DIRECTOR: Chris Cunningham

CHRIS CUNNINGHAM

is a prodigy of special effects and disturbing imagery.

He got his start in Hollywood working on the props and effects for Alien 3 with David Fincher when he was a teenager! And he's provided terror to audiences ever since. His videos are visceral in a way that gets under your skin. Disturbing, but captivating like found-footage of John Wayne Gacey at a pool party.

His a direction creates actual, physical uneasiness. He uses a library of techniques to execute the distressing videos:


Undefined Phenomena - The focal point of Cunningham's videos is always an unexplained phenomena: a demon bursting from a TV, a humanoid experiment in a cell, a disembodied head on a subway. But the apparition alone isn't what keeps you watching. It's your desire to lean in and learn about the thing. But Cunningham knows giving you those answers will only deplete your fear of it. And so I think it is a consistent choice that he never reveals anything about the creatures or phenomena that he has made



The Payoff - You are going to have more questions than answers by the end of the video, sure. And you're going to feel a bit off-kilter, but not repulsed, or unsatisfied. That's because the video always serves the tone of the music. Cunningham is an artist that hears the music first, builds a visual world around it. The edit always stays on beat, never countering it. 

"With me it's purely reacting to the sound...I've got a library of connections my brain makes with sound."* - Chris Cunningham.

The Third Heat - It's one thing to make a captivating video (that's the first heat), it's another to have it evoke an emotion (the second heat). The third heat is what a director brings to the table; it can be a visual style, a love of performance, a profound use of color, every director is different. Chris Cunnigham's specialty is unarguably his visual effects, and how he adds to them in a way that goes beyond just making them believable. But making them an experience to behold in itself.

"You're locked in here with me" - Cunningham isn't afraid of extending a music video beyond the length of the song, in fact it's a bit of a trademark. You can be two or three minutes into one of his MVs before the song actually starts. From Come to Daddy to New York is Killing Me (a 10:00 video for a 4:30 song!)

See Cunningham doesn't play by the regular rules of MVs. Cunningham can hijack the first two or three minutes of a MV with narrative. He can cut into the middle of a song with dialogue that isn't even audible. He'll take the music bed out of a song and replace it with sound effects. And he takes such liberties with the sound effects, that it can be difficult to tell when a song has ended. 

The effect being, that from the first moments you start watching a Cunningham video, you're off balance, you don't know what to expect. You aren't watching a traditional music video that might have a twenty, even thirty second clip. Nope! He's the monster wrangler, he's in control, he's the only one with answers, and he isn't going to share those answers with you.

NOTABLE MUSIC VIDEOS

Aphex Twins- Rubber Johnny
In this video a humanoid experiment creeps the viewer out by moving nimbly despite its difficulty breathing and its confinement to a wheel chair. It dances a bit, but definitely not in a way that is at all enjoyable or comforting. The video ends with credits rolling over the static image of a subway car creeping forward. Much is implied, that the creature's mother may be a Chihuahua, that it is warping through space, but nothing is explained. He may be an alien dodging laser beams, either could be correct, we'll never know. 



Gil Scott-Heron - New York is Killing Me

This video drove me nuts. It's so surface-level simple, it's three shots from the inside of a subway car, with Gil Scott-Heron's disembodied head singing. Yet somehow it is captivating and fear-inducing for the full ten fuuuuuuuuuuucking minutes! I say that, not out of frustration, but because it maintains the suspense for that long.  I mean I kept thinking you'd get a clean shot of the man's face or some sort of conclusion. But you never do. 



Bjork - All is Full of Love
One of Cunningham's most polished videos. This video has the best example of that "Third Heat", which is the plasma elements among the robots' moving parts. Fire and a viscous liquid erupt in and around the machine giving it extra life and vigor. Without these the video might be pretty bland. 


Aphex Twins - Come to Daddy
Probably Cunningham's quintessential video. It has all of the elements that make it a typical, terrifying Cunningham video. The lack of motive, loss of identity, the intense visual effects, the perfect syncing with sound and video all make a frightening visual feature.


Squarepusher - Come on My Selector
Again, the song does not start until the third minute of the video. A talking dog and child escape some sort of testing facility. The video has elements we've discussed but is a bit more whimsical than frightening.  


Aphex Twins - Windowlicker
Seems like a commentary on modern music videos, except for the twist of the Aphex Twins masks that every character wears. Removing the identity of every character takes away the roles they would play, or the comments made about the roles they would play if this was strictly a parody. It flies in the face, even of parody. Cunningham wants us to share his distaste for pop idols and self-serving glam. 



SAUCES
Here's a vimeo page with most of his work: https://vimeo.com/channels/153296/17487076
Mirrorball. Chris Cunningham. 2007. Channel 4

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

One-Take Wonders

Preface to Nihilism in Music Videos

Nihilism in Music Videos