I’m putting together a few posts about which filmmakers have influenced me creatively. This isn’t just narcissistic/egotistical (although it might be that too). I’d like to share pieces of work that I think are truly excellent and that everyone should see or read. AND, if anyone is thinking of hiring me, they just need to watch all the videos and read all the books that I post about. Then they’ll know exactly what to expect. I am nothing if not good at copying other people.

Anyway, I get asked to make music videos sometimes. Fortunately for anyone hiring me, I saw the world’s best music video when it came out in 1985 and this is it: New Order’s The Perfect Kiss, directed by Jonathan Demme – of Silence of the Lambs fame – played live in their Cheetham Hill rehearsal room (not London as YouTube suggests).

I don’t quite know why this music video made a big impact on the creatively dumb 14 year old me at the time but I loved it in a way I didn’t love New Order’s other videos. Now I hold it up as the perfect piece of work. Composed mostly of a series of static close ups of the band’s faces and instruments with a few longer shots thrown in at the end, each shot is exquisitely framed. You can see how hard everyone is concentrating on getting it right. Nobody smiles. The video shouldn’t work at all because the static camera work is in almost total opposition to the vitality and dynamism of the music. It’s less a music video and more a record of an event. Stephen Morris, the drummer, said it’s more of an art short than something you’d see on MTV.

When I was filming live performances for Marsden Jazz Festival, up on the West Yorkshire Moors, (https://alistairimacdonald.com/marsden-jazz-festival/) this video was my main reference point, although I also had to juggle this with the need to capture the beautiful landscape settings. It’s as if, by focussing closely and at length on the faces and instruments of the musicians, I hoped I could somehow make visible the creative secret of the music when, in fact, that secret was and always is hidden deep inside the musician.