Music Video Auteurs-Michel Gondry

Roberto Troisi

Background

• He was born in Versailles, France, on May 8th 1963.

• He started as a filmmaker by making a music video for the band Oui Oui, who he was the drummer for at the time.

• He now also makes films as well as music videos.

• He makes music videos for a range of genres.

Similarities

• I have looked at his videos for ‘Everlong’- Foo Fighters, ‘The Hardest Button To Button’- The White Stripes, and ‘Like a Rolling Stone’- The Rolling Stones.

• In all of these videos the effects and cuts were unconventional.

• They all gave a feeling of being in a dream sequence and he separated them from real life by using different effects for both. For example, in ‘Everlong’ he shows the real world in black and white, and shows the dream in colour and adds effects to it to make it unworldly.

• The narrative of ‘Everlong’ is about a couple dreaming while in bed, and the dreams get connected. The couple then wake up and the villains from their dreams turn out to be two of the band members and the couple are also part of the band. This is a strange theme which fits with the effects on the video.

• In the video of ‘The Hardest Button To Button’, Gondry has made lots of rough cuts to make the video more ‘jumpy’ and like the video for ‘Everlong’, gives it an unworldly feeling.

• The editing also makes it more than just a performance in a few different locations. By cutting the shots so that it looks like a stop-motion it is also strange like the narrative of ‘Everlong’ and feels like a narrative about them going somewhere, but in a strange and peculiar way that makes it look like a dream

• In the video for ‘Like A Rolling Stone’

• Michel Gondry has used a technique called ‘view-morphing’ which uses two images taken one from the point you want the pan to start at and one from the point you want it to end at, and after editing it appears to pan across the still scene. This effect makes it look like time has stopped and we are panning across a specific object or person. This is similar to the effect of ‘bullet-time’ seen in the Matrix films.

• The view-morphing also makes different shots appear to distort and along with the panning shots also gives this video an unworldly feel like ‘Everlong’ and ‘The Hardest Button to Button’

Is he an auteur?

Michel Gondry has his own style of directing and making music videos, that all have an unconventional feel to them. His style of videos makes them all feel separated from the real world, like dreams, by using different camera tricks and editing .When you watch one of his videos you can see the style and instantly know that it is a Michel Gondry video. I feel that because of this, he is an auteur .