Sound And Vision: Dean DeBlois
In the article series Sound and Vision we take a look at music videos from notable directors. This week we look at Dean DeBlois' work with Jónsi and Sigur Rós.
It is Dean DeBlois summer in Hollywood. The director of the new How To Train Your Dragon-live-action movie was in fact the co-director of two animated hits that are now having live-action remakes released. One being his own animated How To Train Your Dragon-trilogy, the first of which was co-directed with Chris Sanders, and the other one was Lilo and Stitch, co-directed with Sanders as well. For the soundtrack of How To Train Your Dragon, which was partly inspired by the landscapes of Iceland, DeBlois worked together with icelandic artist Jónsi, of Sigur Rós fame.
For DeBlois, who is not Icelandic himself, there was a pull to the vast landscapes of the island. While it is not his native country, together with Sigur Rós, he made a film called Heima, Icelandic for 'home'. The documentary/ live-concert hybrid shows Sigur Rós reflect on the theme of a homeland and a place to return to call your own. Part of the interviews are about the dread of returning to a place you might have outgrown, part of them reflect on the unshakable bond to someone's homestead.
All are interspersed with footage from the concert that Sigur Rós gave on their return to Iceland after their international adventures, some of them set in typical Icelandic landscapes. If Sigur Rós' music sounds like a mossy landscape, soft and subdued, and then giving way to a roaring waterfall of sound, this film makes it literal by tying the landscapes to the music's push and pull.
It is one of many musical projects that DeBlois did for Jónsi and consorts. While it might seem an odd fit at first, only tangibly connected to Iceland through the viking-setting of the How To Train Your Dragon-series, Heima shows some undercurrents that have run throughout DeBlois and Sanders work: the search for one's place in the world, which is explicitly a theme in the Dragon-trilogy AND Lilo and Stitch.
The second project that DeBlois and Jónsi made together fits this theme as well, being a fairly low-key affair filmed in Jónsi's home. Go Quiet, an album film of sorts, shows Jónsi performing for family and friends in his own house during new year's eve. The film is full of all sorts of subtle details, using haptic camerawork to emphasize the cosy textures of Jónsi's house. This is a lived in film, sticking close to Jónsi's hands while he plays the piano, his breath almost fogging up the camera while he sings. The confetti on the drums, remnants of the new-years party, don't feel like a post-party hangover, but the lingering sense of belonging after a good party with friends. You can feel the need to go quiet, as the title says, after a social gathering, but that does not mean the warmth goes away quickly.
This has been me talking mostly about DeBlois and Jónsi's long-form music projects, and Sound and Vision is by all accounts mainly focused on short form music content, so called music videos. But, herein lies the rub. Footage from Go Quiet was repurposed, to my knowledge unedited, for the music video of Go Quiet's Animal Arithmetic, (see below) which takes a piece from the performance and uses the footage to sell the single. Luckily, the footage stands on its own, still bringing the lingering sense of warmth and belonging I just talked about. Together with the stillness and quietness of imagery that accompanies Jónsi's angelic voice, this music video is slow cinema. It is a far cry from the ballistics of How To Train Your Dragon, that is more like a roaring waterfall and less like a bed of moss. But DeBlois can do both, clearly, and well. Yet I can't wait to hopefully see him work more in the quiet register shown in this music video in the future. He has done his dragon-flying live-action movie, now it's time to go quieter.
