Chris Cunningham- Auteur Theory

Chris Cunningham

Chris Cunningham is a British music video film director and video artist. Chris has worked on many projects and has produced; music video’s, video art, short films, commercials, music production, photography, and a novel.

Cunningham is known for his warped style and disturbing imagery, he has worked and produced music videos for the likes of; Aphex Twins, Bjork, Placebo and Madonna. He has won multiple awards, including break through video at the MTV awards for his video ‘All in love.’ As well as producing music video he also produced commercials for; Gucci, Play station and orange.

I believe that nearly all of Chris Cunninham videos include fast paced editing and sharp cuts, which are used to disorientate the audience and create confusion, mystification and a non-linear narrative. Cunningham’s videos reflect a horror genre by using gothic imagery such as; black crows.

His videos tend to use lots of canted camera angles and nearly all the camera work seem to be hand held to create more dramatic, dizzying movement.

All of his videos use strange, unrealistic objects, sequences and people. The CGI editing used to morph people into horror characters creates individuality, as this is not typical of a mainstream music video.

In class we looked at Chris Cunningham’s music video for the Aphex Twins, this video is a great example of Cunningham’s auteur signatures.

 This video seems to be inspired by the horror genre as there are several elements to the video which reflect it such as; creepy children, the evil spirit, the thin creature and also the settings are; grungy, derelict, gloomy because of the low light and shadows created. There is fast pace editing to reflect and illustrate the action and also to build tension and confuse and create excitement for the audience. 

Canted camera angles such as the shot is that is rotated to it’s side, creates confusion for the audience but it also looks creative and arty as Cunningham has used editing software to create a TV image with bad signal which mesmerises the audience. As well as canted camera angles Cunningham uses nearly all hand held camera work as this creates the illusion of chaos, thrill and excitement.

Madonna- Frozen by Chris Cunningham

As I am investigating auteur’s I have decided to look at ‘Frozen’ music video to see if there are any similarities to Come to daddy which suggests that Chris Cunningham is an auteur of music videos as he will have signature things which makes him recognisable.

-       The most distinctive auteur signature of Cunningham is the horror genre inspiration. Horror is obvious a big influence on him as both Frozen and Come to daddy have horror tones to them. This video particularly represents this by using; Madonna becoming ravens, dark imagery is shown, the lighting is very dark but also calming in a sense. Finally the way Madonna is dressed is rather gothic as you can see she is wearing black floating garments. The editing is illustrated by the beats and rhythm of the song, so when the song sped up so did the video which creates, tension and excitement.