Textual analysis of Muse’s Dark Star

Music video by Muse performing Dead Star: Videowith John Cornfield [Producer], Muse [Producer](C) 2002 Motor Music/ Taste Media Ltd.

Media Forms and Conventions:

Muse are an alternative rock band who create a mix of electronic rock music to rock anthems and ballads. The song Dark star is a heavier darker rock song in which the video reflects by using certain techniques and conventions. The most notable reflection of this is the use of lighting. The director has chosen to shoot almost all of the video using back lighting to create an almost chiaroscuro effect that highlights and outlines the three band members as well as other focused points of interest in the mise en scene and props. The chiaroscuro effect is added to by the use of the bands costumes who all wearing either black or white clothing as well as Matt’s white guitar, Chris’ black bass guitar and Dom’s black drum kit. The Lighting that creates a sense of darkness and coldness that is unified with the ‘gritty’ and desolate location are both well combined with use of a blue filter either on the camera or post production that fits the cold and dark feeling of the song.

The quick cutaways and pace of the video reflects the pace of the song with each cut in sync with the song. Also the cutaways produce a feeling of disillusion and hostility that reflects the distorted song’s style and muse’s self image. Also the effects used with the camera and via post production reflect the sense of surrealism and adverse settings such as hand held cameras that are unsteady and with tracking movements and tilts create a feeling of surrealism as the audience may not know where they are being put in relation to the location. Also the use of quick zooms and stopmotion makes the audience uneasy. Also the use of blurred shots, short takes, focus pulls and other visual effects reflects the distorted guitar and heavy rock sound of the music.

The use of extreme close ups, close ups and zooms in and out produce a complex and confusing structure that lacks any narrative structure other than the band playing in a dark secluded basement. The use of the basement and hand held cameras as well as a chiaroscuro lighting and a blue filter may be a reference to the film ‘Blair Witch Project that’s soundtrack includes artist not to dissimilar to Muse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAiVszTl0vA

textul analysis of Muse's 'Hysteria'

The video is totally narrative based with no performance element. The video starts with a long shot down a corridor of a hotel with a hotel maid at the end. The use of blurred shots, sudden pace change in music and editing, hard to define images and ellipses reflected the man’s fatigue and shock as he awakes when the maid tries to open the door. The following shots are establishing shots for the rest of the video in which the protagonist is seen looking around his trashed hotel room looking worried and confused and finding a hand held camera on the floor. Through the use of the cameras play back through the Hotel TV the music video shows the man stalking a woman whilst through cross cutting and ellipses the man is seen become more angered, with a e/c of the man’s face as he goes from calm to shacking violently and gritting his teeth. The video within the music video reveals how the man seems to stalk the girl and get her back to his hotel room but then appears to hit her and she leaves whilst cutaways show the protagonist smashing the hotel room’s TV and pictures. The last minute of the song shows a combination of the man trashing the hotel, the woman running away now in normal camera view ( rather than hand held camera), the man screaming in an e/c of his face, the woman being filmed as she seductively strips for the man and the man filming the incident. The use of a hand held camera on the TV and normal camera views help the viewer workout the time scale of the narrative as in the recorded footage would suggest being recorded yesterday etc. but as the video goes on the point in which she runs out and he is smashing up the room suggest the time scales have become parrelel as the camera changes from hand held to normal camera for the womans shots. This parallel editing creates a converging narrative structure although beforehand it was flashback based.

The band use inter-texuality and reference other media texts such as the first long shot of the hotel maid with a vacuum cleaner along a long corridor that the camera tracks down is a reference to rock legends Pink Floyd and their film ‘The Wall’ in which the same composition of a shot of a hotel maid with a vacuum cleaner is used as the first shot of the film. Also the film references the films protagonist who is seen trashing a hotel room.

The lyrics of the song reflect the narrative of the song as well as the title itself as the man creates hysteria within the hotel room. The chorus goes as follows;

'cause I want it now

I want it now

give me your heart and your soul

and I'm breaking out

I'm breaking outlast chance to lose control

Which almost seem to sum up the narrative of the song in which the protagonist stalks and wants to have this woman so much so that when he can’t have her he looses control.