Sound And Vision: Mark Pellington
In the article series Sound and Vision we take a look at music videos from notable directors. This week: four music videos by Mark Pellington.
In the works of Mark Pellington, music video and film alike, words have all the power. Sometimes this is fairly literal as in his music video for U2's One (below). It mostly focusses on imagery of buffalo and flowers, and the word one in different typefaces and languages. We are one, but words divide us? Or are we one and do words connect us?
The same dichotomy between words being a force for good or evil is seen in his breakthrough films, Arlington Road and The Mothman Prophecies. Both films have scenes in which characters wholly misinterpret the meaning of a situation or message, be it from a terrorist or from an ominous supernatural force. Words lead to paranoia, like in Arlington Road, where the power of words is a force of destruction. But sometimes words lead to healing, like in The Mothman Prophecies, where the omens and portents of doom might also be interpreted as divine intervention. The lead can move on from his mourning, eventually.
The tremendous power of words can be seen in two very different music videos that use written language in very different ways. Jeremy (also below), by Pearl Jam, might be the quintessential Mark Pellington music video. It earned him many accolades, and has the same gritty texture as the two mentioned movies. In the music video the titular character commits suicide in front of his classmates, after a lifetime of being bullied. The words that hurt and haunted him show up time and time again, even on the school board. It is a haunting, angry piece that bites back. Several other music videos from the same time, like Nine Inch Nails We're In This Together Now, are cut from the same dirty cloth: ink black and gritty, the camera figuratively shaking with palpable anger.
The Fray's How To Save a Life (also below), on the other hand, is filled with heartfelt (and sickly sweet) messages of hope and power, redemption and healing. They are the sort of self-help messages that you either roll your eyes at, or that can just hit the right way. But together with the sugary song, it is all a bit much. How is this the same director who made Jeremy and Arlington Road? And how did he make the equally saccharine (yet somehow quietly lovely) religious drama Henry Poole is Here, a film in which the writing is on the wall? Literally, as that film is about a stain on a building being interpreted by a group of christians as the image of Christ, something that the terminally ill protagonist Henry Poole scoffs at. Henry Poole Is Here and How To Save a Life both are self-help pieces, with a lot of new age and evangelist influences. The Mothman Prophecies, already, showed a director in search of supernatural meaning, but there the tone was still dark, dour and paranoid. Still, it is a great film about mourning.
What changed, though, was that a few years after The Mothman Prophecies, the wife of Mark Pellington passed away. In interviews Pellington stated that it changed his outlook on life. It softened him. He found a lot of meaning in the support and words of others. His support group (and Pellington himself) was front and center in a music video for Keane's Everybody's Changing (finally below), which was rejected by the band for being too heavy-handed. It is a great piece though, undeniably powerful, but not very commercial. Nobody wants to be reminded of the specter of death while listening to peppy power ballads. Words have power, as Pellington knows, as do images. And sometimes the power is so undeniably strong, people rather not listen, or look at it. But give this music video a look. It's worthwhile.
