Michael Shamberg | Through the Shattered Lens

I turned on this video in order to write about it for Monday, but became so hypnotized by its imagery that I couldn’t write till today.

I felt it was critically important to watch several forgotten early-90s thrillers in order to write about this video.

I felt it was better that Lisa do it because of Tobe Hooper’s passing.

Or I’ve been having difficulty eating and sleeping, which really caught up with me on Sunday afternoon.

Unfortunately, it’s the fourth one, and it’s still going on as I write this, so I may be in and out for awhile. We shall see.

Anyways, Lisa jumped in yesterday and spotlighted the one music video I’m aware of that was directed by Tobe Hooper–Dancing With Myself by Billy Idol.

If I had to wager a guess as to how he ended up directing that video, then I figure it probably went one of two ways:

He was a fan of Generation X (Idol’s band prior to going solo), and ended up getting in contact with Idol to film the video. Then he brought on the cinematographer who shot The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and did uncredited camerawork on The Funhouse (1981)–Daniel Pearl.
Or it went the other way, and prolific music-video cinematographer Daniel Pearl suggested they hire Tobe Hooper.

No matter what the reason, I’m sure Hooper and Pearl having collaborated before had something to do with it.

How they ended up shooting it on a set from a production of Ann Jellicoe’s punk rock-themed play The Sport Of Mad Mad Mother is a mystery to me.

Something else that’s a mystery to me, is how and why there are at least four different music videos for Blue Monday made in 1983, 1984, 1988, and 1995. Not versions of the song. Actual videos made for those different versions. No, I am not going to try and track them all down right now.

I could embed an okay-at-best cover version of this song that was done by HEALTH for the movie Atomic Blonde (2017) to try and tie it to something recent, but I’d prefer to embed the video of Orkestra Obsolete playing Blue Monday using nothing but instruments from the 1930s. I find that much more interesting, and by doing so, I won’t be lying by implying that movie is the reason I’m doing this video.

For me, the dog is the biggest selling point of this video.

I’m not sure if I want to know how it got so good at balancing.

The dog’s name is Fay Ray. Not only can this dog balance on a chair that is balanced on another chair, but she was able to catch the tennis ball her mouth.

Lead-singer Bernard Sumner couldn’t do it.

Yes, I’m sure they pulled it away at the last second. Nevertheless, it did appear to nearly hit Gilbert, so there seems to have been a fair amount of randomness to that part of the video. I’m kinda disappointed that he didn’t snatch it out of the air with his mouth.

Director and photographer William Wegman owned Fay Ray along with three other dogs named Batty, Chundo, and Crooky. They would all go on to teach kids the alphabet in 1995’s Alphabet Soup.

Wegman did sketches for the video, and the other director, Robert Breer, is the one who did the hand-drawn animation.

While I’m not sure I want to know about the training Fay Ray went through, I am curious as to what Gillian Gilbert is looking at in this shot.

The only other thing I have to say about this video is that I am completely perplexed as to why it appears to be comparing the dogs ability to balance with her ability to balance.

Maybe you’ll have better luck figuring out the video than me.

Maybe you’ve read Breakfast Of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut–where they got the title from.

Or maybe you’ll just sit back and enjoy it as I do.

Information on the song, and it being re-invented over and over is easy to find on Wikipedia and Songfacts.

Enjoy!

Rest in peace, Jonathan Demme.

New Order is a band that was formed by the remaining members of Joy Division after the death of lead singer Ian Curtis. To most people, they are probably best-known for their song Blue Monday. That’s how I know of them. I think this is the first time I have heard another song by them.

Obviously the video is notable for the fact that it runs just short of 11 minutes with credits. Visually, there is a disconnection between the members of the band, and themselves with their instruments. There isn’t even a shot of the whole band together till halfway through the video. There’s a solemn mood about the whole thing–from the walls, to the looks on their faces. It was apparently shot in the band’s practice room. You can see a Joy Division poster in the background, which adds even more sadness to the whole thing.

From what I have read, this was a live video. That would explain why their isn’t a lot of glamour here. Maybe if this were on a stage, and in front of an audience, then it would. But this is just in their practice room. There is a nice article over on Billboard magazine’s website that goes into more detail than I can, but it boils down to the same thing. It is a noteworthy live video that captures New Order–warts and all–performing an exhausting composition live, alone, and far from any kind of glamour or artiness of a Blue Monday ’88 or Regret. If I had to guess, the disconnection was intentional in order to visually convey the separation of the different artists’ parts in the song, the concentration that purges the individual to a well-oiled machine, and the fact that some of the song was performed on the fly, while other parts were pre-programmed.

Enjoy!