The RHCP are in the Rock based genre, they include funk, rap and alternative rock in this particular song. The lyrics were written by the band's musicians themselves and the video was directed by Mark Romanek.
Rock based music videos tend to have the recurring theme of not interpreting the lyrics with direct images in the video, making them less literal than expected, as such, this video follows this. Keith Negus (theorist) observed in 1996 that “punk rock finally changed, deconstructed and exposed the mythologies of rock”. As well as In this video it also follows Negus's point, of rock music videos in general would include the ways of “generational rebellion, sexual liberation and social concerning”. This chosen video includes all these points.
Firstly, it doesn't interpret the lyrical meaning into the video because it consists of many different abstract actions which don't go along with the lyrics at all. Eg. Holding the water bottles or balancing bins has nothing to do with any of the lyrics. Therefore, this video opposes to Goodwin's theory that lyrics go along with the visuals of the video. Instead they challenge this theory and make their own out of it.
In the video the RHCP are indeed portrayed as rebellious which is a stereotype of this genre, e.g. whipping hair around, very fast actions (air kicking), knocking over a chair with the guitar and throwing a guitar in the air. Also they are portrayed in a sexual way, the lead singer having his shirt off or him “dry humping” the drum set. And the biggest feature in my opinion is that they are portrayed in a “social concerning” way. They achieved this with all these abstract actions. Wearing a hippo head whilst playing guitar (they dont conform to normality), being dressed up/in a tent, playing with rubber balls, boxers, buckets, “flying” through the air or having lights strapped on their backs would not be considered “normal” in today's society which again portrays rebelliousness.
The target audience for the RHCP ranges from age 5 and up. This is a very large brackets of target audience that starting bands would never even consider trying at first, but as the RHCP are so established already, we can really see how much they cater to everyone.
This music video has no narrative, it is instead concept based, very abstracts and it includes contrived performance. Therefore this video does not follow Propp's theory that the characters within this music video have the narrative function to provide a structure for the text, in this case the lyrics.
-------------------------------------------------- / / ---------------------------------------------------
In the music video of R.E.M. “Everybody Hurts” there is a illustrative but also disjunctured relationship between the lyrics and visuals. It has a illustrative relationship because we can denote from the lyrics that obviously it is about emotional pain (for the most part) and it shows people's pain with subtitles of what they are thinking, however it can be classified as disjunctured relationship because it is not a direct link. For example when the lyrics say “everybody hurts” it could have been more literal because they could have simply shown someone bleeding, this would have been a stranger way to portray those lyrics.
Camera shots are shown of different people who are stuck in traffic with their respective thoughts in the form of subtitles, however the lead singer of R.E.M. Is the predominant character (shown over and over) in this music video.
Plenty of long shots are shown to bring him together with his surroundings, as in he feels the same pain or has been through the same pain) as the people around him in the cars.
Also close ups are used on the lead singer to show his “true emotion” (his pain). As the song focuses on emotion so do the visuals by showing close ups (the detail) of actual emotion. Therefore tying the video's meaning together in this video.
In this music video Goodwin's theory of the notion of looking also has its role. Firstly non of the “background” characters look at the camera and nor does the lead singer (principal character), they all indirectly address the audience of this music video. This technique achieves and created the feeling of distance, which in this video would be considered as solitude “fighting alone against this pain”.
Diegetic sound is used in this video. Shortly at the beginning and then in the news report in the end. Music videos usually are based around non-diegetic sounds (the actual music), however the sound of the diegetic music in this particular video gives the video a more realistic feeling in my opinion. As in you can genuinely feel the emotions and the audience is able to relate to it quicker.
This video is conceptual and it also has a mix of a contrived performance. There is only very little contrived performance as opposed to this video being conceptual. This video has a specific concept/theme in the lyrics (love hurts), which goes along with the video not showing it literally but having the same concept incorporated, e.g. showing their “hurtful” thoughts.
No comments:
Post a Comment