#3: the best Spike Jonze music video made by Spike Jonze
It's very tough to pick a single best music video by Spike Jonze. (Before I post #1 on this list, I'll go through some runner-ups with no-Spike-Jonze-limit.) But chose I must, and chose I have.
Spike Jonze first met the Beastie Boys in 1991 doing a photo shoot of the band for his short-lived magazine, Dirt. Ad-Rock (Adam Horovitz) had been toying with the idea of doing a photo shoot of the band dressed up as plain-clothes cops for a while, and the band eventually approached Spike Jonze to do the project.
The Beasties had so much fun with Jonze, that in 1994 they decided they wanted him to shoot a video along the same theme. MCA (the late Adam Yauch), later told an interviewer,
"We'd done videos where the production people came up with these elaborate budgets, and it started to feel really awkward on the set. So we asked Spike to work with just a couple of people, so we could fit the whole production in one van. Then we just ran around L.A. without any permits and made everything up as we went along."
I (and probably my friends, too) feel a special affinity for this video because of the silent, Super 8 action movies we made as teenagers. The production values and acting are very close. My favorite single portrayal is this guy walking suspiciously with two grocery bags:
(click on gif to play)
This "stunt" here is straight out of The Death of Raymond McMillan:
This caption is a masterstroke:
Jonze and the Beasties went on to write a script for a feature film, We Can Do This, but the project was canceled after development.
The video catapulted Spike Jonze to fame as a director of music videos, commercials, shorts, and feature films. Nine years after his photo shoot for Dirt, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director for Being John Malkovich.
posted by VMM at 5:46 PM
5 Comments:
"Um, we're thinking of having you direct a movie, but aren't sure if you can direct."
> Shows them Sabotage video <
"When can you start?"
This video is pitch perfect. An incomplete list of things it gets right:
1) The 70s were mostly just like that
2) But it's a 90s video, and no one who sees it will think it was made at any other time
3) Jonze's camera work is epic, my favorite being the focus shift in the time bomb scene
4) Because it is fun and energetic, it does not leave you feeling dirty and horrible, as most things in the 70s did. If you try to watch an episode of Charlie's Angels or S.W.A.T. now, your wince muscles will be exhausted by the first commercial break. This gives us everything we liked, but leaves out the awkward dialogue and crap pacing.
5) The pacing.
But above all, the music. The music sells the video, the video sells the song. It is impossible for me to hear this song and not start immediately replaying the video in my head.
We'll never see it now, but Cochise deserved his own movie. Dirty Harry with the Kung Fu moves!
It is impossible for me to hear this song and not start immediately replaying the video in my head.
Exactly! It's one of the hallmarks of a great music video.
Also, what gives with the weird importance of the bull horn? I love that!
I'm guessing it's just one of the props they threw in the van. And if access to only a few props, you're more likely to find reason to use them.
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