Directors' Cuts
Interviews with Anton Corbijn, Mark Romanek, Jonathan Glazer and
Stéphane Sednaoui.

Remember videos? Those little movie-like things that used to air on MTV wedged in between episodes of Remote Control and House of Style. Palm Pictures is reliving the glory days of the video age with its latest Director’s Label DVD series. In 2003 they launched the line with a 3-part set featuring the works of Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, and Chris Cunningham. Come September they’ll release the latest series, this time with Mark Romanek, Anton Corbijn, Jonathan Glazer and Stéphane Sednaoui.

If the names sound familiar, they should.

Corbijn is the Dutchman revered for his moody black-and-white photographs of U2, as well as his video work with Depeche Mode, New Order and Joy Division (their influence on him so profound he is currently working on a biopic of Ian Curtis). Mark Romanek’s name is attached to dozens of blockbuster clips starring the likes of Lenny Kravitz and No Doubt, which were slick and smart and catchy, even when the music wasn’t. Glazer authored a handful of enigmatic videos for Radiohead and Blur and then charged into the film business with Sexy Beast. Sednaoui, also a photographer, is best-known for playful, kinetic videos like the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Give it Away Now” and has also collaborated with Bjork and Madonna

If the DVD tends towards hyperbole (with commentaries punctuated by unintentially funny, grandiose observations by Bono), the directors themselves were more modest when discussing their own video work. Or perhaps they were just worn down from hours of consecutive interviews in the lobby of New York’s Maritime Hotel. As he slouched in his blue pleather chair, the nearly 7-foot-tall Corbijn put it best: “How often can you get excited by yourself, really? Maybe once a week at most.” Perhaps he just didn’t want to talk about that Roxette video lurking in his past.

Anton Corbijn

In your new book U2 & I: The Photographs 1982-2004, you mention that U2 enlisted you to do a video for “Pride” and it didn’t go so well.

Yes, they’d already made a video for “Pride,” and weren’t sure about the approach, so I said, “I can do a simple video” but then the video I did was too simple. I couldn’t pull it off, so it’s buried, basically.

It’s the lost video. Why isn’t it on the DVD then?

Because I don’t think anyone wants to see it. And I don’t think U2 wants anyone to see it either.

Perhaps it was too understated? Because I was thinking about how your pictures have so much subtlety to them, that it must be hard to translate into a making a video.

Well, the whole process is so different. Photography can be so much more emotional -- much more true to the person, and less planned. Photo shoots are generally very minimal affairs for me. Videos are very different, and the story you want to tell is different.

That’s why I was so surprised in a great way when I saw the “Hurt” video with Johnny Cash [directed by Mark Romanek], because I thought it was the first time I thought saw emotion in any music video which is really hard to get. I think that’s my favorite music video for that reason.

Because it’s such a commercial medium, do you feel like you’ve had to make lots of compromises?

Less so than in the early days. I quite like some awkwardness in my videos, for example. And with that I’m not thinking too much about the commercial aspects. When I take pictures I also don’t think of the commercial aspects. If you look at my work in a gallery, I don’t think you can tell the different between a picture I initiated and one I got paid $1000 for. It’s always my picture. I hope in my videos it’s the same.

I like the idea of awkwardness in videos. Awkwardness is underrated.

Yes, and imperfection is underrated (or at least perfection is overrated).

Besides your recent Killers video, you haven’t done much video work lately. Why?

I started making videos in 1983 and thought I had done what I wanted to do with it. Also, I don’t have cable at home, so I never see these things. I felt a little out of that world.

Is there anyone you’ve always wanted to work with, but didn’t get to?

I would to have loved to do a video for R.E.M. but I’ve never approached people. I’ve always waited for them to come to me. I’m probably embarrassed that I think they’re going to turn me down. Or I feel really awkward if they say yes, because I’ll feel that I’ve cornered them, and I’m forcing them to say yes.

How was it working with Joni Mitchell [on “My Secret Place”]?

I was relieved it was her and Peter Gabriel together. She told me afterwards it was a really hard time for her because she had her period. [laughs]. She is really funny. I have this incredible memory of meeting her in LA, and crossing this road for lunch, and this big car was coming so she took my hand. And I couldn’t believe I was walking hand and hand with Joni Mitchell.

One last question. You’ve known Bono for over 20 years. What does it take to get him to take off his sunglasses?

Probably it takes a very dark room.

Mark Romanek

Your videos often reference other visual artists like Joel-Peter Witkin for Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” or Nan Goldin in Fiona Apple’s “Criminal.” Is researching photography part of your videomaking process?

In the past I used to recontextualize a lot of stuff because as a younger filmmaker you try on different things to see what suits you. Lately I’ve been trying not to do that. With the Jay-Z video for “99 Problems.” Jay just said, “I just want to do something about where I grew up, but I don’t want it to look like other rap videos. I want it to look like art.”

I didn’t know what that meant, but immediately that whole New York school of photojournalism came to my mind. We decided to make it like a photo essay on Brooklyn. I just thought let’s try to get some transgressive imagery in there…

… and Vincent Gallo.

He’s transgressive! (laughs). He came by to hang out and I thought ‘let’s just shoot him’. And we cut him in and it seemed kind of cool even though I didn’t know what it meant.

