Famous Theater Artist

I chose to pick the famous Michel Gondry due to his interesting, crazy, and wild artistic productions. Michel Gondry grew up in Versailles with a family who was very influenced by pop music. When he was young, Gondry wanted to be a painter or an inventor. In the 80’s he entered in an art school in Paris where he could develop his graphic skills and where he also met friends with whom he created a pop-rock band called Qui-Qui. Gondry was the drummer of the band and also directed their video clips in which it was his strange world, influenced by the 60’s and by his childhood. He made a lot of commercials for Gap, Smirnoff, Air France, Nike, Coca Cola, Adidas, Polaroid, and Levi-the latter making him the most highly-awarded director for a one-off commercial. He also made music videos that were different than most others for the Foo Fighters, Radiohead, White Stripes, etc.

My favorite music video Gondry ever made was the one we saw in class for Daft Punk. The song was called Around the World and was very well put together. I thought it was interesting when the robots would walk around doing robot movements and dances. Little did I know they were representing the musical instrument of a vinyl record. He also used tall athletes wearing track suites with small prosthetic heads walking up and down the stairs. I thought these characters were funny and also caught my attention because of their big abnormal heads. He also had women dressed up as disco girls or synchronized swimmers, skeletons dancing in the center, and mummies dancing in time with the songs drum pattern.

"I realized how genius and simple the music was. Only five different instruments, with very few patterns, each to create numerous possibilities of figures. Always using the repetition, and stopping just before it's too much." – Michel Gondry

In this video, he uses different costumes for each actor to symbolize the instruments that are being played. The androids represent the singing robot voice; the physicality and small-minded rapidity of the athletes symbolizes the ascending and descending bass guitar; the femininity of the disco girls represents the high-pitched keyboard; the skeletons serve for the guitars; and the mummies represent the drum machine. I did not notice that he was trying to represent different instruments at first. I have never liked techno music until I heard this song by Daft Punk and saw their music video that Gondry directed. I think he is a brilliant guy who takes his work to the heart. I also believe that he tries his hardest and directs to the best of his knowledge which makes him one of the best and unique directors there ever was.

By seeing a couple videos that Gondry directed in class made me a huge fan of his. I have never seen such interesting and well put together music videos before. I believe the videos in class were the best music videos I have ever seen due to their storylines and how unique they were. Everything makes sense at the end of each video but makes you think while the video is playing. As of now, Michel Gondry is my most favorite director.