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August 11, 2010

Power

Kanye West continues his tradition of foregoing traditional music videos in favor of working with notable artistic savants with this new piece from Marco Brambilla:

My obsessive-compulsive love of chiaroscuro, prosceniums and, especially, neoclassical tableaux pretty much ensured that I'd like this. I flipped out over Brambilla's stunning Civilization installation from a few years ago - if there's anything I love more than a long, slow dolly back, it's a lateral move up and down - and this new video pushes pretty much all the same buttons.

The major difference being that, while Civilzation was art co-opting pop, this is pop taking advantage of art. But if this is what constitutes advertising, I'll take it. And disseminate it.

UPDATED: Apparently, the above directors' cut of the piece has been made unavailable. I don't want to embed the other released version because it's not as good. All of the nudity is gone and, worse than that, the single shot structure has been compromised.

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A side note: Brambilla's first foray into Hollywood filmmaking was Demolition Man, which I really, really wanted to see when I was twelve. I have no idea why. I walked to the grocery store to buy the newspaper on the day it opened, just so I could read the review. And as I often did when my parents forbade my viewing of a particular film, I then wrote a futuristic action screenplay of my own which was comprised of everything I imagined that movie might contain and which my mother, upon reading it, found completely horrifying. I think it was a little too violent. I guess her disapproval did its trick, because now I can't even begin to write a death scene without feeling sick to my stomach.

Posted by David Lowery at August 11, 2010 7:37 PM