This video was directed by Michel Gondry. It features Thom and the actress Emma de Caunes.
Michel Gondry is back - at least for a while. Having directed his first feature film, Human Nature, which opens in France in a few weeks and the UK in October, one of the greatest video directors of his generation, if not the greatest, has returned with the video for the new Radiohead single Knives Out, and reminded us all what we have been missing.
“It's very nice to be back making videos, because it’s been about three years,” he says. It was in 1999 that he made the classic Let Forever Be for the Chemical Brothers, and anticipation about a collaboration between the director and one of the most visually creative bands on the planet has been intense.
And it very much a familiar Gondry style that presents itself here, even with a harder and more disquieting edge than usual. For a start Knives Out is another one-shot video like his classic clips for Massive Attack’s Protection, Lucas’s Lucas With The Lid Off and Cibo Matto’s Sugar Water. It is also surreal and theatrical, like Bjork’s Batchelorette. The video is a reminder that Gondry’s magic is mostly of the old-fashioned sleight-of-hand kind, as opposed to the digital variety.
However, the initial surprise is that thesetechniques are pitched so far into the realm of nightmare. The camera move is relatively simple, but the continuous circular movement around a room represents a spiral of decline and despair, and finally seems to go beyond death. Beginning with a toy train revolving around a TV which features a ‘film’ of the train-set romance between Thom Yorke and his girlfriend, it moves round to reveal a hospital Yorke lying next to his girlfriend who has become integrated into a life-sized version of the classic Seventies kiddies’ game Operation.
More and more medical staff surround the bed and prepare for a procedure, the TV shows the stages of a relationship being torn apart by an oversized prop hammer and knives, and Yorke himself begins to be eaten alive in his own camp bed. He and the girl finally disappear from the room, replaced by two versions of Yorke: his skeleton is recognisable by the huge heart head in which he carries the picture of his love, and as a mouse at the end of a mic.
Bizarre indeed, but with its open wounds (as represented by the Operation table) and stabs of pain (the oversized knives on the train) there is barely-concealed personal emotion here.
Gondry reveals, “I was sent the song when I was in an unusually tormented phase of my life.” How appropriate then that this is Radiohead, the Barons of Bleak, and Gondry stresses that the idea emerged from on ongoing e-mail correspondence he enjoyed with Yorke. “T asked him what his state of mind was in when he wrote it,” says the director. “He told me about spending time in hospital with a relative, and in turn I told him some personal stuff. I think the video is like a mix of both of our personal experiences.”
He denies he was attempting the impossible: to out-miserable Thom Yorke. He was just reflecting the song. “If anything I tried to make it more lighthearted and surrealistic,” he says.
Possibly as a result of their shared experiences, this is Yorke’s first appearance in a video since No Surprises. Obviously he is also attracted to one-shot videos, but although he was not required to hold his breath under water for a minute (as in Grant Gee’s memorable clip), this was demanding in another way. The TV ‘footage’ was not footage at all, but live acting by Yorke and his girlfriend (played by Emma de Caunes) who then rushed into their positions in the hospital room as the camera panned round.
In effect, Gondry has used familiar techniques not really to wow the viewer, but to create the right atmosphere. “In a one-shot everyone has his job and it’s good for the actors because they get so involved,” he says. “If it was done by cutting between them maybe there would have been too much with the girl. Doing a one-shot you find the right balance, and it gives it a theatricality.”
The theatrical experience is the key, as this could, with the right staging, almost work as a play. And not only that: the train backgrounds were also ‘live’
As the journey progresses the backgrounds reflect the relationship of the couple, changing from fresh and spring-like countryside to a grimy city and finally to a post-apocalyptic landscape littered with human limbs. Gondry explains that this background was actually a 40-foot model that was shot on a dolly exactly in time with the main shoot, and fed onto a screen behind the couple. “It’s not quite as difficult as it looks,” he says. “We actually shot at half the music speed, so they had twice as much time to move around the set.”
