Why stories aren't necessary for well executed nightmares

DVDs:


	• Director's Series, Vol. 2 - The Work of Director Chris Cunningham Aphex Twin, Stephen Ball (II) Palm Pictures / Umvd, 2003 average customer review:based on 35 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Why stories aren't necessary for well executed nightmares

I write this review mainly to react on a kind of comment I often here but never realy get. It's the standard comment that a a book, a movie or a video, how skillfully crafted or how originally conceived in the beginning, is never really good when there is no real story line. Apparently there must be a tale to be told, going from A to B and ending with Z. (And if you are Christopher Nolan or David Lynch your stories may go from B to D to Y and ending with J or something. But, at the end, a lot of people keep on saying: "there must be a narrative".)

Why? I ask. What is wrong with a single image? I mean look at American painter Edward Hopper, to me the greatest artist of all: He haunts us with scenes of alienation and loneliness that stick, that haunts and reflects. Cetain photographers win World Press Photo Awards for capturing big events in one single shot, or: one single blink of the eye. Of course, the pictures created carry with them loads of tales and history, otherwise the pictures wouldn't have been taken in the first place.

Now here we have a video artist, Chris Cunningham, whose work we now can admire on one disc: Eight video's which presents us with nightmarish worlds in anonymous urban landscapes (Leftfield's "Afrika Shox" and Aphex Twins' "Come to daddy" and "Windowlicker"), nameless deserts (Madonna's "Frozen"), surreal Japanese lunybins for deranged kiddies (Squarepusher's "Come to my selector") and a static white room where futuristic robo-intelligence is perfectly combined with claustrophobic erotisism (Bj?rk's "All is full of love"). All of these worlds presented here have a kind of autism, in the sense of `being in it's own world'.

So following this comment I conclude that Cunningham makes Art For The Sake Of Art. (the original Frensh slogan for this kind of work of course, by the way, is: l'Art pour l'art).
These video's are sometimes scary as in the case of the menacing bunch of ever-grinning gettho-midges in "Come to daddy", but at the same time, drenched in a juicy sause of oozing black humour. The same can be said about "Afrika Shock" in which a psychotic black guy wanders the streets without anyone reaching out for him, literaly losing his limbs one at the time. Creepy, otherworldy and yet filled with moments for sickening laughs: We don't know whether to be seriously shocked or secretly amused, as with the best works of Kafka.

And talking about Kafka, here is one of the best writers in the world, whose real strength to me are still his short pieces of fiction, which are as plotless as Cunninghams visions right here, but which visually stunning, arresting and, at best, are little drops of liquid acid, secreted underneath our eyelids.

Story isn't necessary is just what I want to say, when a well crafted portrait, scene, vision or visual prophecy is enough to captivate us, and makes us shiver (or, okay okay, secretly laugh out loud).
And we have Cunningham to prove it. So I can now rest my case.

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This is amazing:D

I am a big big fan of Chris Cunningham's work and I just love everything about this DVD. It has music videos that I love on them so I can show my family how brilliant he is. I was sad that they didn't have rubber Johnny on there but that is ok. The only thing that is really on this thing is music videos and one behind the scenes with Bjork and Chris. I would only recommend buying this if you want the music videos in your possession.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Chris Cunningham is one of the most innovative music video directors in the field. Combining a passion for special effects (he built a robot for the JUDGE DREDD movie and picked-up an Oscar nomination for special effects in ALIEN 3) electronica and a dark sense of humor Cunningham has infiltrated the underground and the mainstream with his state-of-the-art video techniques. Included on this compilation are his amazing grotesque and groundbreaking videos for Aphex Twin as well as work from Madonna Portishead Bjork and Squarepusher. Additional features include behind the scenes material short films commercials (for Playstation and others) as well as work Cunningham submitted to the highly lauded "Flex" exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art in London.Tracks:1. Autechre - Second Bad Vibel2. Aphex Twin - Come To Daddy3. Portishead - Only You4. Madonna - Frozen5. Leftfield featuring Afrika Bambaataa - Afrika Shox6. Squarepusher - Come On My Selector7. Aphex Twin - Windowlicker8. Bjork - All Is Full of Love9. Aphex Twin - Windowlicker (bleeped version)Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DOCUMENTARIES/MISC. UPC: 660200306922 Manufacturer No: PALMDV3069

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