Filmmaker Jamin Bricker's fast-paced and thoroughly engrossing documentary draws from screenwriter Saul Austerlitz's book Money for Nothing to examine the way that music videos have combined elements of art and commerce. After a brief overview of iconic videos from the 1980s up through today, Bricker looks back to 1927's The Jazz Singer, in which dialogue arrived in tandem with music. In the ensuing decades, elaborately staged musicals and animated spectaculars (such as Fantasia) would appear that inspired the look of late-20th-century music videos, although narrator Michael Charles Roman waxes more than a little hyperbolic when he asks, “Who knew that Walt Disney unintentionally created MTV?” Other influences include the movies and TV shows of Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and the Monkees, which led to the quirky underground and ambitious art-rock videos of the 1970s, from the Residents to Queen. Once MTV appeared in 1981, everybody got in on the action, notably Duran Duran and Michael Jackson who starred in extravagant productions, such as John Landis's 14-minute "Thriller" video. Less extroverted performers shifted the focus from themselves to models or cartoon characters, while superstars like Madonna used their clout to push against racial and sexual taboos. Still others, such as the Talking Heads and the Replacements, would use the form to sell their music while simultaneously questioning the practice. As Bricker moves through the years, he also examines the gender politics of heavy metal, the aesthetics of modern-rock, and the iconography of hip-hop, finishing up with a look at a few of the video directors who became noted feature filmmakers, including Spike Jonze and David Fincher. Presented in 5.1 surround sound, this is recommended. (K. Fennessy)
Money for Nothing: A History of the Music Video
(2014) 78 min. DVD: $19.99. Virgil Films (avail. from most distributors). Closed captioned. Volume 30, Issue 1
Money for Nothing: A History of the Music Video
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