Kanye West Tips Hat To Director Gaspar Noe, Makes You Epileptic With New Video
By Jon Graef in Arts & Entertainment on Feb 19, 2011 9:30PM
French director Gaspar Noe’s third film, the inevitable cult classic Enter The Void, possesses a kaleidoscopic, bombastic visual style that's ripe for the music video plucking.
After all, consider the short time frame that music videos have to make an impact on their viewers. They need to grab your attention immediately, and nothing does that like Noe's opening credits for the film. (Check out the sequence here).
Kanye West’s video for “All Of The Lights”, off of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, pays considerable homage to Noe’s aesthetic.
But you wouldn’t know that based on the opening sequence. Director Hype Williams begins the video with simple black and white shots of a girl walking through blighted housing. (Looks like it was shot in Chicago, but we can’t place the neighborhood).
Set to the beginning interlude sequenced between “Power” and “All Of The Lights” proper, the introduction sets a decidedly mournful tone, playing like an elegy for public housing projects like Cabrini Green.
AND THEN BAM!
Colors. Lots of them. As in, if you have epilepsy, you’re totally fucked. The lyrics of the song are then spelled in blinding fonts while big strobe-light flashes and multi-colored POV shots further show the video’s debt to Noe.
As the video goes on, Kanye plays sad, Rihanna looks ridiculously seductive and vulnerable, and then Kid Cudi shows up wearing the red Michael Jackson jacket. (No doubt an intentional nod, considering the lines in the song about Jackson’s death).
The clip ends with a wash of colors that no doubt begs the viewer to put the video in their mind vices and crush hard. Like Kanye himself, it's bombastic, perhaps a little over-the-top, but with a surprising depth and poignancy.
Check out the video for yourself below (via Fake Shore Drive).