Customer Reviews

Director's Series, Vol. 3 - The Work of Director Michel Gondry

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I had very little to do with the planning and completion of this DVD so I believe I can give it a review. However I don't think I can give it one without bias so everyone can take the my five stars with a pinch of salt. I can say that I do love the DVD very much. I feel very happy that it has been recieved so well and feel that it does offer a comprehensive view into my work. If there were more stars to give I would.

This DVD includes a 2 sided disc,

the A SIDE:
The Hardest Button to Button ~ The White Stripes
Come Into My World ~ Kylie Minogue
Dead Leaves & the Dirty Ground ~ The White Stripes
Fell In Love with a Girl ~ The White Stripes
Let Forever Be ~ The Chemical Brothers
Star Guitar ~ The Chemical Brothers
Joga ~ Bjork
Deadweight ~ Beck
Bachelorette ~Bjork
Everlong ~ Foo Fighters
Around the World ~ Daft Punk
Sugar Water ~ Cibo Matto
HyperBallad ~ Bjork

the B-Side:

Like a Rolling Stone ~ The ROlling Stones
Army of Me ~ Bjork
Isobel ~ Bjork
Protection ~ Massive Attack
Lucas with the Lid Off ~ Lucas
Human Behaviour ~ Bjork
Le Mia ~ I Am
La tour De Pise ~ Jean Francois Coen
Ma Maison ~ Oui Oui
BOlide ~ Oui Oui
Junor Et Sa Voix D'or OUi Oui
Les Cailloux OUI OUI
UN Joyeux NOEL OUI OUI
La VIlle OUI OUI

This a great DVD with extra bonus stuff besides the videos and a great price. These videos to me are almost like art. They are creative, imaginative, and at the same time whimsical. Plus visually there is so much to absorb that viewing it once is not enough. And sometimes you just have to ask yourself "how'd he do that"?

The dvd also includes a 52 page book with drawings photographs and interviews.

This would be great for fans of any of these groups who don't have their videos on DVD.

As a avid admirer of videos that are both unique and rare I am salivating at the chance to own this and the other two titles (spike jonze & chris cunningham). It has taken me a many months to find works by these talented people. The closest you could come to finding a fraction of their work would be to buy Bjork dvd's (which might I recommend are works of arts themselves) In an age where MTV defines what makes good music videos these 3 men are a breath of fresh air and a slap in the face to all those who claim EMINEM's latest video is "so creative". Other than their own films and videos there are many commercials and short films out there featuring their talents. Why should a media so unlimited be limited...press play and take these all in.

Michel Gondry's massive imagination is full of weirdness and wonder. The director of "Human Nature" and the wonderful "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" has a certain kind of cleverness well-suited to music videos. Now the best of them are shown in "Director's Series Volume 3: The Work of Director Michel Gondry."

Among his vivid music videos are the White Stripes' "Dead Leaves & the Dirty Ground," "Fell In Love With A Girl" and "Hardest Button to Button," and a slew of other respected bands like Massive Attack ("Protection"), the Chemical Brothers (the funhouse mirror "Let Forever Be"), Daft Punk (colorful "Around the World") the Rolling Stones ("Like A Rolling Stone") and a bunch of videos for the French pop-rock band Oui Oui, for which he played drums. And that's not all of them!

The two part documentary "I've Been 12 Forever" includes interviews with Gondry, behind-the-scenes information, and bits and pieces of how he forms his unique visions. There are commercials, all tinged with the strange but immensely effective. And on the short film front, Jim Carrey stars in the cute, immensely amusing "Pecan Pie," but the freakily scatological "One Day" falls utterly flat. Wrapping up the whole thing is a booklet full of even more interviews, drawings and inspiration.

Aside from his films, Gondry is perhaps best known for his Bjork music videos, presented in their glory here. The attitudes of the bands and musicians are reflected in the music videos, so the personality shines through, as if Gondry has carefully shaped the images around the music. Nothing is normal here -- whether it's the White Stripes made of Legos, or Jim Carrey riding his bed like a car.

The double-sided disc allows fans to check out the evolution of Gondry's style. He was a lot less sophisticated in his Oui Oui days, but the relatively immature videos he did for those songs were enough to get Bjork asking for him to direct "Human Behavior." The rest is musical history. After that, Gondry's style becomes somewhat stranger but no less riveting.

There's plenty of information for those who love Gondry's warmly quirky style, including interviews with the musicians. What it lacks are some of his other prominent music videos, like Radiohead's "Knives Out." However, it contains a lot more early material than the other Director Series DVDs. And what it has is quite personal, since Gondry also made the music for the earliest music videos.

With the exception of the occasional dud, "The Work of Michel Gondry" is an effervescent trip into a mind where the music video becomes a flexible art form. Vivid and vibrant.

Michel Gondry is a visionary music video director who presents images that feel like they have sprung right out of fanciful dreams or fevered nightmares. Like feature filmmaker Terry Gilliam, Gondry seamlessly blends reality with dreams so that it is impossible to know where one ends and one begins.

