| The Indie's Turn This month we take a look at Nonesuch Records, home of Buena Vista Social Club, Wilco, and others. |
| Battle of the "Experts" Our contributors go head-to-head, tackling the long running debate of whether the better Beatles album is Rubber Soul or Revolver. |
| Globetrotting We take a look at New Orleans and it's contributions to the music world. |
| How to Festival How to Experience the Toronto International Film Festival (with & without $) |
| Been There This month's concert moment takes us back to 2002 with Elvis Costello's When I Was Cruel tour. |
| Watching the Music Tori Amos and Adrien Brody star in Tori Amos's video for "A Sorta Fairytale" |
| 8 x 5 Our contibutors pick five things they're digging this month. |
Watching The Music
Giving You Your Fairytale
By Lisa Hood-Anklewicz
Video: “A Sorta Fairytale”
Artist: Tori Amos
From: Scarlet’s Walk
Director: Sanji
Released: October 2002
Copyright: Epic Records
Available on DVD from Sony Music
The idea of a fairytale implies perfection. The video for Tori Amos’ “A Sorta Fairytale” takes the idea of a fairytale and makes it a real life story. Portraying two misfits in everyday society, Tori Amos and Adrien Brody play characters that represent two incomplete personalities that become one with the help of the love one gives the other.
Director Sanji (who has directed videos for “No More Drama” by Mary J. Blige and “Everything is Everything” by Lauren Hill) has dissected the idea of a fairytale and placed it back together in pieces to fit Amos’s song. Amos and Brody’s characters are digitally manipulated so that her head is attached to only a leg, and his is supported by just an arm. The imagery is so strong that it reaches out and shakes the viewer when the actors on-screen are first seen in their manipulated forms.
In its symbolism, “A Sorta Fairytale” deconstructs the perfection that society has come to expect from the standard fairytale. We don’t see the standard perfect “buff boy meets tanned skinny blonde girl” that is too often tossed around in today’s media. Tori Amos and Sanji have given us the opportunity to think about what our fairytale is, what it means to us, and how we want it to play out in our lives. The viewer is also assaulted with the fact that nobody is perfect, and no matter how much we try, our lives just can’t be like the books. Tori Amos sums up the video: “I think that the idea of us being in pieces and imperfections, you know we all can’t be Cinderella, not all of us wanna be Cinderella. But sometimes, we don’t really know, how does our story fit into a fairytale? Sometimes you know, the prince is a frog, and you don’t end up with him, but, you know, you still get your little story.”1
The video is technically stunning, relying heavily on digital effects to complete the visual. Each shot would include having to shoot Tori Amos and Adrien Brody’s heads together and separately, the leg and arm stunt doubles both together and apart, and then pieced together in postproduction. In order to keep the realism of the character movements, Sanji very carefully constructed each shot so that every slight movement of the head or arm and leg were all in sync with each other. Amos has referred to the shoot as very intimate, as said there were so many technical assistants gathered around, always measuring to be sure that the angle and distance of head vs. limb was always perfect. And in the end, all these movements and actions fall into perfect harmony with the music.
All of the digital and technical efforts on the part of the crew and cast create a beautiful story, which compliment the song perfectly. The passion of love and the bitterness of betrayal as secrets of the past are uncovered, as is the ultimate sacredness of the kiss that completes the two characters in the video. Tori’s impressions of the shoot; “Sanji had really thought this out frame by frame. I mean in his mind, every beat, in every bar, was a physical, rhythmic marriage.”2 “A Sorta Fairytale”, the song, represents a journey in the early stages of discovering oneself. Sanji’s concept for the video easily brings the idea of that journey to life as we watch the characters discover each other and ultimately themselves. In their discovery, they let go of their pasts, accept their imperfections and in those decisions they allow themselves to find love and wholeness.
“A Sorta Fairytale” is not only a technically strong video, but it also crosses the boundaries that music videos have become accustomed to. Sanji’s and Tori Amos’s ideas and concepts have melded so well together, that the viewer is left with no choice but to think about what they have seen. The video’s characters break down what has become the “norm’ and let the viewer look at themselves as they are; as the person that they are now, not what society is telling them the should be, and allowing them to realize that their fairytale is right in front of them, waiting for them to take the first step.
1 & 2. “A Sorta Fairytale. Sanji, Tori Amos. Special Edition EP DVD Single. Sony Music (Video), 2003.
The video for “A Sorta Fairytale” by Tori Amos is available for viewing online at www.hereinmyhead.com/videos/asf.html
