Now I'm not exactly a Fiona Apple fan, not saying she's bad by any means. I actually own one of her songs, surprise it's the one I'm posting about. Anyway, since we watched the "Across the Universe" music video I was like, "I'm going to post about her too!" So, this time the video is for "Hot Knife." I stumbled across it because I heard that Paul Thomas Anderson, a personal favorite, directed the video and he of course did. As soon I saw it I loved it. The song stays true to a claustrophobic mood. It begins with hard beats on a drum followed by some reasonably faster than usual lyrics. Not too long after, the piano comes in and after that, a backup vocalist. This is how a typical song by a single person should sound, but Fiona isn't done. Vocals stop, but we still have the accompaniment of the drums and piano. As far as we know, this song should only be those four things; a singer, backup vocalist, piano, and drum. Here's when the fun begins. The vocals are back and it's now two lead vocalists singing with just the drums, but quickly we get Fiona again, only she is singing at a different pace than the other two. It's the same lyrics, just going at different times. This is when the director makes this his own. PTA now has three different cameras filming what's happening. One camera for Fiona, and one for each backup. At this point you begin to feel the pressure for some reason, and it's because there are two medium shots of the singers next to the one close-up of Fiona. Without them even looking at you, you feel their stare through the music. That goes on for a little bit then you go back to one camera and it's an intense close-up of just Fiona belting what she has been saying the whole time. However, it feels new this time because of the added echo effect. This echo effect feels as if another "instrument" has been added and it stuns you. That doesn't last too long though, for the three cameras are back. This time however they are all close-ups, but Fiona gets the close-up of the extreme variety. Too much yet? That goes for a while, but then it feels as if everything stopped, for the singing stops and the one camera has returned. Now it's just Fiona pounding on the drums and the piano, which has taken another piece to play, one that spirals down and repeats, spirals down and repeats, spirals down and repeats. Here is another big change. We now have Fiona belting again with the echo, the piano that spirals down, the original piano, and that incessant drum pounding. But that doesn't last too long and we are back to what we had with just Fiona, two backups, and the drum, all shown through three cameras. Then out of nowhere we have what seems to be two more backup vocalists, only they are singing something we haven't heard yet, and to top it off, now there are five cameras; Two close-ups and three rough mediums. At this point I couldn't believe what I was experiencing. It was as if I was being pushed into the corner more and more. With each camera angle change I felt another push. Then it changes to just a single camera, everything else stays, and I thought I was in the clear, but rather Fiona is now looking down with a shadow covering her face. I felt as though she was shouting her song at me as if I was being punished. Again the single camera frequently changes angles, only this time I feel as if I'm shrinking more and more each time. The drum finally stops, but the singing continues until the end. Whether she was actually making me shrink or not, I am still recovering from what happened. I think it's safe to say that in the long run, this was just beautifully controlled chaos, all thanks to PTA and one crazy artist.
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