DIRECTOR: Michel Gondry

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MICHEL GONDRY


I saw the trailer for Jim Carrey's new TV show Kidding and I was like, "Oh yeah, Michel Gondry is wild."

Gondry is a French director who enjoys practical effects and drawing inspiration from his childhood. His work is simple and surreal, whip smart and whimsically childish. His work can make you think and feel complex emotions. Which sounds easy, but earnestly it's difficult to find a movie or music video that do either one as well as he does both. You might know his films: Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, Be Kind Rewind, or The Science of Sleep.

He prefers collaboration and practical effects to a polished feel. Many of his more notable works require extensive work from another department, whether its choreography (Around the World, Mad World), set design (Army of Me), or visual effects (Human Behavior, Everlong). Like Spike Jonze, his direction is more to allow collaborator's work to shine through than his own. He has most frequently worked with The Chemical Brothers, Beck, The White Stripes and Bjork.


INFLUENCES/INFLUENCER

I have a suspicion that he draws some ideas from the author Borges. His fixation on duality, unwritten media, and rugged simplicity are reminiscent of the Argentinian author. I believe he and Spike Jonze worked around similar aesthetics around a similar time. Both opting for collaboration and rugged, realistic feel over a polished one.

I would be curious to find out if Wes Anderson was influenced by Gondry's work. Gondry's choice for simplistic and symmetrical framing, intense production design, and 4x3 framing seem indicative of Andersons. And many videos could be mistaken as Anderson experimenting with style (Deadweight).


NOTABLE MUSIC VIDEOS

Daft Punk - Around the World
Emphasis on choreography, bordering on live performance. It's shot in 4x3. Which limits the scope, removes a cinematic feel, almost highlights that it's on a stage. The shots cut but they all stay wide, making the whole thing feel more tactile. This all to allow the clever choreography to shine through.

The Chemical Brothers - Let Forever Be
Easily my favorite of his videos. It's trippy, it deals with the duality, the loss of identity in daily repetition. But most importantly it has insane visual effects so clever I had to keep rewinding to find the cut.

Beck - Deadweight 
I have a theory that he gets some inspiration from Borges. His themes like duality, as we saw in Let Forever Be, in non-existent books like in Bachelorette. And now in Deadweight, which seems to draw directly from a Borges story about a city split in two. Where half the city is carnies, the other half office workers and once a year the citizens trade jobs as a vacation.

Bjork - Bachelorette 
My favorite of his collaboration with Bjork. Very fun, again, seemingly Borgesian. I think a lot of art tries to address the feeling of being an artist. I think this video does it very well as the fictional and non-fictional worlds fold in on themselves until the singer is............surrounded by bushes that used to be her ex-lover?

Foo Fighters - Everlong
Maybe one of his more popular videos, I remember seeing this and The Hardest Button to Button pretty frequently on VH1 as a kid. It accepts the dreamlike imagery as a dream this time.

Gary Jules - Mad World 
The whole choreography is done in one shot, moving between Jules and the street below as if he’s the puppeteer of the dancers. Gondry doesn’t have the intention of explaining the music, narrating it or changing the meaning of the song, instead he focuses on a theme and lets the music be heard.

The Chemical Brothers - Got to Keep On
His most recent music video. Another compelling example of allowing the performers and practical effects shining through. This video seems very polished, but also has the improvisational qualities of his earlier work:

Beck - Cellphone's Dead
This video is off-putting like an Eric Andre segment. Greenish-yellow hue. poor quality, this one intentionally not choreographed. Like a produced live performance but disjointed. I think it's interesting to include from his earliest work in contrast with his most recent (Got to Keep On) to compare.


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