The Work Of Stéphane
Sednaoui (Directors
Label/Volume Seven)
Picture: B-
Sound: B Extras: B+ Videos: B+
In Music Video, the king of doppelgangers and mirror
images is Stéphane Sednaoui, who has explored the duality of humans and their
multiple personalities throughout his work.
This extends to sexuality. This
new Palm Pictures-released Directors Label DVD series reaches its seventh
volume with The Work Of Stéphane Sednaoui. The Music Video clips here are available in various orders, but
we will go by the order listed on the DVD case:
I Can’t Wait – This full color clip features
separate members of a couple seeing images of themselves, and having
overlapping images of each other on each other, often through projecting. The mostly instrumental song by Mirwals is
not bad either.
For Real (1.78 X 1) – This color clip
has the Electronica/Rap artist Tricky at the dinner table of gangster
characters, but leaves and some of the characters' faces change.
Scar Tissue (1.78 X 1) – The band rides to
various desert locations in a beat up old oversized convertible and get dirtier
on the way. Amusing, though not their
best clip.
Disco Science – The exploration of the body
(in color) as irradiated by light eventually turns into an Asian variant on Star
Wars and a bit of lust. The
eventual outcome is intriguing form another instrumental song by Mirwals.
Lotus – Members of R.E.M. get their images irradiated
and stretched, streaked and vertically shredded in unusual record about
identity and the dark side of man.
Possibly Maybe (1.78 X 1) – Black light colors
launch this clip with several versions of the singer in various states of color
and reality. Not bad.
Ironic (1.78 X 1) – The classic Alanis Morrisette Video
where four versions of herself drive a car down a road and in the winter
snow. Is she imagining her other
personalities or is something crazier going on? Of course, most of the things in the song are not ironic, just
unfortunate, dooming Americans for another generation or two not to understand
the meaning of the word. Still, I love
the song and video, which is brilliantly edited and one of the all-time classic
Videos. A masterwork by Sednaoui!
Pumpkin – Video for Tricky song
featuring a female vocal joining him and a red light that slowly passes over
the characters throughout.
Queer – Bizarre black and white Video for song by the
band Garbage that has some disturbing implications about homosexuality,
homophobia and lost souls. A great clip
that makes you wonder if what you have witnessed is a hate crime, and on many
levels. An amazing work.
Hell Is Around The Corner – This
color Tricky clip has slow-motion overlap of he and the female singer joining
him throughout the Video in mostly “hell red”.
Sly (1.78 X 1) – This Massive Attack clip uses flashes
of negative footage for its idea of mirror images, but also pushes the color
envelop a bit beyond that. A beautiful
work that lives up to the name of the song, which is one of their best records.
Seven Seconds – The Youssou N’Dour/Neneh
Cherry duet in black and white is also bi-lingual and a beautiful song. Sednaoui uses slow motion and loose graphic
matches of the singers in different locations.
A pleasant surprise for a song and clip that should have been a huge
hit.
Big Time Sensuality - Here in two versions, the
Video has Bjork performing on a flatbed being pulled through New York
City. A classic, the regular daylight
version and though other actors were filmed; Sednaoui used just the Bjork footage,
which she is in rare form. The “new
night version” is a terrific alternate cut that shows this could have gone on
for hours and made a fun feature film experiment.
Sometimes Salvation – Sofia Coppola stars in this
color clip for The Black Crowes playing a young woman lost on the streets. Chris Robinson’s lead vocal on this great
song is stunning work, up there with Rod Stewart at his peak!
Mysterious Ways – Famous U2 Video uses
“rippling mirrors” to show the band and juxtapose it with footage of Middle
Eastern images, but the belly dancer sometimes overshadows the artistry of the
clip. A minor classic.
Give It Away – The classic Red Hot Chili
Peppers clip set in the desert in mirror silver, with mirror images in all
kinds of patterns barely keeping up with the energy of the band itself. Add that zoom lens action and how can one
resist?
Le Monde De Demain – NTM and friends are set
behind designs of light with zoom-ins and other images in keeping with
Sednaoui’s mirror image theme. In
French, it is a monochromatic pleasure that turns on a dime into a hue-colored
“remix” clip. All kinds of fun!
Discotheque (new director’s cut) –
Underappreciated U2 Video gets better in extended version as the band (from the
misconstrued Pop album) jumps into the gaudy world of late 1970s Disco
with dark and bizarre results.
Sednaoui’s idea of doppelgangers here is unique.
Technically, the image on the DVD is again terrific on
just about all these clips, though where the video white is a tad off and
detail is slightly thinner, that suggests a slight generation down from the
master source. All are 1.33 x 1 except
where otherwise indicated and none of the letterboxed Videos are anamorphically
enhanced. That does not hurt their
picture performance too much. The Dolby
Digital 2.0 Stereo is often richer than in just about any case you are likely
to encounter, with surrounds in some clips, for which you can experiment to
hear which songs play back best which way.
This critic prefers two-channel in these cases.
Extras include another great 56-page booklet with photos,
illustrations, and notes by Sednaoui about his concepts, while the DVD has the
director’s NYU presentation, a nearly 40-minutes-long documentary on him, and
four short films, but no audio commentary tracks for any of the Videos! Acqua Natasa features the
beautiful Natasa Vojnovic suspended in water, while Lou Reed himself appears in
an interpretation of his classic Walk On The Wild Side (1.78 X 1) that
pulls no punches and is faithful to the Warhol/Reed aesthetic. That includes an actor Tony D’Angelo playing
Joe Dallesandro and looking hauntingly similar, in an incredibly powerful work
by Sednaoui all around. An animated
clip of Bjork’s Army Of Me and his first-ever Video called Reve
Reche is also featured so people can see how he started. He wants to inspire and encourage anyone who
wants to work in the field. In every
case, he does so!
- Nicholas Sheffo
