Music Video Analysis Comparison #2

White Lies - Bigger Than Us

The third music video I have chosen to analyse is "Bigger Than Us" from the British band White Lies. The band and song are, like Yeah Yeah Yeah's, indie rock as well as post-punk revival. There aren't many defining characteristics to be inferred from the band, who appear in the video, but the band is shown playing a bass guitar and drums which provide the song with a steady beat, similar to many other indie rock songs (such as Cough Syrup, Young The Giant). This helps to define the band as indie rock.

The video is a mixture of performance and narrative, with the 'singers' switching between a child actor and the bands' lead singer throughout. This is similar to Summertime Sadness; however it differs from Sacrilege, which highlights an even greater difference as both bands and songs are indie-rock. The video seems to be telling a story, almost a short film in it's own rights (again like Sacrilege). We are shown a boy and a life-sized chocolate bar being experimented on by - presumably - scientists in a large white area. The band are present throughout the video, both as scientists and as the band, performing, towards the end of the video. The lead singer plays an integral role in the story, destroying the chocolate bar and removing a girl, whom he carries outside.

There doesn't appear to be a direct relationship between the lyrics and visuals, unlike Summertime Sadness, which defines a clear relationship. There are a few points in the video, such as when we focus on the chocolate bar wrapper, which is labelled "Bigger Than Us"; a direct reference to the chorus and title. As well as this, there is the repeated line "...I feel like I'm breaking up" which could relate to the breaking of the chocolate bar. However the lyrics tell a different story to the one that we are seeing.

There is one enormous intertextual reference to be found in the video; the fact that it pays tribute to the film E.T. The music video is a re-telling of the film, with one particular scene being re-enacted to make the music
video. The child singer acts as Elliot whilst the chocolate bar (and the girl inside) act as E.T himself. Most of the music video is independently created, but the video does indicate clear intertextual references, such as when the basketballs appear to float around the band; in the film, E.T. levitates a model of the solar system to demonstrate where he lives. There is also the reference to the woods where E.T. manages to find his way back home.

There are many 'star image motifs' throughout the video, with the lead singer being heavily focused on for a large portion of the video. His two bandmates are also shown but not as extensively. This is probably due to popularity and the band's then-rising fame; more people would recognize the band with them being shown throughout the video. This again is similar to Summertime Sadness, which has many close ups of Lana Del Rey. The close ups of the lead singer (White Lies) are well lit and allow us to see his face well as he sings. It would be strange and detrimental to the video to have the lead singer in a dimly lit close up, especially one not as well known as Harry McVeigh. 

There is the general voyeuristic element present that always occurs in music videos; the notion of us, the viewers, looking in on the video and usually the story being told. However there are also other elements, such as the group of people that form around the quarantined area and the family that watch the boy.

The misc-en-scene is extremely well thought out and detailed. For instance, the scientists wear large white suits; the quarantined area is done up realistically, and all of the equipment used (like the defibrillator) looks to be completely real. All of these things were used to re-create the scene from the film E.T.; it's important that the misc-en-scene is good in this video in particular, to realistically pull off the scene.