The 5: Music Videos Directed by Michel Gondry
This Week on the 5: Michel Gondry Videos
Michel Gondrey is a highly regarded film director who’s is know for directing the masterpiece Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. He’s also known for his amazing visuals in films like The Green Hornet and The Science of Sleep. If all that is not weird enough he’s currently working on a animated documentary on Noam Chomsky.
If you are not a big music video fan– and who is because it’s not 1985– you may have missed some amazing work. Since this is The Five we will only give you 5 videos as an introduction but you may want to go find more because there is always something interesting in Michel Gondry’s work.
1. Mad World, Gary Jules.
This is the video of Gary Jules version of Mad World, which was released for the film Donnie Darko. Amazingly watching this video you will forget about the strangeness of Donnie Darko and fall into Gondrys world. The overhead perspective of children on the street making animal figures…the sky…the city… make the visuals as haunting as the song.
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2. Hardest Button to Button, White Strypes
White Strypes are a very visual group and a perfect fit for Gondry. Hardest Button to Button gives the group the look and feel of a 60’s garage band. The Fell in Love with a Girl video is probably more iconic but you already know what legos look like . Plus, the Hardest Button to Button video was cool enough to be parodied on the Simpsons. This may have been the last real breath of fun for Rock N Roll.
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3. Everlong, Foo Fighters
Gondry has Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins doing the Inception gimmick long before the movie Inception. It’s pure Jungian dream imagery. There are Teddy Boy bullies, some strange fisticuffs, cross dressing, and the entire video is too weird to turn away from. Gondry has had reoccurring dreams about his hands becoming larger so he wrote it into the script.
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4. Kylie Minogue, Come Into My World…
Gondry turns pure street musician in this pop video. He has Kylie Minogue strolling around a city block in a French Suburb, and each time she completes a circle of the area, a new Kylie jumps out of one the stores. This is a video you can watch over and over for the seamless editing.
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5. Bjork, Human Behavior
Gondry and Bjork seem destined to work together. They’ve collaborated several times so we picked the first to showcase here. Bjork told Rolling Stone magazine the themes behind the video. “‘Human Behaviour’ is an animal’s point of view on humans. And the animals are definitely supposed to win in the end. So why, one might ask, is the conquering bear presented as a man-made toy? I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t think it would be fair to force an animal to act in a video. I mean, that would be an extension of what I’m against. I told him [Gondry], ‘I want a bear and textures like handmade wood and leaves and earth, and I want it to seem like animation.’ Then I backed out.”
