Tuesday 14 December 2010

4. Music video textual analysis

Frozen by Madonna.


The video that I am analysing is ‘Frozen’ by Madonna. Its genre is pop but it is far from the usual pop promo’s which are usually seen. But for Madonna, it comes across as one of her usual music videos, or at least her past music videos that always seemed to push the boundaries.
Frozen is set in the Mojave desert which is a brilliant location as it is desolate. The action that unfolds between Madonna and her black shawl is mind blowing but due to the mesmerizing vastness yet plain backdrop that is the Mojave desert it helps place most of your attention on to Madonna and the sequences that unfold.
Due to its spiritual sound of the song, this has then been transferred on to the clothing that Madonna wears such as the long black dress and the most noticeable is the jet black hair and her hands that are draped in henna tattoos
The most stand out piece of clothing for me is her transforming black shawl that in itself represents something border lining occult due to the magic that is contains.
The cinematography is so varied throughout but the beginning sets the tone for something brilliant due to the camera traversing forwards across the desert to capture Madonna floating without moving but her shawl is which bring across the magical element of the film. Possibly her shawl is alive, controlling the movements that Madonna performs?
There’s also a large amount of mid shots of Madonna’s yogi-like movements which truly enraptures her and possibly the spiritual stage of her life that she was going through at the time.
The editing combined with the visual stylistics is what I believe truly binds this music video into a work of art. It helps aid the transformation between Madonna and her animal counterparts for instance, when Madonna falls back, she breaks into what can only be described as shards of black crows. Its non-linear such as so many pop promo’s but that’s what makes it so intense. The shots of time passing up in the sky helps elaborate Madonna’s transformation into the spiritual Madonna that we ‘had’ seen. Its also a montage of various shots but very slowly cut to emphasis the tempo of the song.
The main point of the song that has the most obvious Relationship between the music and visuals is within the chorus.
This contains chanting and during this Madonna also moves her hands in a Indian spiritual like dance which again also bring attention to the henna tattoo enabling spiritual comparisons to be made.
This video is definitely performance based which also incorporates the essence of exhibitionistic tendencies in which Madonna, although fully clothed can still have the power to sexually entice the viewer with her gaze which she holds throughout nearly all of the video.
Madonna is being promoted within the film as being this ‘born again’ spiritual figure, excluding the magical shawl though.
Many camera shots include her in either close up or mid shot again placing all of the attention onto her.
The star image has varied drastically from her usual videos but what Madonna does best is continually re-invent herself and her image therefore her star vehicle is what has made most of a difference in transforming through the years of her success.