With it being a new year, I've decided to start a new column on YDKS Movies called Music Videos of Note. For those of you who do not now, many great directors such as David Fincher, Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze and Mark Romanek all got their starts directing music videos. Through this column, I'd like to showcase their work as well as music videos that I feel show great originality or artistic merit. There are a lot of great things that can be achieved in a music video, despite all the trash that is played on MTV and VH1 today. Through this column, I hope to showcase all that can be powerful in a well-made music video.
The first video I would like to showcase on here is a personal favorite of mine. It is the music video for Nirvana's "Heart-Shaped Box." It was directed by the very talented Dutch photographer and director Anton Corbijn.
The concept of the video was originally developed by Kurt Cobain to such an extent that Corbijn almost didn't take the job. However, once he took the job, he was able to add a lot of connection and fluidity to Cobain's bizarre ideas.
This is a very strange but powerful video. It features imagery of an old man in a Santa hat on a cross, a little girl in KKK attire trying to grasp fetuses hanging from trees and an overweight inside-out angel walking in place. It's all set in a surreal landscape that looks like it's out of a nightmare version of The Wizard of Oz. The video was originally filmed in black and white and was later colorized in post production. The result is a video that is at times unsettling but ultimately beautiful to look at.
The video won two MTV Video Music Awards in 1994 for Best Alternative Video and Best Art Direction. Unfortunately, by this time, Kurt Cobain had committed suicide so the awards were accepted by bassist Krist Novoselic, drummer Dave Grohl and back-up guitarist Pat Smear.
Watch the video below.
1 comments:
Wesley, You have been so great with the blogs lately! Top 10 of 2009, most hated characters, speech of the week... man, its been fun to read. I think this idea is my favorite though. I used to love watching MTv in the mornings... back in like 7th grade, when it was still forbiden by my mom for me to watch and when there were still decent videos (heck, any videos!) being played. I'm looking forward to more installments.
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