Chemical Brothers - Elektrobank

Director Spike Jonze (also made ‘Sabotage’ by Beastie Boys and ‘Get Back’ by Ludacris), Starring Sofia Coppola (Film Director and ‘actress’)

This is a purely narrative video with no performance by the group being shown in the video. However some of the Gymnastics in the video are in time with the music and so in that sense it could be said that there is some performance. For instance how Coppola twirls the ribbon in time to the music.

The track is of the ‘Techno/Dance’ genre so does not have to have a performance artist. As well as this the distinct lack of lyrics means that the music video does not have to correspond in meaning to the track title.

The main subject of the video does not seem to be sexualised at all with no lingering shots etc. Instead the watcher is seemed to be encouraged to be wowed by the gymnastic skill on display. Hence the video is more about showing an aspirational character. This is shown by the quick succession of long shots and medium shots, allowing all the action to be viewed, rather than focussing on specific parts of the female body.

The first 30 second of the video acts to set up the narrative, and it is interesting how the first gymnast performs to classical movement and loses, while Sofia performs to the ‘Chemical Brothers’ and wins.