{"id":323,"date":"2011-06-03T12:59:41","date_gmt":"2011-06-03T20:59:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/?p=323"},"modified":"2023-03-08T13:01:21","modified_gmt":"2023-03-08T21:01:21","slug":"duranalysis-something-i-should-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/morganrichter.net\/blog\/duranalysis-something-i-should-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Duranalysis: Is There Something I Should Know?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

You know, I planned this all wrong. Back when I first embarked upon this ongoing analysis of Duran Duran videos, I opted to tackle them in random order instead of knocking them out chronologically. So, naturally, I ripped through all the fun, juicy videos right at the start, both the ones I shamelessly adore (\u201cWild Boys,\u201d \u201cNight Boat\u201d), and the ones I enjoy lampooning (\u201cView to a Kill,\u201d \u201cNew Moon on Monday\u201d). My mistake. Now that I\u2019m fast running out of material from the band\u2019s Golden Age of Video, I\u2019m stuck with the dregs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hello, \u201cIs There Something I Should Know?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s put this video into the proper historical context: \u201cIs There Something I Should Know?\u201d was a stand-alone single, not part of an album. It hit airwaves in 1983, after the release of Rio<\/em> but before Seven and the Ragged Tiger<\/em>, and became the band\u2019s first number one hit in the UK. The video, which was directed by their frequent collaborator Russell Mulcahy, was crafted with no shortage of effort. It\u2019s stylish, it\u2019s slick, it\u2019s attractive, it\u2019s witty, and so help me, it bores the snot out of me.

The bulk of the video features a bunch of surreal stuff happening inside a white room. Here, for instance, we have four Simons wandering about. Not that Simon isn\u2019t awesome, but one Simon Le Bon is really the maximum any universe can be reasonably expected to contain.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Simon seems to be toting around a fork. It might have some deep symbolic significance. It might also mean he was hauled off to the set to start filming while he was smack in the middle of his lunch (I\u2019m going to guess\u2026 lobster Thermidor, washed down with an excellent Beaujolais and a handful of gummi bears).<\/p>\n\n\n

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For this video, the boys all wear cute matching outfits\u2014blue shirts, white neckties, black pants\u2014perhaps as a nod to the Beatles, to whom they were frequently compared during this time. It\u2019s preposterous for any band to rank themselves alongside the Beatles, of course, but in the case of Duran Duran, there\u2019s some (slight) weight behind the claim. Thanks in large part to the Beatles\u2019 films like Help!<\/em> and A Hard Day\u2019s Night<\/em> and to Duran Duran\u2019s high-profile music videos, all the members of both bands cemented themselves as individuals in the collective pop-culture consciousness in a way very few other bands have managed. Simon, John, Nick, Andy and Roger don\u2019t have anywhere near the same level of widespread first-name recognition as John, Paul, George and Ringo\u2026 but they come a whole lot closer than most groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something else they have in common with the Beatles: Chicks dig them. Like, a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simon climbs up a staircase while John toys with a sextant in the foreground. Here\u2019s my personal interpretation of this video, which may be wildly off base: It\u2019s about charting a course from childhood to adulthood. Hence, John is fiddling around with a navigational instrument. Later, we\u2019ll see an old man\u2014an aged version of John, perhaps\u2014sitting at a dust-covered table, upon which rests the same sextant. Tempus fugit.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remember\u00a0back in my \u201cRio\u201d analysis<\/a>\u00a0how I mentioned that John and Nick sometimes have a weird, magical ability to look like each other? They\u2019re doing it again. I thought this was Nick at first until I took another gander at the hair. Nick\u2019s hair has gone through a wide array of colors over the years, but he\u2019s rarely a brunette.<\/p>\n\n\n

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You can see the influences of various artists in the set design\u2014there\u2019s clearly some Magritte, and a whole lot of Escher, and probably some other artists my single art history course didn\u2019t prepare me to identify. Pour a few champagne cocktails into Nick, and I\u2019m sure he\u2019d be happy to point out all the homages to various artists in this video, most likely in great and comprehensive detail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hmm. Getting drunk on champagne cocktails with Nick Rhodes just became one of my new Wildly Improbable Life Goals. That\u2019d be awesome. Oh, sure, he\u2019d probably chide me for the gaps in my knowledge of the art world and make withering comments about my cheap shoes, but it\u2019d totally be worth it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m going to rip through a bunch of scenes pretty quickly, so hang on: We see some shots of a baby watching Duran Duran videos, \u201cMy Own Way\u201d and \u201cSave a Prayer\u201d in particular. I\u2019m guessing we\u2019re meant to interpret this as the baby catching a fleeting glimpse of his possible future, but mostly this just reminds me I\u2019d rather be watching \u201cSave a Prayer.\u201d Or hell, even \u201cMy Own Way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also: Out of all the bare asses that could possibly be flaunted in this video, this is entirely<\/em> the wrong one.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Simon climbs the staircase leading out of the surreal white room and finds himself on the front steps of a building, surrounded by briefcase-carrying men in bowler hats and suits. Everything\u2019s now shot in dreary black and white.<\/p>\n\n\n

