A Brilliant Homage to . . . Um . . . Which Movie?

One of the programs at the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado in September was a presentation of cutting-edge music videos, hosted by R.E.M. vocalist Michael Stipe.

Not everyone in the audience, though, was impressed by all the highfalutin talk of pop video semiotics. The last man to pose a question in the post-screening discussion suggested that the very topic was beneath a man of Stipe’s taste and talent.

“I find that I want to listen to R.E.M. songs over and over, but I only want to watch the videos once,” said the fellow, apparently on behalf of his generation. “Why is it that the kids today seem to want to watch all these MTV videos over and over again?”

“Maybe it’s because they have better taste than you do,” Stipe admonished. End of discussion, and good night.

This anti-video dissenter probably wasn’t alone in his suspicion that Stipe was slumming by seemingly positioning himself as a champion of the MTV arts. But although most grown-ups are content to consign the channel to “the kids,” less elitist aesthetes can still tune in to find there’s a lot of good work being done by a minority of musicians and directors.

Certainly R.E.M.’s oeuvre itself puts up a pretty good defense for the form; Beavis and Butt-head would, no doubt, say that their whole catalogue of clips sucks, which is as good a recommendation as any.

The band’s new clip, for “Everybody Hurts,” may be R.E.M.’s best yet. It tops this edition of Sound & Vision, in which current pop videos are reviewed and rated on a 0-100 scale.

R.E.M., “Everybody Hurts.” Everyone who sees this seems certain that it’s based on a movie, but no one can agree on which. Some have thought it takes off from the opening traffic-jam sequence of “Falling Down” (which is hardly giving R.E.M. any credit for taste). Others of us were certain that its mind-reading elements were inspired by “Wings of Desire” (a credible theory, since the band has worked with Wim Wenders). The official word is that the video, directed by Jake Scott, gets its cues from an expressway scene 30 years ago in Fellini’s “8 1/2.” In fact, you’re better off not even bringing any filmic references to appreciate the beauty in this finely drawn mosaic of mortal thought.

The scene is a freeway brought to a SigAlert standstill. The cameras glide past dozens of car windows, catching not just the ruminative faces of the trapped inhabitants but their actual unspoken thoughts, in brief subtitles.

The effect is much the same as in “Wings of Desire,” in which the angels listen in on the funny, scary, desperate inner reasoning of humans. A kid sitting in the back seat behind his bickering parents wishes they’d just shut up. A crying man in transit from a funeral mourns his beloved. A chauffeured beauty hopes the people in surrounding cars will notice her, while another woman takes solace in the fact that no one will.

The emphasis on melancholy is appropriate, given that the song is basically an unusually straightforward (for R.E.M.) plea against succumbing to sorrow and, more directly, suicide. Some of Stipe’s own lyrics appear as subtitles, too, up to the point that the music swells, he stands atop a car with his arms outstretched and all the extras exit their autos en masse, as if in implicit protest: We’re sad as hell and we’re not gonna take it anymore . Wherever they’re headed off on foot, we’re going too. 95

Peter Gabriel, “Kiss That Frog.” From the despairing, to the delightful. . . . This almost completely computer-animated clip by director Brett Leonard (“The Lawnmower Man”) premiered a few months back not on TV but in amusement parks, as the basis of a full-motion ride, the Mindblender, that toured attractions such as Raging Waters. Now you can see it on your set, sans the mechanically rocking seats, and it holds up pretty well seen on a more sedentary viewing.

It’s still a rock ‘n’ roll version of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, with the singer as a psychedelic frog who chases an extremely fair maiden underwater, across floating toad-stools and even into his own innards. Most of the action is between the live-action lass and her suitor, the animated amphibian; as for Gabriel himself, you only see his eyes attached to the digital frog until the happy coda, when a smooch naturally transforms the cranky toad into our hero. The expensive effects couldn’t be more colorful, and the trippy fantasy supports their extravagance. It ain’t Kubrick, but it is the ultimate ribbit. 91

Terence Trent D’Arby, “Delicate.” More digital effects, wonderfully wielded. Here it’s good, old-fashioned “morphing” that changes D’Arby and his duet partner, Des’ree, into and out of various animals and objets d’art . Even without all the transformations, this would be a terribly sexy song: D’Arby’s smoothly sung appreciation of tactile love places enough emphasis on the under-heralded title quality that--in a way rare among pop songs--it gives “sensual” its fullest meaning. 83

Lisa Germano, “You Make Me Want to Wear Dresses.” Germano is best known as John Mellencamp’s longtime fiddler, but she gets to exude her own peculiarly winsome charisma as a singer-songwriter in this clip. There’s a certain ambivalence to the title sentiment--you’re not quite sure whether Germano is gaining her femininity or losing her feminism by submerging herself in the described love affair--and director Laura Levine doesn’t settle the question in this video. But Germano, trying on girl-wear ranging from cowgirl skirts to a wedding gown, has a winning enough presence even in passivity that it’s hard to believe the message is she’d be better off in pants. 79

U2, “Lemon.” Hey, we all loved Zoo TV, which reaches its late apotheosis in this futuristic, Mephistophelean video. But, after almost two ironic years’ worth of Bono-as-media-devil, perhaps it’s not a moment too early for U2 to pack up the Pop Art parody and go through a sincerity phase again. 68

Stone Temple Pilots, “Wicked Garden.” Not many groups would either be so brave or so stupid as to heavily stock their own video with shots of actual cardboard cutouts of themselves--especially not when the analogy is as rife as it is with the execrably bratty, self-serious and derivative Pilots. The cardboard motif is either an inadvertently astute symbolic gaffe, or post-modern self-mockery at its dumb, smug finest. Either way, we can only applaud the gesture with a hearty here, here! 37

Salt-N-Pepa, “Shoop.” What do women want? Roll over, Freud, and tell Prince and Fabio the news: According to these female pop-rappers, it’s an ample butt. So--stop the (“Women Are From Venus, Men Are From Mars”) presses--the sexes aren’t so very different after all. The lustful trio spends most of this video ogling bare-chested hunks, in a possible case of reverse sexism that we’re probably supposed to accept as pec for tat. The beach frolic looks innocently salacious enough, though the old-fashioned among us could do without the genitalia references. 37

Meat Loaf, “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That).” What is Meat Loaf doing dressed up as a Klingon? Oh, hold on, those forehead prosthetics are supposed to make him The Beast (as in Beauty And). And this ludicrously overproduced fantasy video is supposed to make him a star again, which it’s apparently done, so go figure.

The epic clip has nothing whatsoever to do with the epic ballad, which is confused enough in its own right. Jim Steinman’s convoluted lyrics use a potentially humorous title in the service of a humorless statement of fidelity; Stephen Bay’s video is about a cop-killing monster who literally finds a babe in the woods and turns her into his impossibly bodice-strapped mistress through sheer good will.

But it does accomplish at least one thing: At eight minutes, it seems longer than the Jean Cocteau and Disney movies and the entire run of the Ron Perlman TV series played back to back. 23