Chris Cunningham (Director)
An in depth analysis of music videos; Rubber Johnny, and a brief analysis of Windowlicker
These examples of Chris Cunningham's directing work showcases the best of his experimental style. Rubber Johnny features Cunningham's trademark 'experimental' style, and makes the video more engaging as he adds a storyline to the start of the film. The opening sequence is a 3 minute steady cam clip of a mutant with an overgrown cranium being talked at by a carer who has strapped him into a wheelchair and locked him into a basement. The idea itself for rubber johnny came from Cunningham imagining a raver morphing while he danced. Cunningham's use of camera, light and speed are combined with a 'trails' effects to blur the light into different shapes as Johnny dances to the music. Goodwin's music video analysis suggests a relationship between the genre characteristics of the video and the music. In the media drum and bass is often cited with the use of hallucinogenic drugs, Cunningham uses the knowledge of this genre to influence his work on Rubber Johnny by adding 'trippy' effects and changing the speed of the video. Richard D. James (Aphex Twin) suffers from hallucinations and lucid dreams and has been said to have written his music at times of lucid dreams and periods of hallucination, so the idea of a morphing raver seems to fit well to the genre. If the idea of a mutant suffering in a basement with no company but his pet Chihuahua isn't enough to shock you, Cunningham adds an obscene image which features after the clip of a mouse running across a press sticker. The obscene image introduces the title of the video, and is a reversed shot of a condom with “Rubber Johnny” written in marker being pulled off of a penis.
A trademark from Cunningham's work is a unique responsiveness from visual imagery to musical techniques employed by the artist. The drum/drill and bass by Aphex Twin features many unique sounds which Cunningham features with visuals to showcase his weirdness and editing talent. Specifically, in Rubber Johnny he uses speed to capture the ultra fast tempo of the music with fast cuts and high speed video to capture the mutant techno dancing and morphing, which creates a narrative to the music, as there are no lyrics. Cunningham admitted to lying down next to his father's speakers as a child and imagining images that the music could represent. This comes across in this video when fast “shooting” lights are added to the video and deploy in time with the music. This is closely matched by movement of Johnny hitting the lights away with his hands, which happens so fast its hard for the eye to follow it. Within the fast edit there are single frames of the same shot in a negative, the effect on the video is that it appears to flash with the music however it happens so fast that you hardly notice the effect itself but still see a flash.
The music video follows a narrative at the start of the song, which makes the video more of a story than a music video. Its hard to argue weather or not the narrative is incomplete or complete. The story (according to the director) is of a mutant that has been locked in a basement and strapped to a wheelchair who has the ability to morph and does so to amuse himself and his pet chihuahua, however this abruptly stops in such away the video appears to start over again and become a music video. I would argue that there is a complete narrative to the music. Similarly, the other video I’ve chosen to write about start with a narrative and then become a music video. This is one of Cunningham's trademark techniques. Theories by fans suggest that Johnny suffers from Hydrocephalus disease, which is where fluids build up around the cranium and can't disperse or be absorbed by the lining on the inside of the brain, leaving the skin to expand and balloon. I think that Cunningham was aware of this and it maybe inspired the shot pictured to the left. If this is true then it adds a high level of Verisimilitude to the video, and as its filmed in a night vision it looks like its being filmed on a consumer camcorder, making the video more realistic.
This (pictured) happens when johnny is speeding towards the camera and then suddenly his head bursts against glass and fluid seeps out. This keeps happening in the video but the face changes and morphs into an unrecognisable shape.
The video is mainly performance based once the music starts, however there is a 50/50 split between narrative and performance. All three of the videos I've chosen to analyse have a near equal split between performance and narrative. All of them share highly conceptual ideas.
The video is not disjointed with the music as the sound becomes open to interpretation of the listener, there are no lyrics so imagination plays a big part in listing to the music itself. Chris Cunningham shows us his take on the music in this video, and shares the themes of the artists life and connotes drug use with drum and bass music.
