Research - Task 7 - R.E.M Losing My Religion - Music Video

Introduction 

R.E.M released the song in early 1991 with the guitarist Peter Buck composing a lot of the song before linking up with the rest of the band. The video was directed by Tarsem Singh who wanted the video to be quite a simple performance video, but also add in some tribal Indian aspects which can clearly be seen throughout the video. 

Relationship between lyrics and visuals

There is a great shot where you can see a clear recreated of Jesus on the cross which really ties in with the whole idea of "losing my religion" with the heavy Christian ideas in the video. They also constantly cut to angels and at one point an arm appears to reach down from the sky which clearly portrays God. They also go from Michael Stipe singing about losing his religion and his time in the "spotlight" which could mean that he has changed whilst under pressure from being a famous musician and may be why he is losing his religion. 

Relationship between music and visuals 

Near the beginning of the music video the lights flicker on and off and decrease and increase in brightness levels in time to the musics ups and downs, this sometimes gives off an effect of a sort of flash. The music isn't funky or modern and is quite soft which creates a strong link between the music and the tribal scenes that you wouldn't think would work. The director manages to make it all work and the tribal areas don't seem too odd at all. 

What image does this create for the band?

The company are trying to sell this track off its quite bizarre idea of cutting from a performance to a story whilst linking them all to the song. The cutaways to the Christian background story is something that hadn't really been used in a rock song before so probably surprised the audience and the director took a gamble and it payed off.

References to notion of looking

There isn't really in sexual displays in this video and I really don't think the director wanted to sexualise this music video.

Intertextual references

Obviously there is a massive intertextual reference to the Bible and Christianity with the use of God, Jesus, angels and wisemen.

Conclusion 

This video combines a performance based video and a narrative based video. The narrative tells a few stories from the bible in the video and then there is constant movement between that aspect and the performance that is happening in the barn.