Michel Gondry was born in Versailles in France. He is one of the most recognised music video directors of the last 20 years and is said to have helped revive the music video in the 1990’s.
When he was young Gondry wanted to be a painter (he says he was always drawing cartoons as a child) or an inventor and his family was also influenced by pop music (his frandfather invented an early sythesiser and his father sold electric guitars.) All of these may have influenced him in later life. In the 1980s he went to art school (Ecole Olivier de Serres)to develop his graphical skills and where he also formed a rock band (Oui Oui) with some other students. The band had 2 albums and he made his videos for them. He went on to make a number of other music videos for relatively unknown artists until in 1993 the Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk saw some of these videos and asked him to direct her video for the song "Human Behaviour".
This video was very successful and was played regularly on music channels such as MTV. He masde several other videos for Bjork and had a large budget to spend on these. This success led to him working with many other top musical artists as well as being employed to make adverts for many top companies (e.g. Gap, Smirnoff, Coca Cola, Nike.) His advert for Levi’s jeans (“Drugstore”) holds the record for the most awards won by a television advert. In many of his videos and adverts he devised new techniques. For example he is said to be the first person to use 'morphing' in a video, and his technique of using multiple cameras to take simultaneous pictures from around a subject was later adapted for the hit film "The Matrix".
Since the mid 80’s he has made many short films and in 2001 directed his first feature film “Human Nature” although this did not get very good reviews. In 2004 he made “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” starring Jim Carey. This film got very good reviews and Gondry won an Oscar for the screenplay. In the film he used many of the techniques he had used in his music videos.
Gondry has worked with many top artists, the likes of Daft Punk, The White Stripes, The Chemical Brothers, Radiohead, and Beck.
Many of these videos contain similar styles and themes. They often contain ‘alternative realities’ or ‘parallel universes’ where everyday things and situations are slightly different – back to front, images repeated, or reversed. For example in Beck’s video “Dead Weight” a man works at his desk on a beach, and later enters a room with wallpaper in frames, and photos for wallpaper.
In his interviews Gondry often says he gets ideas from his dreams. He also refers to his childhood and how it influences his work. For example in the Foo Fighters video for “Everlong” Dave Grohl’s character grows a giant hand to fight the ‘bad guys’ (played by co-band members.) Having giant hands is something Gondry had recurring nightmares about as a child.
As a child he lived right on the edge of a forest which was near the edge of a city. He used this idea in his video for Bjork’s “Human Behaviour” which shows nature taking over a city, a globe with forests and cities on it and a bear that chases Bjork through it. Bjork says that they both have a “vivid imagination” which is why they work so well together.
Although many of his videos seem strange and random he is actually a very precise worker and often uses mathematical knowledge and geometrical patterns. In the Daft Punk video for “Round the World” each different instruments is played by different characters/dancers, moving in a different pattern in time with their designated instruments. The baseline is performed by the ‘athletic guys’, keyboard by ‘disco girls’, guitar by dancers in skeleton costumes and the vocals by ‘robots’. The robots move around the outside of the stage to represent going around the world. Each group of characters actions are carefully planned and choreographed. Gondry says he is influenced by the precision of Michael Jackson’s routines and had always wanted to work with him.
His mathematical view of things is also shown in the White Stripes video for “The Hardest Button to Button”. This shows drum sets moving in time to the music. Gondry planned this very carefully with each beat corresponding to one of the instruments and the drum sets moving. 72 drum sets were used in the video. This video is unusual as it shows the artists performing. Gondry does not normally like to show this as he says it has been done so often before, but he was impressed by White Stripes in a live performance so made an exception.
Gondry says that he likes animation as "animation is typical of how you would represent an energy going through your brain, the process of thinking." As a shy child he says it was a way he could communicate with people. He adds "That's what fascinated me: it's the closest form of art that reflects what you have in your mind. I saw that very early on in animation: complete freedom. I would take a book and do a little animation of a guy going to jail, just with a flick book. The idea that you can make your own entertainment yourself is very important to me."
He is also influenced by unusual fiction such as "Le Passe-Muraille by Marcel Aymé" which he says is a great story. It is simple but with "A premise that's completely absurd but leads to a lot of imagination and possibilities." Many of his video could be decribed inthe same way.
The intended target audience is mostly people who like ‘alternative’ and rock music styles – e.g. artists like Bjork, Foo Fighters, White Stripes and Vines, although he has also worked with more mainstream artists like Kylie Minogue and Sir Paul McCartney.
He successfuly appeals to these audiences by not just offering them ‘basic’ videos, but provides videos that are varied and always interesting to watch. His videos don’t usually have a narrative. They are often highly stylised and quite fascinating to watch.
There don’t appear to be many blogs or message boards about Michel Gondry, although comments about him under his DVD on Amazon include “How this guy has so many genuinely interesting ideas for videos is incredible.”
"He's a real artist."
"So many clever touches - you really have to watch some of these videos several times to 'get' all the ideas he puts into his work. In short, there is no other video director who is quite so innovative, creative, artistic and just plain damn brilliant as Michel Gondry.” and
“What he does is literally unexplainable and something you have to see in action. Wondrous photography skills and innovative ideas that you'd never be able to see from anyone else.”
Michel Gondry seems to get alot of very postive responses from his audience about his music videos. On youtube his video for Kylie Minogues "Come into my world" there are comments such as, "Michel Gondry!!! he's quite a little genius" and "i loved this vid from the very first time i saw it on mtv years ago. it just captivates us!". This shows me that even his early work is still remembered and treasured by most the people viewed it. Furthermore the music videos for the band "The Vines" recieved very appreciative comments saying how good the video is. Comments such as, "i love this video, least its not going to be like any other music video you ever see :D", "This song is epic and the video it just even more epic!!!". On all of Michel Gondrys videos on YouTube i could not find any negative comments only positive ones. This just shows that his audiences take to his videos extremely well and love his vivid imagination.
However the success of his videos is shown as most of the videos are played regularly on music channels and the songs sell in high numbers. Dave Grohl (of the Foo Fighters) has said about “Everlong” that “Everyone says it’s the best video we have ever made” and that he also thinks “It can’t be topped unless we work with Michel Gondry again.” It appears that Foo Fighters fans agree with this as “Everlong” recently got the most votes on the MTV channel when fans voted for their favourite Foo Fighters video, even though there were 20 videos to choose from and “Everlong” was made back in 1997.
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