News > The Dead Weather
Beautiful Little Scumbags
By Fernando Scoczynski Filho
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Jack White is a man who is not ashamed to show his love for what many people would call the “dying art” of making music videos. With The White Stripes, he conspired with legendary director Michel Gondry to produce some of the most remarkable videos of the early-2000s; and with The Raconteurs, while not achieving the same mainstream exposure, he still insisted in hiring high-profile directors to film his videos.
His new band, The Dead Weather, is no exception: They hired Jonathan Glazer to direct their first video, Treat Me Like Your Mother. Glazer is the man behind some of MTV’s most played videos of the late-90s; Radiohead’s Karma Police, and Jamiroquai’s Virtual Insanity, to name a couple. He’s also responsible for the cult classic video for Rabbit In Your Headlights by UNKLE.
A section on the band’s official website was created to put up small “posters” for the video, which was being advertised as a short film. There were also two dramatic, suspense-building “trailers” that play beside each other: one showing Jack White walking through a field with a machine gun, the other showing the band’s lead singer, Alison Mosshart, walking through the same field in the opposite direction, also carrying a machine gun. Watch the video to see where it goes from there.
not all that great to be honest
i suspected it wouldn’t immediately deliver the big fat punch the trailers seem to promise. and i was kinda right. but it definitely gets better after the first time. notice the sunlight through the bullet holes. it’s a cool video. not a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, but a cool video.
could they not have found a better place to film it rather than a field next to a nashville subdivision? with a solo car driving by (don’t say i’m the only one who noticed that)? and was the alison cigarette part necessary or playing to her stereotype?
the trailers made me expect so much more…this looks like some cheese two potheads made on a tuesday afternoon with some fake guns and a little too much time.
beyond lame video. minimalism’s cool but there’s a thin line between that and…pretentiousness. ah well, quality song.
This video is amazing and you know it. Rather than tell some lame story in under five minutes with the band running around town trying to get to their show (familiar?), they served the song and the format incredibly well. Their raw attitude towards each other, along with them singing the words, work together to tell you a story that you don’t even need to see. You get it. Shit went horribly wrong and they are pissed. And now they jumped into this fantasy where they literally shoot each other until one dies. And that cigarette break was literally that: a break. Some time for her to realize she probably will die, and us to take a breath. This is Jack’s characters dream, most likely, since he’s the one that walks away. That’s right, characters. Minimalist it may be, they acted, and without pretentiousness. I applaud the director and all involved.
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What I just meant to say was that, I liked it.
gets better every time i watch it. my first impression was like stoo’s and anonymous’ but when you get over the fact that glazer didn’t make a 4 minute version of the movie heat, you start noticing things like the bullets exiting out of their backs, and the subtle little red bursts here and there. to me, it’s a breakup fantasy. you just want to open fire on each other with machine guns, but the last thing you want to do is put them out of their misery.
Oh look, another article on the new Jack White band.
C’mon! It’s a cool video! Love how they shoot each other, and the bullet holes, the see through thing… really cool.
Hmm, why’d they choose the drummer of the band to be featured so prominently in the video?! =P
I tired of this song and this video at about the point when Jack started singing. Still not feeling Dead Weather. Hype…over. It’s almost as if everyone feels required to dig everything that White touches. I dig him and his ADD/schizo musical ways, enjoyed Ms Mosshart and her Killing ways, but Dead Weather’s falling like a heavy thud on my ears. Screams of trying too, too hard to be too, too musically germane and that’s about the point when you need to stop. Love Jack’s hair, though.
I dug the video.
Joe – You’ll be seeing plenty more Jack White pieces in the future, because across the board he’s one of our favorite and most active artists. Don’t like it? Plenty of other places to toss your consistent attempts at cutting snark/plugs for your shitty band.
Dharma – Entirely disagree. There’s a defined sense of character coming through here. Review coming tomorrow, provided that the friendly neighborhood Time Warner dude hooks shit up on time.
No advance copies? It’s not like it didn’t leak last week (and I’m not talking about the stream).
My shitty band? I’m pretty sure my music has been far more successful than yours, regardless of how one defines “success” in music.
But I’d be more than willing to post mine vs. yours on a bunch of random music forums and see what the people have to say.
This kind of went to a bad place. This is the point where usually the mod steps in and says “take it to PMs, bitches”. But I’m not a mod, so…
Everyone kinda needs to chillax, Jack White just gets people in a tizzy. Ok, I don’t want to get into a dust up but I’ll just say any video that strays away from the pop/mtv generic predictable formula, is freakin’ good in my book. The video is simple and somewhat original, only somewhat to me because it reminds me of a film I can’t quite pinpoint but that doesn’t take away from it. The video is the two walking towards eachother while shooting machine guns. Where are these debates coming from? Jeoulous much? face it, say what you will but jack is TALENTED and someone mentioned the drummer (who also does vocals) being so prominent in the video, really? would anyone even give half a shit about this band if he wasn’t in it? maybe. but if he wasn’t in the vid, then I’m sure there would be something else to pick at, jeez it’s just music and I really liked the video. I’m diggin’ the Dead Weather.
[Comment Deleted]
You’re way past the line of knowing what the fuck you’re talking about, Joe. I deleted my comment as a final display of respect, and yours for the far-below-the-belt, misinformed attack that it was. Another flagrantly inflammatory personal comment will result in your complete removal from this site, now and forever, as long as I have anything to do with Antiquiet.
i would have deleted the comment if you hadn’t. it was completely uncalled for, fucked up, and below the belt. i could say a lot more but let’s try and leave it at that.
You started it, I finished it, and you couldn’t take the heat, son. But I guess it’s your playground so you get to have the last word. Enjoy it.
you people are strange
joe, you attacked johnny on a seriously fucked up personal level. that shit was just unacceptable. if anyone did that to another commenter here, we’d react exactly the same, whether it was one of our own, or a complete stranger. that’s enough of it.
[Commend Deleted]
No more discussion on it. Nothing. Move on.
Alison lighting that cigarette was sexy. Too bad that shit is seriously bad for you.
Ein Freund hat mir deinen Blog gerade empfohlen und dann hatte ich gedacht schaue ich doch einmal vorbei. Und ich muss sagen er gefaellt mir richtig gut, ich glaube er koennte zu meinen Stammblogs dazu kommen bei denen ich regelmae?ig vorbei schaue.
Great discussion. And I REALLY like that you practice what you preach. That’s when you can tell a post has come together.
And I’m also fascinated by how fresh you made the routine [admit it: what you just shared has been regurgitated millions of time. ;-)].
Ben Johnson said people don’t need taught as much as they need reminding.
Good work.