JAMES BLAKE

RETROGRADERetrograde means to go back to a position or in time. The lyrics tell a story of the female protagonist growing up in isolation, in the video she’s revisiting her past which seems to be frozen in time. Throughout the video many close ups and extreme close ups are used of the protagonist as she is the focus in this narrative plus this exaggerates her solidarity.

By Siobhan Chareka

CAMERA WORK, EDITING & MISE-EN-SCENE• The video opens with an ariel shot of a comet falling to

earth. There is a shot reverse shot between the comet throughout the video the only person aware of this is the female protagonist this presents her reality of change which only she is aware of. The reaction shot draws attention to her eyes which could be seen as her being fearful of what to come. The audience is aware of this fear as a comet has connotations of destruction.

• The video follows Goodwin’s convention of illustration through costume and location. Her isolation is emphasized as she is riding a motorbike which is a vehicle that accommodates one person only plus there are no other vehicles on the long winding road which runs through empty green fields. This isolation is further exaggerated in positioning as she takes up less than a third of the frame in this shot.

• As the protagonist’s journey progress’ the surroundings increase as she’s now riding the motorcycle through houses, plus her size in the frame has also increased. This shows how she’s returning to an area she is familiar with however she still remains in isolation.

• Between 00:58 and 1:21 we no longer see the protagonist’s movement instead scenes are now from the point of view of the protagonist through a mixture of extreme close ups and wide shots. These shots show the new location of a house the protagonist was once familiar with, the audience are aware of her uncertainty as her movements are very slow and cautious. This effect would’ve probably been created through editing as filming at such a slow speed would be time consuming.

• Randomly scattered across the house is falling matter from the comet, this represents the crumbling of the girl’s past. The house seems dirty, low-lit and abandoned plus the sofas have covers on them which connotes that whoever lives there is moving out.

• For the first time in the video we see the artist. Andrew Goodwin’s theory would label this shot a meat shot which is a tool of marketization.

CAMERA WORK, EDITING & MISE-EN-SCENE

CAMERA WORK, EDITING & MISE-EN-SCENE• The protagonist is shown to be startled in a reaction shot as

she enters a new room. This is because her presence has frozen time. Here the audience sees more off the degrading comet and people we know are her friends also frozen, the lyrics are directly illustrating what the audience sees in the video “And your friends are gone. And your friends won't come”

• There is one scene of disjuncture throughout the video where we see a young female dancing shown in a wide shot unusually, she’s the only person conscious but she does not communicate with the protagonist, reaffirming isolation. Furthermore the protagonist’s costume is still all black and her helmet remains, this use of mise-en-scene casts her away from the others as they are all in similar costume.

• This video is has many special effects and one noticeable effect is the gradual disappearance of the protagonist’s face behind the motorcycle helmet. This effect reflects the lyrics as Blake repeatedly asks the protagonist to “show me [him] where you fit” this is a rhetorical command as the lady fits in no where as not even her friends recognise her, hence her face disappearing.

CAMERA WORK, EDITING & MISE-EN-SCENE• Once again there’s a brief meat shot of James Blake which

gradually fades into another scene. The use of these meat shots could be just to act as a bridge between scenes rather than a tool of marketization.

• The next scenes are outside, there’s a low angle shot with a tree dominating the frame suddenly the comet shoots past showing how it’s getting closer to earth.

• A match cut is used as the protagonist at the door in a wide shot. She’s dancing strangely, her moves seem limbless she and she follows the movement of the comet, something was running away from is now controlling her. Plus her behaviour reflects the lyrics as the line “You’re alone now” is repeated four times.

• The protagonist seems to be in a haze as she’s spinning around the living room uncontrollably followed by close ups of her “friends”. The protagonist’s loss of sanity and her past matches the loop of the chorus. The video ends with the garden in patches of fire, from this the audience would assume the comet landed and destroyed everything.

“Retrograde” follows Goodwin’s theory as there is a clear relationship between the visuals and the lyrics. This is evident through camera shots for example the wide shot of the protagonist riding alone in empty fields to her placing in frames as she’s always shot alone. Plus mise-en-scene connotes the message of the lyrics through costume which separates her from everybody else, the lighting remains dull throughout the video with very little lighting which shows there is no escape or hope for the protagonist (the only bright source comes from the comet which is there to destruct). Meat shots are used several times however I think they are not used to Goodwin’s purpose as they act as a bridge between two scenes plus Blake never directly looks at the camera. The editing is cut to beat as it always matched the different paces of the song for example when the song’s pace increased at 2:35 the rate by which the scenes changed increased also.The video has no aspects that follows Laura Mulvey’s theory, it may star a female however there was no male gaze nor voyeurism throughout.

MUSIC VIDEO THEORIES: GOODWIN VS MULVEY