MGMT released their third studio album, MGMT, on Tuesday, and even though we've spent a music video relapse watching an older MGMT video, they've got more than enough material to sustain us for a few posts.
So today we're watching my favorite video from MGMT's second album, 2010's Congratulations. The song is also titled "Congratulations", and was directed by Tom Kuntz.
You may recall that Tom Kuntz has recently directed a video for MGMT, "Your Life Is a Lie", the first single off of MGMT. While that video was a mish-mash of different scenes and images, "Congratulations" is one single narrative, set in a vast light brown desert.
In the video, Benjamin Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden are journeying through the desert with a very odd creature - a hairless bird-like animal with giant, glassy eyes, a tail, and a beak. As it walks along its clear that while the members of MGMT are doing fine, this creature is not. It has parts fall off, and then eventually tumbles down a sand dune. Towards the end of the video they approach a structure that is never explained but looks like something that may be able to cure the distressed creature. Before they can reach it, a peiece of its head with its eye falls off and sinks into the sand, before pieces of light drift up frm the sand and twinkle to the melody of the song as Goldwasser and VanWyngarden clap.
This is a really bizarre video, but there's something about this video that I find really powerful. The creature that was build for this is so emotive - it really never reads as fake or a costume (a rare thing for a music video). That fact alone makes the emotions and the struggle of this bird creature very real. If you've ever watched someone or something deterioriate in front of you while you tried to help, my guess is that this video might hit you in the feels.
Although it's a narrative, Tom Kuntz apparently concentrated a lot on the pacing with regards to the song. Here's an interesting quote from editor Steve Gandolfi in Studio Daily.
Everything - each shot, frame, movement, is all choreographed in time with the music. Every edit made worked within this very strict visual orchestration. Tom also carefully considered every way in which the clip might be viewed - including on the iPhone - so we experimented with framing and tech specs so that it would be received well in any situation.
I definitely can see the result of that attention to editing detail in the video - the piece has the perfect pacing for the song and although the ties are subtle, they are there. Aside from the creature, Goldwasser and VanWyngarden play the parts as concerned by mostly hands off caretakers in the video. They never overdo it, and they even manage to keep well dressed while trekking across the desert.
