Video created a Hollywood star

There is an entertaining paean to directors Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, Jonathan Glazer, Mike Mills, Hammer & Tongs and Chris Cunningham by Steve Rose in The Guardian's Guide today:

"Few people would admit it, but cinema owes a great debt to Fatboy Slim. Not to mention Bjork, the Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk, Air, Massive Attack, Aphex Twin and a handful of other acts. If it wasn't for the fact that, Bjork aside, the titans of trip hop and big beat were all knob-twiddling, un-photogenic, slightly nerdy blokes, we might never have had such a gaping void to fill on MTV, and thus a golden age of music video."

Rose argues that without these music artists we wouldn't be seeing the modern resurgence of arthouse cinema in Hollywood led by Jonze, Gondry et al. He goes on to draw a somewhat snobbish distinction between their work on commercials vs. work on music videos / Hollywood movies:

"For all their supposed cool, these video auteurs have all been corporate whores at some stage - Mills included. Far from suffering artists, this gang are all commercially minded professionals, happy to exchange cool for cash with brands such as Levi's, Nike, Apple, Orange and Gap. And yet, their movies to date have been commendably noncommercial, taking on the type of risky, challenging projects that most people don't want to fund. Perhaps they're trying to regain the integrity they lost in the corporate world."

On the eve of the launch of his new movie Science of Sleep it seems that The Guardian has gone Gondry-mad. In addition to this piece they sponsored a live interview with him at the NFT on Feb 7th and the published an interview in the G2 section on Feb 14th.

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