Week 4 Video Reviews
Photograph
Artist's Name:
Def Leppard Def Leppard is an English rock band that was formed in 1977. Its first successful album was "Pyromania" released in 1982.
Song Title:
"Photograph"
CD/Album Title
Pyromania
Year
1982
Record Company
Mercury Records
Director
David Mallet
Narrative of Video:
The video begins with a glowing white chalk image of a body, similar to the chalk images that mark the location of a dead body at a crime scene. The image is quickly filled in with a body of what appears to be a man in a trench coat. The body is laying face down. A glowing white sword flies across the screen and stabs into the floor. The scene changes quickly to a close up color photograph of Marilyn Monroe. The photograph fades away and the next scene goes back to the chalk image. This time, a woman, presumably depicting Monroe, is lying face down in it. The sword can be seen piercing through her body. The scene changes to Def Leppard performing. The camera moves in close on each of the band member’s faces. A newspaper flashes onto the screen, with the headlines, “Passion Killer Strikes”. This occurs at the same time the lead singer, Joe Elliot sings the words“Passion killer, you’re too much”. The camera widens its shot so the whole band is seen, then a flash of a knife can be seen as Elliot sings “I wanna touch”. The video continues showing the band performing the song from a side angle shot. Every now and then, a photograph of Marilyn Monroe flashes on and off the screen. The focus is close and focuses on her partially open mouth. The camera pans to a wide overhead shot of the band who are facing the front, and spread out across the stage. The camera pans toward the stage and moves in for close up shots of each of the band member’s faces. The next sequence of images are of the band from various camera angles alternating with images depicting a black and white photo session where a man photographs a Marilyn Monroe impersonator who is wearing a low cut white dress and is doing sexy poses. The scene changes to kind of a split screen image. On top is a rope covered with a line of papers that have “Passion killer strikes” across them and the band’s guitars while they are being played is seen underneath.
The scene returns to the band performing. The camera moves from side angles to close ups of Elliot. At one point, Elliot jumps from the stage, reaches out, and touches his toes in mid air. The video continues with the band performing while the camera provides a sequence of different angle shots of the band onstage. As the video moves into the guitar solo, the camera flashes from the band to a scantily clad woman who is dancing in a cage. This sequence is followed by a scene that shows a group of women wearing very few items of clothing, and are sitting or lying in different suggestive positions on top of the cages. As Elliot sings “Oh”
the women on the cages can be seen singing “Oh” along with him, their faces looking suggestively at the camera. The camera moves back to Elliot. When he repeats “oh” the camera switches from him to a close up of two women in a cage, then to one woman in a cage who are also singing “oh” in sync with Elliot. Their facial expressions are also very sexually suggestive. As the video continues, the video loops back to the earlier sequence of alternating between the band and the Marilyn Monroe impersonator. The images are in black and white, and seem to show Monroe with a man in an alley. He appears to be strangling her. The next shot is a woman’s hand, presumably Monroe’s, holding a lot of jewelry and more jewelry is being dropped into it. The next shot is of the Monroe image, which seems to be almost transparent. Showing through it is a newspaper with the heading “Movie Star Death” on it. The camera focuses on the band once again then moves to an image of a photograph over a metal grate. A woman’s spiked heal is seen grinding into the photograph and it disappears between the space in the metal grate. The image changes once again to the Monroe image holding the shoe heel first into the camera. Then it changes to the Marilyn Monroe impersonator who is standing there in a white dress. The screen turns blue over this image. The camera pans back over the white chalk body on the ground and the video comes to an end.
The scene returns to the band performing. The camera moves from side angles to close ups of Elliot. At one point, Elliot jumps from the stage, reaches out, and touches his toes in mid air. The video continues with the band performing while the camera provides a sequence of different angle shots of the band onstage. As the video moves into the guitar solo, the camera flashes from the band to a scantily clad woman who is dancing in a cage. This sequence is followed by a scene that shows a group of women wearing very few items of clothing, and are sitting or lying in different suggestive positions on top of the cages. As Elliot sings “Oh”
the women on the cages can be seen singing “Oh” along with him, their faces looking suggestively at the camera. The camera moves back to Elliot. When he repeats “oh” the camera switches from him to a close up of two women in a cage, then to one woman in a cage who are also singing “oh” in sync with Elliot. Their facial expressions are also very sexually suggestive. As the video continues, the video loops back to the earlier sequence of alternating between the band and the Marilyn Monroe impersonator. The images are in black and white, and seem to show Monroe with a man in an alley. He appears to be strangling her. The next shot is a woman’s hand, presumably Monroe’s, holding a lot of jewelry and more jewelry is being dropped into it. The next shot is of the Monroe image, which seems to be almost transparent. Showing through it is a newspaper with the heading “Movie Star Death” on it. The camera focuses on the band once again then moves to an image of a photograph over a metal grate. A woman’s spiked heal is seen grinding into the photograph and it disappears between the space in the metal grate. The image changes once again to the Monroe image holding the shoe heel first into the camera. Then it changes to the Marilyn Monroe impersonator who is standing there in a white dress. The screen turns blue over this image. The camera pans back over the white chalk body on the ground and the video comes to an end.
How the Music and Video Relate:
Overall, I would say the video and music do relate to each other inasmuch as the song is about a person who only wants this image in a photograph and the video shows images that could tell that story.
Review:
It was difficult for me to watch this video as I have always really liked the song “Photograph”. However, this video shows one demeaning image of women after another. It not only objectifies women as sexual objects, it also alludes very strongly to the message that violence against women is an okay thing to do.