The elements in the video that create the forward trajectory of the music is the speed of johnny raving in this wheelchair. This seems to intensify as new sounds are added, and johnny appears to be morphing more and more. This all builds suddenly after he takes a copious amount of cocaine and new sounds are displayed with more visuals, such as fast continuous replays on motions in the video to give it a 'skipping' effect.
The end of the video sees no resolution or enlightenment, it leaves us where we started, looking at a mutant struggling to breath in a wheelchair. This makes the impact upon the audience much greater, as no questions about the narrative have been answered for the reader, instead he just goes full circle until the next time the audience imagines there will be.
The Style of the editing follows a close match to the music, with visual imagery matching the sound based upon what the director imagines the sound to represent. There are mainly straight cuts, with very few slide transitions that are barely noticeable, one is used when johnny exits the shot from the right and then appears to come into view at high speed towards the camera from an over the shoulder view of himself as he exits shot giving a paradoxical effect.
Similar cuts are used throughout the video, these are straight cuts but a theme of overexposed white balance creates a flash effect before some of the cuts. This features to the beat and sound of the music and suits the genre of the music well as drum and bass when live is associated with heavy light shows and visual effects on stage.
The pace of the editing isn't consistent throughout the video. The pace is fast when there is music in the video, when there is not the pace of the edit is slow. This creates a great contrast between two realities, the world that perceives Johnny, and the world that Johnny perceives. Johnny seems disabled, fragile and sick. He seems to have little intelligence and is kept captive in a basement, strapped to his wheelchair with nothing but a pet dog to keep him company. When no-one is looking Johnny's world changes to a morphing drum and bass frenzy where we see him in a different light, energetic and fast. However, we now feel that what we're watching is sinister in some respects and it still shocks us. The way the editing matches the musical phrases captures Cunningham's imagination well. Sounds we've never heard before are matched with nearly unimaginable visuals, such as when Johnny snorts a line of coke. When watching, the sounds almost sounds like what he's doing.
The ending of rubber Johnny puts the video off kilter, as we come full circle to seeing him struggling to breath in a wheelchair, like the beginning of the video. The audience are left wondering what he is, why he's locked up, and almost question what they've just watched.
Classic Hollywood continuity editing is exploited in this video, we wouldn't see these images under normal circumstances and it plays with the viewer using trick shots and flashing lights constantly, we don't actually have time to focus and see every shot. This makes the whole video psychedelic.
There is a vast amount of camera shots used in rubber Johnny. The first one is made to look like amateur video, the shot is steadycam and the subject shakes about the frame, there is no obvious focal point, everything looks like its filmed almost by mistake, also the camera is using a consumer-looking night vision effect. This adds to the verisimilitude of the video, it looks like anyone could have filmed it, therefore the subject appears more real and even seems to have more of a personality because of it. We are scared of what we are viewing, but we also have great sympathy for Johnny at the beginning of the film, he looks like he is struggling, and the mise-en-scene looks cold and unwelcoming. When the music starts the shots don't necessarily look professional, however the editing does look very professional and this adds a new dimension to what we have just watched. The shots used are mainly medium shots and close ups of Johnny in fast motion, and the camera and editing reacts to every beat and sound in the music in some way shape or form. Its hard to spot a frequency of a type of shot, as the edit is so fast you can't count every shots as they happen, but I would say there’s at least 5 medium shots for every close up shot in the video.
The style attached to the framing is that Johnny is always at the focal point of the screen. This is common from the establishing shot of the music video when the music starts. He also appears in the majority of the introduction to the music. The sense of depth attached to the video makes it seem like johnny is in-between lots of unexplored spacial depth, the backdrop is completely black and we acknowledge the fact that he has lots of space to move, which makes the setting look much bigger.
