MC: Deconstructing Music Videos (1)

 

• The video for ‘Cut the World’ by Anthony and the Johnsons, directed by Nabil Elderkin in 2012, is an artistic film heavily loaded with extreme amplification of lyrical interpretation. The song consists of two short verses and a one line chorus, each line being very powerful, and is translated into visual imagery in the music video.
• The basis of the song is revealed by Anthony in the chorus, with a questioning lyric consisting of ‘But when will I turn, and cut the world?’ In fact, the plot is the story of a woman (Carise), who turns on her boss (Defoe) following their perfectly humanised conversation and slits his throat with a knife, amplifying the essence of turning your back on everything and realising there is no need for reliance on anyone.
• Another conventional illustration is the collocation with the line ‘My eyes are coral, absorbing your dreams’ and the extreme close up of the female actor’s eyes, staring deep into the violent cloud contortions outside (achieved by time compression of footage).
• Static shots featured like this give the character prevalence and contribute to the slow moving feel of the whole extract, and subtle movements are appreciated as entire focus is on one eye only. Slight flickering of her lashes suddenly provides the character’s mood with much more depth, and humanises her.

 

• This video is definitely considered artistic, and it presents the tackling of a large issue of feminism.
• The video is a visionary concept for some women, that represents the female gender in a progressive way.
• The women disregard the need for paternalism within their society by taking down the male preceding them on the corporate ladder and in turn destroy prospects of working within a firm like this again.
• Again, this is amplification, or reflection upon a particular line of song matter. ‘For so long I’ve obeyed that feminine decree’ is sung, with the essence of obeying being exaggerated, simply though her gender.   
• The women group after being drawn sub-consciously together in an emotion-less fashion, each draped in blood. This gives connotations of an uprising, and unity in the strong characters.

• The artist, Anthony is represented through the clip too. The audience realise Carise plays the role of Anthony, and that the artist’s views are expressed through the lyrics.
• The suffering of the ‘feminine degree’, a central theme, seems to be experienced by the vocalist, despite him being male.
• The artist may experience the oppression of women from his point of view, and anger expressed at this is demonstrated through the poignant imagery created by the cataclysmic clip and highly realistic murder scene.