http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqkawrslzJA
The first contemporary music video i am going to analyse is the video for the song 'Rabbit In Your Headlights' by the band U.N.K.L.E featuring Thom Yorke from Radiohead. This video was directed by Jonathan Glazer who is a renowned director who has made videos for bands such as Massive Attack, Blur and Jamiroquai aswell as directing his own films, 'Sexy beast' and 'Birth'
This video features a man in a hooded parka walking down a tunnel as cars swerve around him and sometimes hit him. When the man is hit by the cars people continue to drive past as if it was just a small animal that got hit. Time and time again the man picks himself up and continues to walk down the tunnel. Throughout the video the man is muttering usually unaudiable words or jibberish. This gives the idea that the man is crazy, or perhaps he represents a rabbit or an animal with some sort of disease. At one point in the video a man in a car trys to talk to him and offer him a lift but the man in the parka continues to mutter and acts as if he is completely oblivious to the man trying to help him. As the video goes on the mans behaviour gets more and more erraticand he eventually takes the coat off and throws it on the floor. After taking a few steps shirtless the man stops, stays completely, stops mumbling and loks towards him as if he has a sudden realisation. A car is seen behind him speeding towards him, the man extends his arms to either side so he is standing in the jesus christ pose and the car smashes into him but he remains unmoved as the car crumbles around him and he eventually dissapears behind a cloud of dust and shrapnel.
There are many different interpretations of this song. The tunnel is seen to represent life and the mans struggle through it,. getting knocked down and having to pick himself up again. The coat the man is wearing is seen by some people as his burden, as it is only when he takes it off that he stops mumbling and can stop the car from hurting him. The video can also be seen as a euphemism for suicide, and it can also be seen as a reference to Jesus Christ and his trials and retrubutions. This idea is strengthened by the last shot in which the man is standing in a Jesus Christ pose. The video could also be a reference to the movie 'Jacob's Ladder' as the song includes and sample of dialouge from the film.
The film 'Jacobs Ladder' is about a soldier experimenting with drugs and experiencing halloucinations. The dialouge from the film that is sampled in the track says...
'If you're frightened of dyin' and you're holding on...You'll see devils tearing your life away.But...if you've made your peace, Then the devils are really angels, Freeing you from the earth.....from the earth....from the earth'
The video could be a reference to this, as the man can be seen as scared to die at the beginning of the video, picking himself up again and again and fighting on, and towards the end he makes his peace with the earth and that is when his 'devils' become 'angels' and he is willing to die.
There are not many things going on on the screen at any one time. The only things that really hold any significance in the video are the man, his coat, the tunnel and the cars. All of these things can be seen as symbolic in there own way and therefore make an effective statement about life (the tunnel), its hardships (the cars) and your own consiousness (the coat).
The shots and editing are quite slow, along with the music. Even when the man is getting hit by the cars the camera stays very still and still gives off a very calm feel. In this sense the video is related to the music. The lyrics also relate to the video, as the song s called 'rabbit in your headlights' and the man in the video can be compared to a rabbit caught in front of a car, not moving out of the way and getting hit.
I believe that the video would appeal largely to the fans of the band, as well as people who are into artistic videos and people who like videos that they can analyze for different meanings. It is a very effective video which promotes the band well as it is rememberable and relates to the track well.
The next contemporary music video I am going to analyse its Tools video for the song 'Parabola'. This video was directed by Adam Jones who is the guitarist and artistic director for the band.
The video starts with some strange looking men, all dressed in suits standing around a table. One of the men is carrying a bag and gets an apple out of it, as if he was doing a presentation for a job interview, and places it on the table. He then gets a knife out of the bag and cuts the apple in half. The other two men look impressed by this and they all raise there hands, one of the men has a flame coming out of his middle finger. They then start to float horizontaly and start to vomit some sort of thick black liquid, they then start rotating in a circle to make a perfect black circle on the table. It then cuts to a little stop motion man walking alongside a swinging block of concrete. A man then throws the concrete blick onto the floor, breaking it. We then see the man near a strange tree with very thin branches. The man also seems to have something resembling these branches coming from the side of each eye. The man is then seen with a big floating black ball that starts to morph into lots of different balls grouped together. The little stop motion man enters, looks at the ball then tugs on the mans trousers as if looking for help. The man does nothing and as the little stop motion man starts to walk away the ball floats towards him and crushes him against a wall. The man with the branches coming out of his eyes then screams at the floating ball and dissects the little stop motion man. The next shot is of the man walking through a forest, he stops and sees the gloating ball again. He then picks up a leaf and when he lets go of it it sets on fire and turns into a flaming eye. The falming eye then enters the mans body through his feet and turns him into some sort of electric exosceleton god. The newly transformed man then crosses his arms as if he was in a coffin and the video ends.
There are many interpretations of this video, some believe that it is about love and loss. That the big black ball is all the bad things you have done and can hurt someone if needed. Some people also beleive that the video represents the connection between a father and a son, or siblins.
In this video there are alot of big empty spaces, big empty rooms with only one object in them which makes this object all the more significant. Things such as the table in the first shot, or the tree with the thin branches. These object are intresting enough to look at anyway but when you put them by themselves they really draw the attention to themselves and look more interesting.
The camera shots seem to focus on the more out of the ordianry things, such as the strange bumps on the mans neck or the hands of the men at the beginning which are just slightly out of the ordianry but enough to notice. The part where the stop motion man is dissected has some really interesting camera shots. There are some very close up shots of the mans organs and innards, and even though it is made of plasterscene, still looks relatively real and unsettling.
The video relys heavily on visual effects, through out the film bizzare props and special effects are used, such as the little plasterscene man and the big black floating ball. But it is at the end of the video when the man turns into a skeleton god thing, the entire sequence is computerised but its is difficult to think how else they would do it and make it look as effective as it does. The entire scene is very colourful and interesting to watch so it doesn't really matter that it relys heavily on effects.
Tools music is fairly experimental and unique, so the video takes after it in that way, there are not many videos like it and can not be compared to any other videos by other artist's easily. Fans of Tools music will really like this video, as will fans of abstract and experimental videos and artwork. I also think that as a music video it is very effective and unique and is instantly recognisable as a Tool video, and people who will see that video for the first time will probally be interested in Tools music and other videos afterwards.
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