Cunningham’s diegesis is revealed slowly, but never revealed to the audiences satisfaction as the ending is similar to the beginning and answers no questions for the audience. Ihe introduction reveals the fact that Johnny is kept captive but not until the very last bit where the unnamed narrator offers him an injection to calm him down as Johnny is having trouble breathing. This is a very sinister moment in the video as the narrators voice is calm like that of a doctor.
The video has a high responsiveness on the edit and camera shots with the music. Gaps in the video occur when Johnny is interrupted by his carers, we fill these gaps with the opportunity to study Johnny and his surroundings in the light, but we also hear how he is treated by the staff keeping him captive. Some important frames in the video are images of the chihuahua reacting to the movement of Johnny, this tells the audience how to feel as the thing the audience can mostly relate to at this point is the chihuahua as he is too shocked by what he is seeing. The Chihuahua forms an additional part of the audience. Important frames in the video add to the narrative. The most important ones tell a story of what Johnny does on his own. The first important frame is when johnny gets ready to start dancing, the second is when his carers open the door and say hurtful things about him, the third is when he snorts cocaine and the fourth is the end where he's sat on a wheelchair breathing heavily again. This adds to the experience of the video as the key frames seem to intensify the music and visual reaction. More effects are more cuts are used as well after these key frames.
The video breaks the fourth wall between the audience and genre. The viewer doesn't have to like drum and bass to have a positive experience with the video. It has even introduced me to drum and bass music just by watching a few of Cunningham's videos, I now own the Aphex Twin discography; which I never expected to enjoy as its the sort of music I wouldn't listen to normally. This concludes my analysis of Rubber Johnny.
Windowlicker – A brief analysis
The introductions to Windowlicker is a parody of black culture associated with gangster rap music videos, and features and intro of two friends desperately trying to pick up two girls in a convertible with the objective of getting drunk and having sex. This backfires instantly on them and an argument occurs in which the characters remain vulgar in trying to persuade the girls into getting into the car. The level of verisimilitude isn't especially high, but it gets much lower with a fixed image of the girls standing at the pavement while a limousine crashes into the guys car and keeps on driving. The limousine seems immensely long, and when it finally stops a fairly creepy looking man rolls down a tinted window and the music beings. He gets out the car and starts dancing, which the girls seem to find attractive and they get in his limousine. The verisimilitude is lowered even more when the camera focus' on their faces as it changes via a flash transition to the face of the man in the limo, with beards too. This is shocking, especially as the girls are sexually touching the man in the back of the limo, its a highly confusing image. The black guys in the convertible follow the limousine to the rich guys mansion, where he has many girls dancing in sequence. The guys find one girl who starts dancing for them, but her face is horribly disfigured, which shocks them and has this effect on the audience too as its not expected. The music gets heavier with a fuzz effect in the bass, in which the visuals are more contrasted, this ends after a few clips of a bottle of champagne being sprayed over all the women including the hideous one, then the camera focus' on the sun glaring and fades out.
There is no relationship between the lyrics and the visuals as the music has no lyrics whatsoever, the only association is at the beginning of the track, in which the music starts with a male groaning sounds. This is represented with a visual of the man in the limo rolling down the tinted window and looking at the girls, it fits very well and also adds a comic flare to the video.
The music and visuals shares a very strong relationship. Like in all of his music videos, he invents what he imagines electronic sounds to represent. This is true throughout the whole of the video. A strong example would be at 8.18 in the video where the limo man pops open a bottle of champagne, this comes in time with a fuzz effect on the music track and the contrast for the video changes to a 'darker' effect which ties in well with the fuzz sound. When the music starts the video always cuts to the beat, this is common of Cunningham's work. The effect of this is that there is a heavy emphasis on motion and editing, which creates more powerful shots. An example is at the beginning of the music where the actor is moving an umbrella and dancing to the beat. Here, every shot is cut to the beat with a heavy edit of the umbrella in relation to the soundtrack. When the actor opens the umbrella, we associate the sound we hear in the music with the sound of an umbrella opening, Cunningham uses sound association in lots of his work based upon his imagination.
