The Start of ‘Unconventional’ Trip

Until Trent Reznor or Glenn Danzig commandeers the nation’s airwaves, music videos such as Nine Inch Nails’ “Happiness in Slavery” and Danzig’s “It’s Coming Down” will never air on MTV.

The stark Nine Inch Nails clip shows a man submitting himself to a chair studded with probes, pincers and automated prongs that poke and prod his chest, abdomen, limbs and genitals at an increasing rate until, finally, the machine pulverizes his flesh.

The Danzig video is equally graphic in its depictions of sadomasochism, masturbation, urination and genital mutilation.

Too vivid for rock fans?

A unique new film festival will let them decide for themselves.

Both videos are featured in the American Cinematheque’s “The Unseen Music: An Uncensored, Uncut, Unconventional Journey Through the Free Video Universe,” a five-night public showing of rarely seen clips by everyone from Pearl Jam and David Bowie to Prince and Bjork.

Part of the American Cinematheque’s ongoing “Alternative Screen” series, the festival premieres tonight and continues Saturday and Thursday through Oct. 26 at Raleigh Studios.

“A lot of clips never see the light of day,” Margot Gerber, producer of the “Alternative Screen” series, says of her motivation for putting together the music video program. “We thought it’s a shame that all this stuff is just sitting on a shelf, so we decided to show it in a theatrical venue and build a festival around it.”

Few of the nearly 120 videos that will be shown are as creepy as the NIN and Danzig clips. In fact, many are quite beautiful and visually spectacular, with imaginative special effects, eye-popping animation and original concepts and designs.

Divided into eight categories, “The Unseen Music” will showcase several uncensored versions of well-known videos, including the director’s cut of Pearl Jam’s award-winning “Jeremy,” with its controversial scene of a troubled young boy putting a gun to his mouth. The festival also will feature dozens of other clips that were never widely broadcast for a myriad of reasons that, according to the American Cinematheque, had nothing to do with quality. (Each 60-minute showing will be followed by a panel discussion.)

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Fewer than half of the some 2,500 videos that are submitted to MTV each year make it into regular rotation on the network, according to an MTV spokesman, so a lot of work winds up on a shelf or in a closet somewhere.

Some are rejected because of their sexual content, nudity, graphic violence or outspoken political commentary, others merely because the songs they’re supposed to promote are not hits.

Some are scrapped by record companies simply because marketing plans change, or because somebody doesn’t like the way the band looks in the video.

“One director told me that he had a video rejected because MTV felt that an actress he’d used was too old to star in a video screening on MTV,” Gerber says. “They didn’t think it would appeal to their demographic.”

And then there are clips such as “Happiness in Slavery” and “It’s Coming Down,” both of which were directed by Jon Reiss.

“They’re both played a lot in [underground] clubs,” says Reiss, who has directed more than two dozen music videos.

He had no illusion that either would be shown on MTV.

“When Trent approached me about the Nine Inch Nails video,” Reiss says, “it’s not so much that he didn’t care whether it got on MTV, but he didn’t want to be constrained by any standards and practices. . . . He encouraged me to push the boundaries, to push the envelope as much as possible.”

And the result?

“It definitely caused people to take notice,” Reiss says. “It definitely blew people’s minds . . . which I think is a good thing.”

“It’s Coming Down” also raised eyebrows within the industry.

Forget MTV--even Playboy TV passed on the Danzig video.

“It’s a little extreme,” says Eric Mittleman, producer of Playboy TV’s “Hot Rocks” music video program. “Penis piercing isn’t good for the audience.”

Mittleman, though, is a strong supporter of “The Unseen Music.”

“It’s a wonderful program,” he says. “Having produced ‘Hot Rocks’ for the last five years, I know there’s a huge amount of really wonderful stuff out there that’s never shown.”

* “The Unseen Music” screens tonight, Saturday and Thursday through Oct. 26 at Raleigh Studios, 5300 Melrose Ave., 7 and 9:30 p.m. (except next Thursday, 7 and 9 p.m.). $7. (213) 466-3456, Ext. 2.