'Mr Brightside' Analysis

Because it's 'Moulin Rouge' style and I adore that film... :D



[just pretend that the lyrics aren't there... ]

This video is the 2nd music video to be released for 'Mr Brightside' by The Killers. It is the US video and was directed by Sophie Muller. The music belongs to the alternative rock or 'post-punk revival' genre. This is demonstrated in the video through the use of master shots of the whole band performing together.

The lyrics are amplified through the narrative of the music video. The main narrative for the video follows that of the narrative for Baz Luhrmann's 'Moulin Rouge' - prostitute and male character fall in love, but she still has to sleep with other random men (including a slightly older man - who appears to be the main 'client', so to speak) and he gets jealous.
There is also a somewhat illustrative relationship between the visuals-lyrics. This is seen in the main vocalist's gestures when singing. For example, for the line "He's having a smoke, and she's taking a drag", he imitates smoking a cigarette. This sort of illustrative relationship is also shown in the second chorus, during the line "Choking on your alibis" when the main singer puts his hand to his neck as if choking himself.

The video is cut to the beat. The instrumental part after the second chorus is accompanied by a part of the narrative in which the main vocalist (the prostitute's secret lover) and the older client man are playing against each other at draughts. It creates a sense of anticipation which goes with the build-up (crescendo? sort of...) in the music.

There are quite a lot of close-ups of the main singer while he's performing, and also in the narrative. The main singer is presented as quite sensitive and somewhat frustrated, which is seen through the concept of the song and also some of his acting in the video.
This video is very different to the UK video for this song and also the video for 'Somebody Told Me'. Both of those videos were completely performance based and didn't have any narrative to them at all. The video is somewhat similar to those for 'When You Were Young' and 'Smile Like You Mean It', since both videos were performance and narrative/concept (respectively) based.

The main singer, and the rest of the band, aren't really on sexual display. The prostitutes/dancers are though. This is shown through the dances they do, with all the skirt lifting and such. The camerawork however, often doesn't imply sexual display as much as you might expect, since the dance sequences are often shot in long shot. There are some not-so subtle references to looking, for example when the older male character is watching the main singer and the prostitute from behind a curtain. Such references to looking were probably chosen since they illustrate the narrative very well and also link in with the themes of jealousy.

This music video has very clear Moulin Rouge references and influences. The whole narrative for the video is very similar to that of Moulin Rouge (except the way it ends is quite different). When the main singer and the prostitute are standing on a rooftop, with a very blue-y back drop, it is very reminiscent of the scene in Moulin Rouge in which Ewan McGregor's character is singing 'Your Song' to Nicole Kidman's character (as shown in the screencap on the left). The dancing prostitutes are also very similar to those in Moulin Rouge. Also, when the prostitute character is dancing with man-with-waistcoat and the main singer, some of the dance moves are in a very similar style to that in the 'El Tango de Roxanne' number from Moulin Rouge. When the prostitute character appears to pass out and fall into the main singer's arms on the roof, it could also be a reference to Nicole Kidman's character's illness in Moulin Rouge, which causes her to faint a fair bit.

The video is both performance and narrative based, and there is a lot of crossover between the two. For example, when the performance is taking place, the narrative seems to be doing so too, since the main singer seems to be glancing at his prostitute lover and her clients in the audience. The video is roughly half performance and half narrative.