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He winds up in a wooded area, where a toddler carrying a red ball is chased by a cluster of other children. The men in bowler hats perform a bunch of fussy measurements on trees and create some kind of triangular vortex. The toddler stares at the vortex, then chases the red ball back into the white room.<\/p>\n\n\n

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It\u2019s all subject to personal interpretation, but here\u2019s my take on all this: Both the baby and the toddler represent young versions of Simon, who is serving as a surrogate for the viewer. We see various pathways leading to adulthood\u2014the baby could join the glorious Technicolor lifestyle of Duran Duran, flamenco dancers and all, or he could grow up to wear a dull suit and a bowler hat and lead a drab life of nine-to-five drudgery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tough call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s check in with the rest of the band: They spend a lot of screen time looking up at a high window, singing in unison while looking super-earnest. Heh. All the time and care that went into making this video, and no one bothered to fetch an apple crate for poor wee Nick so he could be properly seen in this shot. It looks like John\u2019s shoulder has sprouted a crazy tuft of vibrant orange hair.<\/p>\n\n\n

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For some reason, we\u2019re treated to the sight of Roger, Nick and Andy crowding around an old-time microphone while doing a finger-wagging synchronized routine to the famous\/infamous \u201cYou\u2019re about as easy as a nuclear war\u201d lyric. Er\u2026 they\u2019re also dressed in fancy 19th Century French military uniforms. Yeah, I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n\n\n

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(There\u2019s\u00a0a cute and far too short clip on YouTube<\/a>\u00a0in which Simon and Nick watch their old videos while making sarcastic quips and going into fits of mad giggles at the absurdity of it all; I have no idea where the footage originally comes from, but it\u2019s adorable. Anyway, here\u2019s what Simon had to say about this shot: \u201cI\u2019d asked for West Point military uniforms for that.\u00a0Officer and a Gentleman.<\/em>\u00a0What\u2019d we get? Napoleon Bonaparte!\u201d Yes, because West Point uniforms would have made\u00a0complete<\/em>\u00a0sense.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nick somehow manages to look simultaneously ethereal and sinister here, which is a neat trick. It is not altogether easy for a fine-boned, pocket-sized pixie with tangerine hair and matching lipstick to look gritty and tough, but damned if he\u2019s not pulling it off. If he were a contestant on America\u2019s Next Top Model<\/em>, Tyra would call him \u201cFierce!\u201d and hand him his photo first.<\/p>\n\n\n

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(Guilty secret: I watch a lot of America\u2019s Next Top Model<\/em>. I\u2019m reasonably certain Nick does, too.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And we get a flashback to what I\u2019m guessing was picked as Nick\u2019s single most iconic moment in their videos up to this point: It\u2019s the bit in \u201cNight Boat<\/a>,\u201d pre-zombie attack, where he\u2019s slinking around the dock and peering into windows and generally acting odd. Excellent choice.<\/p>\n\n\n

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John, while heart-wrenchingly lovely as ever, is a little low on energy and star power in this video. Under usual circumstances, John\u2019s phenomenal beauty torpedoes all his bandmates out of the water, but I\u2019m going to have to award the Prettiest Duran title and tiara to Nick this time around.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Duran<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

John\u2019s most iconic moment: Getting his makeup applied in \u201cGirls on Film.\u201d Eh, sure. Why not?<\/p>\n\n\n

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And here\u2019s Andy. Oh, Andy. I\u2019m not going to comment on the hair. I\u2019ll limit myself to saying this: Andy is even shorter than Nick, and almost as slight, and yet I\u2019ve never even considered referring to him as a \u201cpocket-sized pixie.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Duran<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Let\u2019s see what they\u2019ve chosen as Andy\u2019s iconic video moment. Ah, here we go, it\u2019s him flipping over a table in \u201cHungry Like the Wolf,\u201d which totally seems like something he does on a semi-regular basis. The small problem with this, of course, is that he\u00a0didn\u2019t<\/em>\u00a0do it\u2014it was Simon, not Andy, who flipped the table. It\u2019s sad to realize that Andy has been too under-represented in these videos to have any single defining moment to showcase here.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Last up is Roger. On\u00a0Duran Duran\u2019s official website<\/a>, when asked by a fan if there were any video moments he regretted, Roger picked this business here, where he\u2019s singing to the camera: \u201cI look very uncomfortable doing this and cringe every time I see it to this day.\u201d Aw, Roger.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Roger\u2019s iconic moment: the opening shot of \u201cPlanet Earth,\u201d where he\u2019s shirtless and sculpted and gorgeous. Yeah, that\u2019s a good one.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Simon is not given a single iconic moment, probably because, as I\u2019ve pointed out before, Duran Duran videos tend to be All Simon, All the Time anyway. Fair enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And\u2026 that\u2019s the video. Whenever I watch it, it\u2019s always with a faint sense of irritation, because at this point in their career, they had the resources and energy and enthusiasm to pull off something bigger, wilder, splashier, sillier. They could have posed as\u2026 I don\u2019t know, space explorers. Vampires. Pirates. Circus performers. Mercenaries. Film noir detectives. Drug lords. Edwardian prostitutes. Anything! Instead, they stood in a white room and sang earnestly at a window. If that doesn\u2019t rate as a missed opportunity, I don\u2019t know what does.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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