Today, as Beck celebrates his 53rd birthday, we celebrate his video for Where It’s At. Directed by Steven Hanft, this video shows the many sides of Beck. He’s a rebel picking up trash for community service. He’s a country line dancer. He’s a robot that bears a resemblance to MST 3K’s Tom Servo. And finally, he’s William Shatner performing at the Saturn Awards.
Director Steve Hanft has also worked with the Cure, Primal Scream, and Delinquent Habits. Before this video, he directed the video for Loser, which introduced Beck to the world.
Poor Beck. I’m sure he’s cheered up by now though.
This video was directed by Spike Jonze. This was two years after Jonze’s received his first Oscar nomination for Being John Malkovich and also the same year that Jonze’s released his second Oscar-nominated film, Adaptation.
Not even Beck seems to be sure. According to Songfacts, Beck has offered up several different interpretations. He’s said that the song was an updated version of the American folk song, Stagger Lee:
“I don’t know if I ever HAD any youthful purity, but I can understand that you might be tempted to make commercial shit and compromise to do it. I try not to compromise on anything. I think we associate becoming an adult with compromise. Maybe that’s what the devil is. In ‘Devils Haircut’ that was the scenario. I imagined Stagger Lee… I thought, what if this guy showed up now in 1996. The song had this ’60s grooviness, and I thought of using him as a Rumplestiltskin figure, this Lazarus figure to comment on where we’ve ended up as people. What would he make of materialism and greed and ideals of beauty and perfection? His reaction would be, ‘Whoa, this is disturbing shit.'”
He’s also said that the song is simply about the evil of vanity (literally a devil’s haircut) or a song about being on tour (hence, the briefcase blues). Beck has also said that, while writing the song, he thought that “Devil’s haircut was a really bad lyric. If I can’t finish a song, I’ll just put in something temporary. That’s what ‘Loser’ was. Then the temporary one always becomes the best one, because it wasn’t all thought out.”
As for the video, director Mark Romanek claims that it was inspired by both Midnight Cowboy and The 400 Blows. Beck, wandering through New York City with his cowboy hat and his radio, was meant to be a modern-day Joe Buck while the freeze frames were inspired by the end of Truffaut’s portrait of alienated youth.
Two of the videos most memorable moments were accidental. When the car nearly runs over Beck, it is meant to recall the “I’m walking here!” scene from Midnight Cowboy but the car’s driver didn’t hit the brakes soon enough and Beck was actually hit by the car and injured his leg as a result. The other unplanned scene was when the pigeons took flight just as Beck approached them.
The video for Devil’s Haircut would go on to win two MTV Music Video Awards, one for Best Editing and one for Best Male Video.
I’m not gonna lie. I really have no idea what they were going for by simply by watching the music video. I spot the reference to Django (1966). The coffin moving on its own reminds me of Vampyr (1932). A lot of the religious imagery makes me think of Dreyer. That, and the holiday–Day of the Dead. I’m also pretty sure Beck is wearing a Saturday Night Fever (1977) outfit at one point.
According to Wikipedia, director Steve Hanft was inspired by Stan Brakhage, Maya Deren, and 1920’s surrealist films for the moving coffin. Beck apparently said they were “fucking around” when they made the video. That sounds about right. According to IMDb, the line “I’m a driver. I’m a winner. Things are gonna change. I can feel it” was sampled from Steve Hanft’s own film called Kill the Moonlight (1994). They also used clips from the film.
Also according to Wikipedia, there is one clip in the video that was not shot by Steve Hanft. It’s the one where Jesco White dances on a bench in a white satin shirt. It is also the one part of the music video that was shot on video rather than film. It was shot by Julian Nitzberg.
There’s some more background information on the music video over on Wikipedia.
Director Steve Hanft appears to have done somewhere between 50 to 60 music videos along with other films.
The end of an era just occurred at 12:35am on January 23, 2010. An era of Conan O’Brien on NBC late-night. First 16 years hosting The Late Night Show after the departure of David Letterman for his own late-night talk show on CBS. 2009 marked Conan’s inheriting the coveted Tonight Show from a “retiring” Jay Leno. This next stage of Conan’s career was suppose to last a long time, but instead a major blunder of immense proportions by NBC head honcho Jeff Zucker has ended Conan’s tenure as the Tonight Show host after only 7 months.
Much has been said, argued and screamed about the circumstances which has led to Conan O’Brien’s leaving the Tonight Show. People can find most of those easily on the net. This shall be my brief farewell and see you soon to someone who has made late night fun to watch. Wherever he lands (FOX, Comedy Central, internet show, etc.) here’s to hoping he does so to continue what he did best those 17 years as an NBC late-night talk show host: be funny, irreverent and, most importantly, down-to-earth.
7 months to wait til we find out where Conan shall land.
Through the Shattered Lens 