RA: Music Video Auteurs

Music Video “Auteurs”

1. Take Me Out by Franz Ferdinand (Jonas Odell, 2004)
2. Exit/Delete - Takagi Masakatsu (Eric Cruz and Sun An, 2006)
3. Around the World by Daft Punk (Michel Gondry,
4. The Suburbs by Arcade Fire (Spike Jonze, 2010) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRCxhsm4CYU
5. Bullets by Editors (Martin de Thurah, 2005) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nj_iM4YNsCQ
6. Treat Me Like Your Mother by Dead Weather (Jonathan Glazer, 2009)
7. New York Is Killing Me (Chris Cunningham Remix) by Gil Scott-Heron (Chris Cunningham, 2010) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adq_e_NSzQ8

The Suburbs by Arcade Fire (Spike Jonze, 2010)

• The music video follows the action of the protagonists, a group of teenagers who cycle around their suburban town.
• The video uses clips from the short film Scenes From The Suburbs, also directed by Jonze, which was inspired by the album ‘The Suburbs’ by Arcade Fire.

• The video is entirely concept based as it contains no shots of the band or singer. This is conventional for a music video of the indie rock genre as their videos often aim to portray the band as artistic and original.
• This means the music video contains no ‘meat’ (close-ups of the artist), nor star motifs, which would commonly be demands of the record label if the band were of a more mainstream genre.

• There is a mostly amplified relationship between the lyrics and visuals, with some illustrative moments; for example, just after the lyric “one day we'd be fighting in a suburban war” we see the protagonists standing in long shot against a wire fence as helicopters fly above and smoke rises in the distance.
• However the majority of the video has an amplified relationship between visuals and lyrics, as the action of the music video, though related, does not communicate the exact narrative of the song.
• Instead, the video is a creative interpretation of the song, expressing visually the overall subject of the song; the suburban idyll and the hidden fear and corruption that can exist within it.

• Laura Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze can be seen within the video, as there is only one female protagonist and the rest are all male, forcing the audience to regard the action from a mostly male point of view.
• However, parts of Mulvey’s theory which explain the objectification of women do not apply strongly to this video, as there is no voyeuristic or fetishistic treatment of the female body, nor most of the aspects which create the subordination of women that are present many music videos, as studied by Goffman et al.
• However, one aspect of Goffman et al’s theory that is fulfilled by the video is the ‘woman as child’ theory, as the girl is shown being shielded and protected by her boyfriend as she cries.
• But in other aspects, the female representation defies the subservient female stereotype. For example, her function ranking is equal to that of the boys; she rides her bike and shoots the bb gun, just as the males do.