Yorke actually gives a creditable performance as the concerned yet anguished boyfriend, which can be accredited to Gondry’s approach to get him involved in the whole experience. “He was a bit shy at first, and sometimes a bit uncomfortable,” says Gondry, “but I think he felt alright at the end.”
The Paris-based shoot was clearly not trouble-free, nor was it ever going to be easy to live up to all that expectation. However, Knives Out is still a special landmark in the Gondry canon. Not only is it his first postfeature video, it shows the effects of that experience in being his most realistic depiction of a personal relationship in his work.
Gondry has just been confirmed to direct the promo for the new Chemical Brothers single, but do not expect another Let Forever Be. “It'll be different,” he says.
PRODUCTION: Partizan Midi Minuit; director: Michel Gondry; producers: Dan Dickenson, Charlotte Lepot; line producer: Helene De Rosnay; PA: Cyril Merle; 1st AD: Pascal Venturini; DP: Jean-Louis Bompoint; focus puller: Thierry Trelluyer; loader: Marie Mery; video op: Eric Valin; sound: Pascal Armant; art director: Pieree Pell; wardrobe: Florence Fontaine; make-up & hair: Saloi Jeddi; casting: Catherine Venturini.
POST: telecine: JR at Mikros, Paris; online: Twisted Laboratories.
COMMISSIONER: Dilly Gent for Courtyard Management/Parlophone.
“It's very nice to be back making videos, because it’s been about three years,” he says. It was in 1999 that he made the classic Let Forever Be for the Chemical Brothers, and anticipation about a collaboration between the director and one of the most visually creative bands on the planet has been intense.
And it very much a familiar Gondry style that presents itself here, even with a harder and more disquieting edge than usual. For a start Knives Out is another one-shot video like his classic clips for Massive Attack’s Protection, Lucas’s Lucas With The Lid Off and Cibo Matto’s Sugar Water. It is also surreal and theatrical, like Bjork’s Batchelorette. The video is a reminder that Gondry’s magic is mostly of the old-fashioned sleight-of-hand kind, as opposed to the digital variety.
However, the initial surprise is that thesetechniques are pitched so far into the realm of nightmare. The camera move is relatively simple, but the continuous circular movement around a room represents a spiral of decline and despair, and finally seems to go beyond death. Beginning with a toy train revolving around a TV which features a ‘film’ of the train-set romance between Thom Yorke and his girlfriend, it moves round to reveal a hospital Yorke lying next to his girlfriend who has become integrated into a life-sized version of the classic Seventies kiddies’ game Operation.
More and more medical staff surround the bed and prepare for a procedure, the TV shows the stages of a relationship being torn apart by an oversized prop hammer and knives, and Yorke himself begins to be eaten alive in his own camp bed. He and the girl finally disappear from the room, replaced by two versions of Yorke: his skeleton is recognisable by the huge heart head in which he carries the picture of his love, and as a mouse at the end of a mic.
Bizarre indeed, but with its open wounds (as represented by the Operation table) and stabs of pain (the oversized knives on the train) there is barely-concealed personal emotion here.
Gondry reveals, “I was sent the song when I was in an unusually tormented phase of my life.” How appropriate then that this is Radiohead, the Barons of Bleak, and Gondry stresses that the idea emerged from on ongoing e-mail correspondence he enjoyed with Yorke. “T asked him what his state of mind was in when he wrote it,” says the director. “He told me about spending time in hospital with a relative, and in turn I told him some personal stuff. I think the video is like a mix of both of our personal experiences.”
He denies he was attempting the impossible: to out-miserable Thom Yorke. He was just reflecting the song. “If anything I tried to make it more lighthearted and surrealistic,” he says.
Possibly as a result of their shared experiences, this is Yorke’s first appearance in a video since No Surprises. Obviously he is also attracted to one-shot videos, but although he was not required to hold his breath under water for a minute (as in Grant Gee’s memorable clip), this was demanding in another way. The TV ‘footage’ was not footage at all, but live acting by Yorke and his girlfriend (played by Emma de Caunes) who then rushed into their positions in the hospital room as the camera panned round.
