Tuesday, 16 June 2009

From Unconventional to the down right strange in music videos

This is Bjorks music Video 'All is Full of Love'.



As you may have already guessed this was directed by Chris Cunningham another of his works is shown below. Bjork is renown for her experimental style and unusual music videos, and in collaboration with Chris Cunningham this Video was fated to be one her weirder ones. I do however really like this video as it makes a change from the now accepted half naked women prancing around in bikinis, although the very convincing realistic human faces on the 'lesbian robots' are a little scary as they exhibit all the usual emotions. Bjork also seems to be making a very significant statement with this video as well meaning that anyone and anything can love. This video is very clever because if it was made with real women instead of robots this would be quite pornographic and would no longer hit home the messages it is trying to pervade.

The unconventional nature of Cunningham's work means that there are no shots of Bjork or a band, although the futuristic electronic music fits in perfectly with the robot theme. As the first robot woman is being made by the machines the music does not fit in with the edits
at all and only the robots lips are synchronized to the lyrics or beat. When the other female robot appears the music gradually becomes a little more in time with the shot edits, but never quite fit, perhaps this is to emphasize the fact that these are not humans, or that they are flawed like humans because they have emotions.



This is Afrika Shox directed by Chris Cunningham again for Leftfield. This disturbing urban representation of what we can only assume is a homeless black man, who also looks to be blind and emaciated, in a large city where he is predominantly ignored and dodged by the 'wealthy business people, in other words a very negative portrayal of human nature.

As with 'All is Full of Love' (above) there are no edits to shots of leftfield so there are no reminders that this is meant to be a music video except from the music running throughout, having only one narrative allows the audience to get involved with it as they would a film and aided by the interesting dance moves and special effects where his body parts break off and smash along with the regular beat and short lyrics that echo the action in the video.

My favourite shot is the one in which the 'homeless man' has just fallen over having lost both hands and a foot, when another black man stands over him and asks whether he would like a hand! As well as lightening the heart of the video it may also be alluding to a sense that white men and their fast growing businesses are destroying peoples lives.

1 comment:

  1. I would have to say that I think 'All is Full of Love' has the most conventional narrative of the two because as in a lot of videos love is a main feature and although it is lesbian robot love it still has a more understandable narrative compared to Afrika shox, on top of that the narrative matches the lyrics of the song whereas Afrika shox has very few lyrics and is extremely abstract; following very few of conventions of music videos except the way the editing fits in with the music but the narrative is very individual.

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