Auteur theory is theory created by the film director and critic Francois Truffaut in 1954, Auteur is a French work meaning ‘author’. The theory suggests that a director of a film uses the camera to create a film the same way an author uses a pen to create a book. This means that the director has their ‘signature’ way of creating a vision or a film and the director’s personality is portrayed through the film. This makes the media industry fresh and unique. I will now use Spike Jonze’s to test the theory. I will look and analysis his music videos to see how his personality is revealed through his work, to see if there is links or lack off between his videos.
Spike Jonze is a director, producer and actor; he was born as Adam Spiegel on the October 22nd 1969 in Maryland, USA. Jonze is mainly known for his music videos, he has worked and collaborated with the likes of Beastie Boys, Fatboy Slim, Kanye West Notorious BIG. He has directed a number of feature films, such as ‘Being John Malkovich’ where he was nominated for Best Director at the Academy Awards, and the 2009 block buster ‘Where the Wild Things Are.’ Jonze’s commercials have brought him a nomination by the Directors Guild of America for ‘Outstanding Achievement in Commercials’. These include Adidas’ Hello Tomorrow, IKEA’s Lamp and Gap’s Pardon our dust.
I will now heavily analysis four videos of Spike Jonze. Starting with Beastie Boy – Sabotage, however he collaborated with the group to create the video. The video is a parody or homage of a 1970’s police/detective dramas such as Starsky and Hutch. The video is presented as a T.V show called ‘Sabotage’ and then each band member is introduced by their real name and then their fictional name throughout the video, which allows into their style and iconography. The video is heavily narrative based as we get an insight on characters and a plot. Intertextuality is heavily used in this video as it is endorsing features and stereotypes of a 1970's police drama.
In this video there are many features which we would see in a feature film. The camera movements used are ones we would see in an action movie, such as when the camera is strapped to the wheel, bonnet and roof of a car. Also editing is influenced from an action movie, as it is quick and abrupt with straight cuts.
Other characteristics of this video I picked up on were that close-ups are used to highlight the artist, this could be request from the record label to sell their image to the audience. Also throughout the video we do not see the artists rapping or performing in anyway. A further characteristic is the representation; throughout it is very masculine.
The second video I will analysis will be Weezer – Buddy Holly. This video is filmed as if it was a part of the 1970’s television show ‘Happy Days,’ the band perform at the original Arnold’s Drive-in diner. The video is combined with original footage from the show and the band performing. It received four awards at the 1995 MTV Video Music Awards.
This video is mainly performance based, with an underline of narrative as it is in a television series as we have an introduction and an ending with dialogue. Jonze uses intertextuality heavily in this video as we feel we are watching an episode of ‘Happy Days’. Close-ups are frequently used in this video and we as an audience fully understand who the members of the band are, even though they are dressed in ‘Happy Days’ wear.
The editing and camera movements of this video are very true to the oblivious type of a music video. The editing is fast paced, straight cuts and focusing on band members. The camera movements are simple with medium shots, close ups and high shots. However high skill of editing is shown when we see Fonzie dancing with the band as they had to match the original footage with the new, it also shows a high budget.
The final video I will analyse was Fatboy Slim – Praise You. This video shows Jonze’s pure genius as it cost only $800 to create and won three major awards at the 1999 MTV Video Music Awards: ‘Breakthrough Video’, ‘Best Direction’ and ‘Best Choreography’
This video is very unorthodox and different to mainstream music videos, it is shot in a ‘Guerrilla style’ meaning that Spike Jonze was not granted permission from the owner of the movie theatre in California to film here. Jonze stars in this under his alter-ego Richard Koufey along with a fictional dance group.
The video is shot on a lower quality, which is strange for such an establish director to use, this gives the video more of a real effect as and enhances the fact that these could be real people, also the fact it has been film for a point of view. We do not see Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim) at all in this video, so as an audience we are unsure and unaware of his appearance.
The video has very little editing, which again is very unlike Jonze to have, but emphasis’ his unpredictability, it keeps the audience and industry unsure of Spike Jonze’s next project. This is what makes Spike Jonze my favourite music video director.
From analysing these music videos and researching on Spike Jonze, I have been able to gather information about his ‘trademark’ features and how his personality is received through his direction. It implies that Truffaut’s ‘Auteur Theory’ is shown in the music industry.
In conclusion, I found that Spike Jonze’s type of auteur is portrayed in his media. I discovered that his music videos are generally a narrative based, with examples such as Sabotage – Beastie Boys and Wonderboy – Tenacious D. He uses features and techniques from a feature film in his music videos, to give them that edge and effect, we see this from his camera movements and mise-en-scene. He is a director which enjoys collaborating with people, he likes to work as a team, he has co-directed with people such as Kanye West and Chris Cunningham.
I found from my research that he has a broad choice of genres which he likes to work with, he does not ‘pigeon-hole’ himself with one genre, he explores from Hip-Hop (Kanye West) to Punk Rock (Sonic Youth) to Electronic Dance (LCD Soundsystem). In most of his videos he uses the close-up, a frequently used shot in music videos, it’s to show the audience the star’s image. However he rarely shows the artist performing of singing, sometimes not even starring in the video.
Long introductions is clearly a feature Jonze likes to include in his work, this again adds to him wanting his music videos to have a feature film feel to it, it gives the audience more pleasure with watching it, they get hooked in. He is a director who does not just like to stand behind the camera, he sometimes stars. We can see from a number of examples that he draws inspiration from 1970’s – 1980’s TV series, as this was the TV shown when he was growing up. I saw from watching his videos that he uses animals quite a bit, this could maybe be from him being attached to certain animals when growing up, examples are the cat in Triumph Of My Heart – Bjork and the dog/person in Daft Punk – Da Funk.
From finding out how Spike Jonze relates to the Auteur Theory, his main feature is that he is unpredictable with his music videos. As an audience we see this as one video he uses a high budget and the next $800 and still create something which excites the viewer. He also works with any genre thrown at him we do not know what genre he will work with next.
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