August 6th, 2010 / 2:29 pm
Film
Matthew Simmons
Film
Marco Brambilla’s Civilization
Civilization by Marco Brambilla from CRUSH on Vimeo.
That apparently inspired this. Which just goes to show: inspiration is really not enough.
Tags: civilization, marco brambilla
saw this on brightstupidconfetti a while back. its pretty awesome.
i like both videos. don’t care for the score in the first, but it’s quite impressive visually/technically. do you have any specific criticism of the kanye video, or do you dislike it simply because it’s related to kanye?
I sorta like Kanye. I sorta like that song, too. The beat is good, and the sampled singers are pretty hot.
I think if the video was really inspired by the Brambilla piece, though, they could of pushed it much, much farther. Kanye, famously self-confident, has an appreciation for the epic, yes? Whoever chose to make the visually stunning, mythic images simply frame him mistakenly narrowed the focus.
If Kanye wants us to accept him as self-assured, he needs to have the balls to give up the focus on himself. Until then, I think most of us can smell the fear on him.
damn
interesting. yeah, kanye was actually just on ustream, and he said he originally wanted to make like a 40-min. piece with brambilla, but they “had to” get a visual out because the single had already leaked, so they brainstormed and decided to do this short piece. he also said he has the ambition of “recreating sistine chapel imagery,” and he said he might still do that. so he might work with brambilla again, perhaps on a longer work. but i would say bigger and longer does not necessarily equal “better” or “epic.”
as for “mistakenly narrow[ing] the focus” on him, the song is about “power” through the prism of kanye, and there are some very personal lyrics on there about his own experiences and emotions, including that bridge at the end, which i find interesting. so it seems very logical to focus the piece on him. [side bar: the video for “coldest winter,” about his mother’s death, does not have kanye in it and deals with the death and his mother in an indirect, metaphorical way: http://vimeo.com/9411122 ] also note that he’s about to (possibly) be killed at the end, and his head is impaled on a sword in the single’s cover art by george condon. so if he’s focusing on himself, as he often has, he’s doing so in a complex and i’d say intriguing way. i don’t think “fear” is something i would associate with a man who accused george bush of not caring about black people on live national TV, or a man who has spoken out against homophobia in an interview on MTV, or a man who wore tight pants before it was trendy in the hip-hop community, etc. etc. etc. I may be hammering home the point a little hard, but “fear” is not something kanye demonstrates.
the cover art for the “power” single is by george condo, not george condon.
one other opinion on the focus of this piece, given intent/context/intended audience: if matthew barney ever makes someone a music video “inspired” by the cremaster cycle, it will necessarily have a smaller focus or somehow be modified/different for that purpose.
Power sounds really rad slowed down.
I don’t know. Feels to me like putting him in the center of the frame and focusing on Kanye because of the theme of the song is a little too on the nose. But I take your point.
And I take your point regarding Kanye and fear—and do think him talking out against hip-hop’s pervasive homophobia was a brave and laudable moment—but I think there is a different, deeper sort of fear in him. Like his confidence masks huge, deeply buried wells of doubt, and every time he talks about himself and his ego, every time he talks about how important he is to music, every time he crashes a stage and makes himself the focus of whatever event he happens to be attending, it’s that fear overtaking him.
Honestly, his contradictions are part of what I like about him. He’s a talented artist. And a fascinating psychodrama.
As we all are, really.
saw this on brightstupidconfetti a while back. its pretty awesome.
i like both videos. don’t care for the score in the first, but it’s quite impressive visually/technically. do you have any specific criticism of the kanye video, or do you dislike it simply because it’s related to kanye?
I sorta like Kanye. I sorta like that song, too. The beat is good, and the sampled singers are pretty hot.
I think if the video was really inspired by the Brambilla piece, though, they could of pushed it much, much farther. Kanye, famously self-confident, has an appreciation for the epic, yes? Whoever chose to make the visually stunning, mythic images simply frame him mistakenly narrowed the focus.
If Kanye wants us to accept him as self-assured, he needs to have the balls to give up the focus on himself. Until then, I think most of us can smell the fear on him.
damn
interesting. yeah, kanye was actually just on ustream, and he said he originally wanted to make like a 40-min. piece with brambilla, but they “had to” get a visual out because the single had already leaked, so they brainstormed and decided to do this short piece. he also said he has the ambition of “recreating sistine chapel imagery,” and he said he might still do that. so he might work with brambilla again, perhaps on a longer work. but i would say bigger and longer does not necessarily equal “better” or “epic.”
as for “mistakenly narrow[ing] the focus” on him, the song is about “power” through the prism of kanye, and there are some very personal lyrics on there about his own experiences and emotions, including that bridge at the end, which i find interesting. so it seems very logical to focus the piece on him. [side bar: the video for “coldest winter,” about his mother’s death, does not have kanye in it and deals with the death and his mother in an indirect, metaphorical way: http://vimeo.com/9411122 ] also note that he’s about to (possibly) be killed at the end, and his head is impaled on a sword in the single’s cover art by george condon. so if he’s focusing on himself, as he often has, he’s doing so in a complex and i’d say intriguing way. i don’t think “fear” is something i would associate with a man who accused george bush of not caring about black people on live national TV, or a man who has spoken out against homophobia in an interview on MTV, or a man who wore tight pants before it was trendy in the hip-hop community, etc. etc. etc. I may be hammering home the point a little hard, but “fear” is not something kanye demonstrates.
the cover art for the “power” single is by george condo, not george condon.
one other opinion on the focus of this piece, given intent/context/intended audience: if matthew barney ever makes someone a music video “inspired” by the cremaster cycle, it will necessarily have a smaller focus or somehow be modified/different for that purpose.
Power sounds really rad slowed down.
I don’t know. Feels to me like putting him in the center of the frame and focusing on Kanye because of the theme of the song is a little too on the nose. But I take your point.
And I take your point regarding Kanye and fear—and do think him talking out against hip-hop’s pervasive homophobia was a brave and laudable moment—but I think there is a different, deeper sort of fear in him. Like his confidence masks huge, deeply buried wells of doubt, and every time he talks about himself and his ego, every time he talks about how important he is to music, every time he crashes a stage and makes himself the focus of whatever event he happens to be attending, it’s that fear overtaking him.
Honestly, his contradictions are part of what I like about him. He’s a talented artist. And a fascinating psychodrama.
As we all are, really.