Frozen video at the sixth International Film Festival in Bratislava
Chris Cunningham‘s smirking kids fought and danced their way onto the scene in Aphex Twin masks in Come to Daddy in 1997, and kicked the music-video world in the teeth.
The erratic electronic beats of Aphex Twin, combined with Cunningham‘s revolutionary images, increased sales of the former and launched the filmmaking career of the latter.
The offers started pouring in for Cunningham. Madonna asked him to direct her clip, Frozen. He directed Björk in the music video All is Full of Love. But rather than transferring to the mainstream music scene, Cunningham switched to commercials and feature films.
The short time Cunningham spent in music videos was enough for him to achieve the level of Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry, whose films are among the most interesting to appear on the musical videowaves over the last decade.
Their work was introduced to a Slovak audience during last year’s International Film Festival Bratislava (IFFB) within the Film and Music section. This year comes Cunningham.
“Cunningham’s vision of the world and his approach to work is very original. He uses various tricks, such as morphing [computer transform of images]. But it is not only the technical realisation that is perfect, it is also the approach to the specific song,” said Miro Ulman, the section’s compiler.
Ulman hoped to welcome Cunningham in Bratislava in person. However, the filmmaker’s agent informed him that Cunningham, currently working on a feature film, “goes nowhere and gives interviews very sporadically”.
In the Film and Music section, Ulman will introduce Cunningham through eight music videos, including the Aphex Twin Come to Daddy and Windowlicker, Madonna’s Frozen, Squarepusher’s Come on My Selector, and Björk’s All is Full of Love. There will also be a short documentary with a backstage look at filming the Björk video, and several examples of Cunningham‘s commercials and video-installations.
Article by Zuzana Habudová
Source: Slovak Spectator
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