What else have you done since the Jay-Z?

I did the Coldplay video for ”Speed of Sound,” but I don’t do videos very often. I’m concentrating mostly on making and developing feature films.

How’d you hook up with Sonic Youth [for Little Trouble Girl]?

It was at a time in my career when I was doing big budget videos for artists like Madonna and Janet Jackson, and even though those are very good jobs, that wasn’t the music I was listening to. So I reached out to Sonic Youth, and I did the same thing with Beck, and I said, “I just shot this 7 million dollar Michael Jackson video, now I want to show that I can do a $75,000 Sonic Youth video too.” I didn’t want to get pigeonholed into certain budget ranges, because then I thought I’d get shut out from the music I actually liked.

What are the more outrageous effects you’ve staged in your videos?

I would say that the whole Audioslave video was an outrageous stunt. I got this idea that wouldn’t it be cool if the band were playing in front of the climax of a huge fireworks display for the whole 4 minutes. Easy to say, but the logistics of doing that were pretty grueling.

We had all sorts of problems. We did a test of the show the day before to see what it looked like, but didn’t occur to us how loud it would be -- that it would sound like WWIII. They got 500 calls of complaints to the local police stations and there was a news article with a headline like “Video Shoot Enrages Community.”

Is there anything you’ve wanted to do visually that you’ve never been able to do?

I wanted to do a video for Johnny Cash for the song “Delia’s Gone” which actually Anton ended up doing. My idea was to use the turn-of the-century crime photographs – the bird’s-eye-view cameras – which actually ended up getting used extensively in the film Road to Perdition. I was really upset when I didn’t get to do it. That was the biggest regret I ever had about not getting a job.

Speaking of regret, when you’ve been going back through your videos for the DVD, do you see anything that makes you cringe?

Oh yeah, most of it. I put En Vogue’s “Free Your Mind” in there because several people told me to, but to me it just seems so dated.

What about video clichés from the 80s, like breaking glass.

Oh yeah, I’ve done that. For De La Soul.

What about today’s clichés?

Well, “thongage” is the biggest cliché. And using the medium as a dating service for the band by casting lots of women in them.

Jonathan Glazer

So are you still doing videos these days?

Not these days. I haven’t got the time. I’m busy writing some films, and that takes up so much time. I find it hard to step away and do something else.

When was the last video?

Richard Ashcroft, which was about 3 years ago. I also did something for a friends’ band. That was similar to how I started making videos – with friends’ bands.

Bands like?

The Smell of Dead Fish. They’re not in your record collection, are they? They’re grungy, electronic music going back a few years.

Did your taste in music dictate the type of projects you took?

Definitely. Although my taste in music is broader than what they make videos of.

What else do you like?

Classical music.

Yeah, there’s not a big market for classical music videos these days,

It’s a shame, really. There would be some phenomenal videos.

When you were looking back on your videos for the DVD, was there anything you found cringe-inducing?

It’s going to be easier to ask what DIDN’T I find cringe-inducing.

I read in a different interview that you’re not fond of the video you did for Radiohead’s “Karma Police”. What’s that about?

I just don’t think I nailed that one. I liked the idea better than the film itself.

You guys are all so self-effacing. I’m shocked.

You never really finish something and think it’s finished. You just sort of run out of time. I’m not fulfilled by many things I’ve done, which is why I carry on, I suppose.

Stéphane Sednaoui

I’d forgotten that Sofia Coppola turned up in a whole bunch of videos [including ones for Madonna and The Chemical Brothers] in the mid 90s. How did she end up in your Black Crowes video for “Sometime Salvation”?

I saw her in The Godfather: Part III. Everyone was so mean about her, but I thought she was great. She was like a new-wave actress who would have been amazing in a Francois Truffaut or Jean-Luc Godard but she had been thrown into a big Hollywood movie and so of course, in front of Andy Garcia and all those people she looked out of place. But not because she was bad, but because she is meant to be in the kind of movie that now she is making herself.

What are some of the more elaborate effects in your videos?

I never liked special effect on set, because I don’t like anything too constraining, I like the artist to be free. I want them to be able to move. So I put things to enhance in afterwards [in post-production]. But I don’t want anything too trendy. Because that ages the work very fast.

The fashion also certainly ages a video. Both you and Jonathan Glazer worked with Jamiroquai…

Yes. That’s a video I didn’t put on the DVD. The connection was no good. And I kept waiting and waiting for the connection, but it never came.

Maybe the hat got in the way.

He was obsessed with the hats. The assistant would come by with the box, and everyone would be like “ohhh ohhhh!” You know the assistants who want to please the artist so much and they become like caricatures. They had a big case and everyone would gather and say, “Oh my god it’s so fantastic,” and you’re just thinking “Oh my god this video is so fucked up.”

It seems like in that part of the 90s all the exciting things that were happening in film were happening in music videos, but it doesn’t feel like that anymore..

I never watch TV so I can’t really tell you. When MTV started to put reality shows on, I stopped watching.

All the other directors are moving towards feature films. Are you?

Yes, art and features.

Did you see Bono talking about you on the DVD? He said you could be a great martial artist. True?

It’s true I always dreamed about being a martial artist because I love movement, but I took one lesson once and it was a fiasco. I was very bad.

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