Star power is used in this video, the actor playing the limo man is Richard D. James himself (Aphex Twin) wearing prosthetics on his face to disfigure it slightly and create an evil/creepy smile. As this is a highly recognisable video, and the limo man has a recognisable face Richard had Cunningham create some artwork which features on the single Windowlicker. Also the 'grinning' face has become a motif for Aphex Twin, and features on many of his later albums.
The image being offered suits the genre of 'acid techo' as an alternative genre. The sinister face on the artwork combined with experimental videos suit an alternative audience.
The video for Windowlicker is another to add to the collection of aphex twin videos. Cunningham works very closely with Richard D. James to form more of a duo than a standerd music director. James' work is reflected by Cunninghams imagination. Since the videos Come to Daddy, Windowlicker, and Rubber Johnny, James has been creating sounds specifically for Cunninghams experimental work, such as monkey drummer. All these videos fall under a very experimental genre but trademark Aphex Twin as more of an artist than a musician.
Sexual imagery is used throughout Windowlicker, but not ordinarily. Women with mens faces are represented sexually in the video, making for a very disturbing video and practically unseen in the world of music videos. A glidecam is used in the limo when the girls are stroking Richard, and on the edit the shot is overexposed. Along with the costumes are white bikinis, which matches the white limo and his white suit. This colour is usually used to symbolised virginity or purity, however here it symbolises cleanliness which creates heavy juxtaposition as the women appear with mens unshaved faces which makes the whole image unfitting to what we're watching.
The video itself is performance-based and concept-based. Choreographed sequences give the performance, but the very subject of what we're watching is conceptual as it comes direct from Cunninghams imagination.
Cunningham's Directing Style
Cunningham always likes to shock the audience, his work contain very disturbing images and motifs that appear throughout his work. He is fond of working with particular artists, and uses the same style throughout making the artist and his directing more recognisable. This is very noticeable in his work with Aphex Twin in particular as the style of cinematography always cuts to the beat and he reinvents objects, movement, shot types and motion when he associates them to the music.
Common of all of Cunningham’s work is the fact that he likes to break conventions of modern day music videos. He usually does this in a disturbing way. Cunningham also worked with robotics before he started making music professionally, this allows him the technical skills to transform his videos into another dimension. A good example is Rubber Johnny and Monkey Drummer.
Windowlicker breaks every form and convention applied in Andrew Goodwins music video analysis, and is seen as a post modern work and his style of editing and visual effects usually ends up more important than the music in the track. In any music video by cunningham, the music allows him a reason to be creative and shock/stun us. Cunningham's videos usually feature a meta analysis, this means that there is a deeper meaning behind what we are actually seeing. He also likes representing stereotypes in different ways, a common feature in Windowlicker and even more so in All Is Full Of Love by BJÖRK, where he personifies human emotions into robots by having two lesbian robots kissing and touching each other sexually. This video was nominated for multiple awards including a grammy, and was the first music video to win a golden pencil award at the D&AD awards. Cunningham has worked with many artists and some mainstream ones including Madonna, and has created adverts for many successful companies including PS3, Gucci, Nissan and Levi's, but always applies a sinister, dark tone to all of his work. Cunningham's main objective is to get people to talk about his video instead of watch it and have no effect. He wants a big impact on people and doesn't care who he offends in doing so, which is the reason why many of his videos are refused to be shown on mainstream music channels like MTV. Cunningham rarely uses vibrant colour in his music videos, most of them have a hue of black and white and blue which helps add to the sinister feel to what we are watching. Windowlicker does use vibrant colours but is overexposed with glare so we never see a clip for what it actually looks like, instead we see it how he wants us to. The main thing that makes a Cunningham video is the originality itself. The way he represents various sounds with camera and editing gives him his own trademark. Although there is never a straight narrative his film works well as a conceptual idea with the music. If anything Cunningham is an artist who breaks the barrier between music and video, making each video more of a performance than the music.
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