Music 🎼: The Surreal World Of Music Video! Part One

Music Video & It’s Siblings was the most mesmerizing and unique of all the online Film & Media courses I completed while enrolled at Arizona State University. Carole Vernallis, the professor who taught the course, was fascinating and enjoyable to take instruction from. She understood that music video was an under theorized, under appreciated form and was eager to explore this with her students. With this in mind, I wanted to post and share a few of my assignments from that time during spring, 2011 when I took this course.

Although this was more than a decade ago, it may be of interest to faithful music video buffs or to those newly interested in the form who may also be curious about it from an academic standpoint. One of the assignments we had was to write a paper about contemporary aesthetics and experience of music video. I was impressed with many of the videos directed by Francis Lawrence and titled my paper Francis Lawrence: A Music Video Canon due to the quality of the videos he directed and the caliber of musical talent he has collaborated with.

While he has become better known as an A-List movie director since 2011 with such acclaimed films as the Hunger Games series, he may still be one of the most prolific music video directors of all time. He has helmed a whopping 100 of them during a remarkable sixteen year span. Frances Lawrence has “developed a style well tailored to music videos” according to a statement made by Professor Carole Vernallis in her book of intensive music video studies: Experiencing Music Video: Aesthetics And Cultural Context. With curiosity aroused, I had decided to explore this topic further to determine what Lawrence’s particular style is by examining some of his most high profile videos to understand why Vernallis believes that style is so suitable to music video.

This is what I wrote in 2011: According to Vernallis, Lawrence’s videos “often open with the star entering or waking up to a somewhat surreal environment.” (Pg.120) This statement becomes strikingly apparent with the opening of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” where Gaga and company sit in repose, much like an outlandish portrait tableaux in what is supposed to be her gleaming white, ultra-sleek “bathhouse”. Then Gaga pushes a button on an electronic device and the action begins in what can only be described as a futuristic morgue where she and her dancers emerge from pods that resemble white sunglass cases.

Gaga is subjected to various torments which must somehow represent past failed relationships and in one particularly telling sequence that I would say is tinged with S&M, she and the other female dancers contort, gyrate and shimmy – and then Gaga is on the floor being shoved towards a group of seated men, all the while pining away about how much she wants their love and their psycho – as they impassively sit, almost oblivious to the spectacle in a cavernous space or soundstage?

With “Bad Romance” there is an incredible sense of space and almost an infinity that doesn’t seem odd or really out of place in a music video, despite much of the absolute focus being on Lady Gaga. While such grand use of space would be largely inappropriate for much of mainstream, narrative filmmaking, Lawrence uses it remarkably well for video – not only in “Bad Romance” but also in ghetto-fabulous themed Jennifer Lopez showcase from 2001, “Play”.

Though quite different from “Bad Romance” in mood and subject since Lopez and crew are having an intergalactic dance party – and bitter, failed romance is just about the last thing to matter, the whole production definitely falls into the surreal category as Lopez is enveloped by high-tech gadgetry. Once again, though Lopez has the lion’s share of the attention, the scope is hardly claustrophobic – but grand and epic. The digitally enhanced interiors as the aircraft vaults over mountains, forests, and a mammoth lake confirms limitless time and space.

While Vernallis suggests that: “The ways space is revealed in music video pose a special challenge for directors: how to explore the possibilities of space while providing the viewer with a sense of ground” (Pg. 120), the only aspect of being grounded that these videos seem to have is the centrality of the star performers and their agendas. Continuing with Lawrence videos that have dreamlike, surreal qualities – Janet Jackson’s “Son Of A Gun” definitely fits the bill. This video may be the most bizarre of the three thus far. Though, like “Bad Romance” it certainly has very sore subject matter and provides some frightful images. Once again, Jackson has the commanding presence within copious space just as her contemporaries Gaga and Lopez do.

However, unlike the other two, Jackson moves with a greater sense of purpose as she swaggers through the kitchen and corridors of what Vernallis accurately describes as a “gothic” hotel (that brings to mind flashes of The Shining) wielding a baseball bat as she pursues her sorry lout of a former, treacherous lover. From another direction he is stalked by zombie-like creatures that represent the worst aspects of him. These creeps emerge from different pieces of furniture- one of them from a toilet – and it doesn’t take much imagination to grasp the meaning of that.

He is also likened to a huge, greedy pig that ambles through the rooms gobbling and snuffling. Jackson, Missy Elliot and the frightful creatures chase and torment the betraying lover into a parking garage, public restroom, and through a vaulted lobby among other places – all within barely four and a half minutes of screen time to drive home the point that time is as limitless as the space. Overall, the vast sweep of space in “Son Of A Gun”, “Bad Romance”and “Play” provides a sense of invincibility for their performers as well as a command of their surroundings. The grim outcome of the ex-lover taken down in “Son Of A Gun” along with the surge of power it infuses to Janet Jackson pales in comparison to the grotesque ending of “Bad Romance” as the collapsed relationship literally goes up in flames. Lady Gaga is sprawled in the fire ravaged bed with the scorched skeleton of her former lover!

In “Bad Romance” there is another remarkable similarity to “Son Of A Gun” as Lady Gaga and her dance cohorts writhe their way out of concealment from slumber much like the nightmarish creatures who aid Janet Jackson’s revenge scenario. In both videos the dance partners allude to negative outcomes. Aerosmith’s “Jaded” incorporates familiar motifs from all the above mentioned videos, particularly the exaggerated, vaulted realms. Again, the use of space is a highly important thematic element for Lawrence as his star performer (Steve Tyler) is central to some sense of being grounded and having a focal point.

Looking back on this assignment today, all these years later – I can still remember how I enjoyed the challenge of doing the research and writing about music video for the first time. Since this post has been long enough, however, I am dividing my original paper up, and will discuss more of it in my next Surreal World Of Music Video post coming soon.