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| 1st shot: an Ibiza link perhaps? |
Fragma -
Dir: unknown, 2001.
Trance.
Lyrics.
SUMMARY
For me, one of the worst promos
I've ever seen, though it is
very professionally produced with strong
cinematography. There is little going on bar the incessant
objectification of the vocalist, who we often see running,
Baywatch slo-mo style, or dousing herself on the beach wearing sheer clothing, plus the 'exotic' (depending on the viewer of course) setting - which seems utterly incongruous for the track. Also features an attempt to eroticize fruit! We follow the singer through a village, though this is a world away from
The Verve video which tracks the singer walking along; our location here is left
polysemic, as if
anchorage might detract from its exotic '
otherness'. The track itself features a ridiculously long
fade-out: 20 seconds!!!
I make some comparisons below to Bond movies and a Lita Ford video....
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| The cinematography is sharp; variable focus is used to good effect, a particularly suitable diegetic 'effect' given the musical genre |
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| Around half of the video is nothing more than variations on this. |
INTERTEXTUALITY/POSTMODERN ALERT! [SIMULACRA + BAUDRILLARD]
It is basically very generic: scantily clad young woman by the sea. However, that notion has been rendered into a specific
meme through the Bond
franchise, with recent examples including Halle Berry emerging from the sea, and, in a rather
postmodern moment, Daniel Craig doing likewise at the start of
Casino Royale - Bond
intertextualising Bond within a Bond remake, or a
signifier of a signifier - the endless line of
signification which
Baudrillard dubs a
simulacrum.
I doubt this was in the mind of the producers, though I/you wouldn't know without direct access to them, but another possible
intertextual reference (but also just as importantly another example of how this basic beachside/in water scenario is used to package and sexualise female performers for the
male gaze) comes from this 1990 vid from heavy metaller Lita Ford:
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| Lita Ford cavorts in the 1990 vid Hungry |
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| Simple but effective framing technique: including leaves/branches/fronds. Another example of tight focus control; a very shallow depth of field here renders the foreground foliage and background out of focus |
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| 'Family' shows like the X Factor will feature more explicit material than this, but the incessant focus on the singer's body, including objectifying framing such as this, with the added sexual anchorage of touching, is dull and wearisome |
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| The all-pervading sexuality seems to have included visual puns too |
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| Just as in Baywatch, we have a young woman jogging along in slo-mo. A lot. |
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| A little cliched, but notwithstanding the overall tedium, there is some really sharp cinematography |
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| Again, cliched perhaps, but the cinematography is solid |
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| The racial binary, and explicit otherness of the locals, is dubious, but once more the cinematography is at the very least highly proficient |
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