakers. Though the videos are, for the most part, not very technically innovative, the daring creativity and originality which the short and generally loud format allows is intoxicating.
The first video in the series, for the aforementioned Queen song, consists chiefly of concert footage. Most of the videos from the 1980s, however, try to explore the possibilities of the budding medium. Several of the videos from this decade are pieced together in a jarring montage and make repeated use of abandoned urban spaces and found items, for instance those directed by Zbigniew Rybczynski for Art of Noise and Belfegore. These allusions to abandoned places and objects reflect the short-term promotional ends for which the music video format was first conceived.
However as the decade evolves more polished and innovative music videos appear. Some make imaginative use of animation such as Steve Barron’s video for a-ha’s Take On Me, or Stephen R. Johnson’s video for Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer, which invokes the pixilation technique invented by National Film Board legend Norman McLaren. Other directors begin to infuse their videos with narratives as a way of keeping the distracted viewers attention. Good examples of this come in Zbigniew Rybczynski’s video for John Lennon’s Imagine, or the Steve Barron animated adventure mentioned earlier.
As the projection passes into the 1990s a decidedly cleaner aesthetic emerges, one anticipated in the series by the 1984 Jean Baptiste Mondino video for Don Henley’s Boys of Summer. Videos like the one directed by Stéphane Sednaoui for the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ 1991 hit Give it Away show a much greater attention to detail in their direction, editing and artistic design. All the featured videos from the ‘90s employ surreal (Jonathan Glazer’s video for Street Spirit by Radiohead) or futuristic (Chris’ Cunningham’s video for All is Full of Love by Björk) visual styles, or both as is the case in the Mark Romanek-directed video for Madonna’s Bedtime Story. The careful craftsmanship and sombre sleekness of these videos contrasts sharply to their cheap, gritty and trashy predecessors from the 80s. This testifies to the legitimacy music videos have gained as promotional tools, but also as vehicles for artistic exploration and expression.
A tendency to abandon dark imagery and start having fun again is clear in the post-millennial films, such as Spike Jonze’s famous video for Fatboy Slim’s Weapon of Choice starring only Christopher Walken. Many videos since the year 2000 also return to themes and concepts first elaborated in the 80s. Thus, the circular narrative of Mark Romanek’s video for John Lennon’s Imagine is cleverly readapted in the Michel Gondry-directed Come to my World by Kylie Minogue. The creative use of animation in the Peter Gabriel and a-ha videos mentioned earlier re-emerges in another Michel Gondry video, this one for the White Stripes’ Fell in Love with a Girl, as well as in Joshua Deu’s video for the Arcade Fire’s Laika and the Louis-Philippe Eno-directed Montréal -40 °C by Malajube.
At a time when music videos are a dime a dozen, and finding a decent one tends to require hours of online searching only to be confined to disappointingly inadequate computer screens and speakers, this projection is invaluable. Do yourself a favour: go to your local museum basement and rediscover that latent love for music videos in the perfect setting.
Note: This article was originally published on 11 September 2006 in the McGill Daily and can be found on that paper's website here.
No comments:
Post a Comment