In effect, Gondry has used familiar techniques not really to wow the viewer, but to create the right atmosphere. “In a one-shot everyone has his job and it’s good for the actors because they get so involved,” he says. “If it was done by cutting between them maybe there would have been too much with the girl. Doing a one-shot you find the right balance, and it gives it a theatricality.”
The theatrical experience is the key, as this could, with the right staging, almost work as a play. And not only that: the train backgrounds were also ‘live’
As the journey progresses the backgrounds reflect the relationship of the couple, changing from fresh and spring-like countryside to a grimy city and finally to a post-apocalyptic landscape littered with human limbs. Gondry explains that this background was actually a 40-foot model that was shot on a dolly exactly in time with the main shoot, and fed onto a screen behind the couple. “It’s not quite as difficult as it looks,” he says. “We actually shot at half the music speed, so they had twice as much time to move around the set.”
Yorke actually gives a creditable performance as the concerned yet anguished boyfriend, which can be accredited to Gondry’s approach to get him involved in the whole experience. “He was a bit shy at first, and sometimes a bit uncomfortable,” says Gondry, “but I think he felt alright at the end.”
The Paris-based shoot was clearly not trouble-free, nor was it ever going to be easy to live up to all that expectation. However, Knives Out is still a special landmark in the Gondry canon. Not only is it his first postfeature video, it shows the effects of that experience in being his most realistic depiction of a personal relationship in his work.
Gondry has just been confirmed to direct the promo for the new Chemical Brothers single, but do not expect another Let Forever Be. “It'll be different,” he says.
PRODUCTION: Partizan Midi Minuit; director: Michel Gondry; producers: Dan Dickenson, Charlotte Lepot; line producer: Helene De Rosnay; PA: Cyril Merle; 1st AD: Pascal Venturini; DP: Jean-Louis Bompoint; focus puller: Thierry Trelluyer; loader: Marie Mery; video op: Eric Valin; sound: Pascal Armant; art director: Pieree Pell; wardrobe: Florence Fontaine; make-up & hair: Saloi Jeddi; casting: Catherine Venturini.
POST: telecine: JR at Mikros, Paris; online: Twisted Laboratories.
COMMISSIONER: Dilly Gent for Courtyard Management/Parlophone.
Michel Gondry: "In the video that I have just finished for Radiohead, Knives Out, I reconstructed my memories. It's an autobiographical video. Emma de Caunes plays the role of my ex-girlfriend and Thom Yorke interpretates my role. I received the record the moment we separated. The video, unlike the film, is all based on memory. All these images just came to me. I hadn't managed to have any others. I suggested them to Thom who agreed. It is the story of my girlfriend who had leukaemia and the time I spent watching over her in the hospital. She is practically cured now. The speed at which the illness progresses is horrifying! "It's terrifying, I watched over my girlfriend in hospital for weeks and weeks. All that medication... I have always had a thing about that... I speak a lot about it because it was a failure, not health-wise but from an emotional point of view. We split up. Why? We had separated once before her illness. I was so sad, I said to myself that I couldn't do anything. She always spoke to me of marriage, so I went to see her and offered her an engagement ring. The next day she had leukaemia. She must have already had it... the problem is that we got back together for all the wrong reasons. She came back to me because she was ill. We stayed three more years together. "She is much better now. She had the will to live and excellent doctors. Guys who arrived at four in the morning. Four of the best doctors. As we lived at that time in Los Angeles, I had to play by the system and paid for everything in cash. That was a big problem for my girlfriend. She felt guilty that I invested myself so much, in the literal sense of the word. She turned everything against me, unconsciously. It's unfair and that's the reason why I did the video. It is a bit tough for her.
Michel Gondry: I generally find a good way of communicating to prevent clash, but I had one terrible experience with Radiohead. I showed Thom a storyboard and every single detail: he was completely excited and happy for it - and then, it turned out, they all criticize me for being selfish and putting my own views on it and my own introspection. And they didn't let me use my video for my DVD! And I'm really mad at them for having done that to me, that they abuse their power! It did not go smooth, but if it went smooth, it would be mediocre."