Included with the DVD is a 52-page booklet that features behind-the-scenes photos, interviews with Gondry and several of his written treatments for the music videos he ended up directing.

Several of his short films are included on the DVD. Among them, "Drumb and Drumber," which anticipates the same kind of technique he would perfect on a more ambitious scale with the "The Hardest Button to Button" video by The White Stripes.

"Pecan Pie with Jim Carrey" is a funny short film that involves the actor riding around in a bed in his pajamas. It's a surreal vignette that makes no sense-which is largely its appeal.

The DVD also collects some of Gondry's commercial work, most notably one for Levi's jeans which beautifully captures many of the video director's pre-occupations.

In lieu of audio commentaries for the videos (as on the Spike Jonze DVD) there is a 75-minute documentary about Gondry and his career that is divided into two parts over both sides of the DVD. The second segment is the most interesting because it features interviews with many of the musicians that have had videos directed by Gondry. One of the highlights is when Jack White dryly noting that Gondry's concept for "Fell In Love With A Girl" was better then his bandmate, Meg's idea of having them be made out of Oreo cookies.

This DVD perfectly conveys Gondry's unique vision with an excellent cross-section of his work. This disc is highly recommended for fans of the music video medium.

I've been an admirer of the three directors in this DVD series, but when i went through the DVD for Michel Gondry i could not find the RADIOHEAD video for "Knives Out". This is a great, trippy video all in "one" shot like a couple others. The video i downloaded off kazaa was crappy quality and i hoped that the DVD version would be crystal clear. I'm pretty sure that he directed it and in the trailer on the internet and Chris Cunningham showed clips it in it. Does anyone know if it's on there or what's up with that? Otherwise, this is a great DVD.

If you're interested in music videos as an art form, or film as art in general, you should buy this DVD. Previous comments sum it up: Gondry has directed many of the most innovative and memorable videos ever made, and this DVD offers a very personal glimpse into his body of work, as well as his life. The exclusions, like the Radiohead video, are disappointing, but overall this DVD features a hefty amount of videos (many more than the other volumes in Palm's Director's Series), almost all of which are engaging. This man is a genius and the work he makes is simply magical. I bought this DVD last week, and it's already one of my favorites in my collection...has surprising replay value.

And as for the comment about the shocking material on this disc, please. There are one or two segments that some people will object to, but they're supposed to be funny. So if you're hypersensitive to things like farting and distasteful costumes, then be prepared to pretend you're better than that for a few minutes. But you'll still enjoy this disc.

i believe i can watch this thing forever. first of all, watching gondry's works in chronological order is great. You can see his genius from the beginning. Also there are great videos(around the world, sugar water, bachelorette, hyperballad etc.) and commercials. As a conclusion i can say that this DVD is better than the works of cunningham and jonze. They are great too, but gondry kicks ass!

Having bought all three of the Palm Pictures directors series. I can say this is the one that will bring you the most enjoyment - not just for the amount of stuff on it (considerably more than the other two) but for the sheer fun and joy of Gondry's work. His videos think way outside the usual square of music video making. My personal favourite is the the Chemical Brothers Let forever be filmclip (the swapping between film and video, interior studio to various exterior/interior video shots is truly startling and too hard to describe). But there is something unique about every clip from use of camera to special effects to use of the beat with visual cues.

All of this coupled with the man and his sense of humour (which is explored not only in the clips but in short films, ads and a two part documentary) make it the best value entertainment buy this year. He has already made a feature (the hugely underrated Human Nature) and has a new one coming out with Jim Carrey (which hopefully lots of people will see). He should be a household name already so get this and see him in all his glory now!!!!

Just an update to this - I have found several videos that were left out (radiohead - knives out, terence trent d'arby - she kissed me, lenny krvitz - believe) also there have been a few new ones come out(steriogram - walkie talkie man, the vines - ride). I would suggest to Mr Gondry and company that a second Work Of DVD be made at some point. Also looking forward to two new features (the science of sleep and the master of time and space) if they are half as good as Eternal Sunshine then we all have lots to look forward to

is it wrong for me to have never remembered the name michel gondry before this dvd came out?
i mean, sure, i'd seen alot of these videos before and loved all of them, but the name never stuck. not like spike jonze. when i saw the promotional trailers for the directors label dvds, i saw all the videos on michel gondry's collection and was completely floored. suddenly, spike jonze became a secondary thought. i NEEDED the michel gondry disc.

now, odds are you already know whether you're going to like the music videos or not (if you have any artistic sense at all, you most likely will like them very much
what may surprise you is that his short films and whatnot are equally interesting and entertaining.
many hours of eye candy, brain benders and ear sweeteners (eww...and yet...oooooh) are to be found on this two-sided dvd. often the most underrated of the three directors in this set, i hereby proclaim michel gondr to be a true video visionary.

if you don't love this dvd, you must have no style.