!VAR HAGENDOORN

Some Of My Favourite Music Videos

Below an incomplete list of some of MY favourite music videos, videos that influenced me or my work, or that I enjoy watching again from time to time. Please don’t write me to tell me that this or that video is surely “better” than some of the videos listed here. I know. This is not a list of seminal or breakthrough videos.

George Michael: Killer/Papa Was a Rolling Stone. Big city + dancing + beautiful bodies + (fake) commercials + restless camera + extreme close-ups = I love it.

Front 242: Headhunter. Director: Anton Corbijn. In the first few pages of Cinema 1. The Movement Image French philosopher Gilles Deleuze distinguishes between movement in front of the camera and movement of the camera. The early videos of photographers turned music video directors are often a sequence of still frames with moving people. The work of Anton Corbijn is a good example.

Depeche Mode: Strangelove. Director: Anton Corbijn.

Depeche Mode: Enjoy the Silence. Director: Anton Corbijn.

Massive Attack: Unfinished Sympathy. Directed by Baillie Walsh. The frame itself is moving. The camera remains centered on the main character as she walks on a street. There are all kind of things going on in the background. Beautiful ending when she turns a corner.

The Beastie Boys: Sure Shot. Directed by Spike Jonze. I love the aesthetic of this video. It is deliberately imperfect. It is self-conscious without being self-indulgent. In most films and videos the camera is invisible. In this video the camera is made visible through the actions of the actors. Normally the camera follows the actor, here the actors frequently follow the camera.

Fatboy Slim: Praise You. Directed by Spike Jonze. What can I say? I love this video. It’s fun. It’s hilarious. The dancing is great. It radiates what many dance performances lack: enthusiasm and joy. Professional dancers can’t dance like this, because they will always make the movements too perfect.

U2: The Fly. Big city + restless camera + extreme close-ups + lens distortion + neon signs = I love it. And U2: Even Better Than the Real Thing. Visual overload for image junkies like myself. I love the interlude. Compare: The Fisher Account. Credit where credit is due. This is where I got my inspiration.

Röyksopp: Remind Me. This music video is the perfect illustration of my fascination with data, data visualization, mechanisms and so on.

Orbital: The Box. London and Tilda Swinton. Home is where the heart is. My heart is divided over London, Los Angeles and Hong Kong. I like the contrast between her slow movements and the fast movements of the traffic and people around her. The raincoat and shower cap make her look like an alien. Curious and slightly puzzled she looks at the world around her and at the lonely plant (nature) that emerges despite being suppressed by the urban environment.

The Red Hot Chilli Peppers: Scar Tissue. Directed by Stéphane Sednaoui. The desert of California + garbage + old car + empty roads = I love it.

The Rolling Stones: Anybody Seen My Baby? Directed by Samuel Bayer. Or Alternative version. Big city + beautiful girl + old man + streets + traffic + saturated colours + dirty realism = I love it. The girl is Angelina Jolie by the way.

Air: All I Need. Directed by Mike Mills. Brilliant concept. The music becomes the background to a documentary. Music, images and voice over blend together. One of the first of its kind.

Talking Heads: Road to Nowhere. Directed by Stephen R. Johnson.

Peter Gabriel: Sledgehammer. Directed by Stephen R. Johnson. Surrealism lives on in music videos. I still love the visual logic of these vintage videos.

The Prodigy: Smack My Bitch Up. Directed by Jonas Akerlund. I love the camera work, the saturated colours and the dirty realism.