The video that I am analysing is "Mr Brightside" by The Killers. The Killers are an American rock band who are very well recognised. The song spend a total of 71 weeks in the UK top 100 and was named the 'Song of the Decade' by certain UK radio stations. The video was directed by Sophie Muller. It follows the story of the front man of the band being in a love triangle with a girl and a powerful looking man. This all takes place in a burlesque club in France. It follows some of the conventions of a rock video as the abstract route is often chosen by the rock genre. However, many of the rock videos are performance based, and this video does have an element of that, yet it is mainly narrative.
There are many examples of when the lyrics match the visuals within the video. There is a point where the song says "I just can't look, its killing me", which relates to the front man of the band not being able to look at his love interest whilst she is flirting with other men and at this point he puts his hand over his face. The chorus begins with the word "Jealousy" which relates to the whole story being about a love triangle and at this point we see the man from the band with his love interest being looked upon by her other love interest. It then flashes back to the band performing and him having to watch her flirting with other men, so jealousy relates to that as well. The first line of each verse also starts with "I'm coming out of my cage and been doing just fine", and when it says just fine he reasures himself that he is fine by straightening his jacket or making a firm hand gesture to himself. The same thing happens when he has to reassure himself that "It was only a kiss" that started out the love triangle and it quickly flashes to him sitting with the girl and reassuring himself and her. My final example is "choking on your alibi", where he puts his hnad around his throat.
At the start of the video it does not really cut to the beat, however near the end of the first verse and then througout the chorus it starts to cut to the drum beat as it builds up. During the verses the cuts are also relatively fast, as the lyrics build up in seriousness. For example it says "But she's touching his chest now, he takes off her dress now, let me go." Whilst this is happening it shows her with a lot of other men and then quickly cuts to him trying not to look, and there are examples of shot reverse shot. In the chorus she length of the shots increases as the pace slows. The instrumentals tend to show his fantasies of being with her, for example they go out onto the balcony and watch fireworks over Paris. This is the first main example that the video is based upon Moulin Rouge, as that is one of the most famous scenes in that film. When the singing starts again, it shows the woman running back to the other man. The bridge of the song, which is literally the words "I never" repeated over and over again leaves the video cutting very fast inbetween all of the action. This then slows down to make the end of the song.
There are rather a lot of close ups of the band, and not just the front man. The close ups of him, however are not really to sell the image of the band as he is in part of the narrative. It is therefore to show his emotions and reactions to what is happening in the story. The close ups of the rest of the band are to shwo them playing the instruments and more to sell them as they are not characters in the story. The band are being portrayed as risk takers as it is a very contraversial and yet clever video. As it is based upon a film it gives a solid storyline but with room for adaption which they have obviously used. It also may bring a new audience, who could be fans of the film Moulin Rouge and therefore may wish to see an adaptation and could inturn like the song. A lot of the other videos by the Killers are purely performance based, yet it is known that they have made some 'strange' videos in the past.
There are a few sexual references in the video such as the lyrics which describe people undressing each other. As it is based upon the Moulin Rouge, we can therefore also expect sexual dancing and costumes which we see with the suspenders and corsets etc. The artist is not particularly on sexual display as we can tell that he wants the girl in a more romantic way than a sexual way. There is dancing throughout the chorus which is very realistic to the location and shows the girls lifting their skirts up and showing the men their suspenders and underwear, as this is what the men pay for.
The use of the film means that the video can be successful as it always has a storyline to fall back on, although they have not chose to do so, and have adapted the story slightly. The video is mainly narrative based, yet it does show some performance by some members of the band.
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