After having spent a class delving into some of the work of music video auteur Michel Gondry, I thought I’d talk a little bit about the influence the man has had on me and my own pursuit of music video.

Gondry has a really clearly established style, much like any other music video auteur. What stands out about Gondry’s filmography to me is the series of alternate worlds he invites you into, each wonderfully rich in strange and creative narratives. This is often assisted by the fact that Gondry collaborates with intelligent and quirky artists who depict bizarre worlds and narratives of their own.

One of the benefits of Gondry’s technique is the amount of freedom it gives him in expressing his ideas. He is not known to follow the basic formula of shoving a band in a room and making them look cool, although he does tend to feature the artist in some way or another. Gondry always brings out the essence and character of the artist by placing them in a world where they have to be equally as expressive as the environment around them.

A lot of the time his videos are quite simple but still manage to be figures of awe: they come from very simple concepts but produce astonishing results (case in point: “Fell In Love With A Girl”). This is one of the things that draws me to Gondry’s work, they often have a real DIY sense about them but at the same time you know you’ll never match the man’s standard of work.

I feel that Gondry celebrates the medium of music video by embracing it for what it is: a strange blend of endorsement and art that needs music for it to exist. Basically, Gondry bolsters the song and artist he is working with by producing a very engaging piece of work that almost immediately translates what that artist is all about.