OHNEOTRIX POINT NEVER: “THE PURE AND THE DAMNED” (2017)
An accompanying pop single for a theatrical release used to be standard practice in Hollywood filmmaking. It still is, to a degree, but the windfall a hit single would provide as an ancillary revenue stream has been greatly diminished by the meager returns of the streaming model— fractions of a cent per minutes streamed. The upside to this seemingly-endless devaluation of art in the modern “content” economy is that when such an endeavor is undertaken now, it’s usually for creative and artistic reasons rather than ones born of commercial interest. It can be a big boon to the indie film realm in particular, lending instant credibility and market cache to creators working without the far-reaching resources of the studios and their seasoned music departments.
This might explain the imperative for the creation of “THE PURE AND THE DAMNED”, a somber ballad written by composer Daniel Lopatin under his assumed stage name, Ohneotrix Point Never. The piece accompanies the end titles of director Josh & Benny Safdie’s 2017 feature, GOOD TIME, its slow, poignant chord progressions acting as a whiplashing departure from the frenzied, paranoid kineticism of the parent film’s storytelling. Legendary rocker Iggy Pop lends his gravelly, worn-out vocals to the track, further boosting GOOD TIME’s cultural street cred with the prestige of his punk-flavored celebrity.
Following the production of GOOD TIME, the Safdies would call back some key members of the creative team to create a promotional music video for the song. Rather than recreate the feature’s relentless tone, “THE PURE AND THE DAMNED”, the music video opts to embrace its elegiac mood while further exploring the colorful characters inhabited by Robert Pattinson and Benny Safdie in the feature. Indeed, the piece plays more like an improvisational character exercise or camera test rather than a polished music video, with the Safdies, Pattinson and their GOOD TIME cinematographer Sean Price Williams seemingly stealing away to a remote cabin in the woods for a weekend and shooting whatever loose framework of a story comes to mind. Pattinson and Benny ostensibly reprise their GOOD TIME characters, albeit without the extra edge provided by the feature’s costumes and makeup department. Williams moves his digital camera by hand through the cramped cabin and surrounding wilderness, lit sparsely in a style not unlike an old horror film.
The piece seems to operate off a hazy dream logic, allowing the Safdies to indulge in a little visual absurdity. This begins immediately, opening with a shot that features a completely computer-generate puppet model of Iggy Pop singing the vocals to camera much like a conventional flesh-and-blood recording artist would do. The effect is creepy and soulless, and the execution of the CGI is jarring, juxtaposing a model straight from a PlayStation 3 game against a live action background. Whether this peculiar inclusion is due to Pop himself being unavailable or a deliberate creative choice on the Safdies’ part, we are nonetheless left with a sustained uncanny feeling that paves the way for subsequent absurdist flourishes like Pattinson wielding a sword against a lupine monster eating his trash— itself a mix of CGI animation and a crude physical puppet whose quality recalls the handmade creatures encountered in earlier films like THE PLEASURE OF BEING ROBBED (2008) or DADDY LONGLEGS (2009).
Indeed, the homegrown spookiness of “THE PURE AND THE DAMNED” suggests how the Safdies might apply their sensibilities to the horror genre. It’s an interesting choice, especially in the context of a promotional music video for a feature film that’s an entirely different genre altogether. If anything, this speaks to the brothers’ unwillingness to be constrained by expectation— and bodes well for their ability to remain a fresh and dynamic force in the media landscape.
JAY Z: “MARCY ME” (2017)
Most music videos don’t contain studio logos, so when the Safdies’ 2017 piece for the Jay-Z track “Marcy Me” opens with the logo for their Elara Pictures shingle, we sit up at attention. The recording artist is usually the only talent that receives the spotlight in this particular media, so the logo’s mere inclusion suggests one of two things: that Jay Z either wholeheartedly embraced the Safdies as creative partners, or, evidenced by the conspicuous absence of any on-screen presence of Jay Z himself, he was barely involved at all.
The hood — and the hardened souls who inhabit it — are a foundational fixture of the hip-hop music video template, so naturally “MARCY ME” (2017) finds the Safdies venturing far out from beyond their own urban enclave to explore the tense dynamic between this distinct community and the police choppers constantly keeping watch from above. The piece takes on both perspectives, giving us glimpses inside the cockpit as the police hunt the landscape, searching for crimes in progress— only to be met by defiant middle fingers and bare asses. On the ground, we take cover alongside the people trying to avoid the helicopter’s blinding searchlight before it sears our vision, eventually zeroing in on the vignette of a young boy working his way through the neighborhood. Here, everyone has a hustle, no matter their age. We see the boy buy beer and cigarettes from a corner store without so much as a second glance from the cashier, and then watch him distribute the items to grown men on a rooftop nearby in exchange for a little cash and a little respect. Clearly, he’s well on his way to becoming one of them.
Aesthetically speaking, “MARCY ME” is part and parcel with the Safdies’ prior filmography, establishing a gritty, organic look that incorporates visceral handheld camerawork and a shallow depth of field. Like GOOD TIME before it, the piece finds added resonance in the inclusion of aerial footage shot from the skies above, giving us a sense of urban/architectural shape to the comparative chaos of the street as experienced on the ground. The piece mixes professional and non-professional talent alike, presenting us with a multitude of fresh or seasoned faces that convey the wide range of humanity this particular section of New York has to offer. Clearly, the Safdies are undaunted by depicting lifestyles and entire social ecospheres that are drastically different from their own; their empathy and appreciation for life’s wide variety of perspectives fuels an effective hip-hop video rooted in the human hardships that birthed this particular music genre in the first place.
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