My thoughts EXACTLY!Originally Posted by SodaScouts
My thoughts EXACTLY!
Exactly! I listen to the song and I think "Wow, what a sweet song about how happy he is in his new marriage." I expect to see a video that expresses that. Instead, I'm greeted with a nightmarish scenario of highly disturbing images. I kept waiting for the "bad past" segment to end and them to show a "happy present" segment, but even at the end, they have Fraken-Don still singing. Um... OK!I like the song and the sentiment Don expresses in EIDN, but the video makes you want to go, "What was he thinking?"
Always in our hearts, Never forgotten
Have to agree here on the EIDN video! Just what was he thinking when he approved that?!
"They will never forget you 'till somebody new comes along"
1948-2016 Gone but not forgotten
But in EIDN there is at least some black humour, whereas in NELITW - what is all the 'university lecture' stuff? Don the intellectual? It was directed by Tim Hutton, the actor from Ordinary People, and I don't get it.
To me, the "university lecture" setting works fine.
What do you have a problem with--the fact that Tim Hutton directed it, or Don the intellectual, as you put it?
That's what I kept waiting for too. For some difference to show that he's happy now, to show the change. But nothing happened. lol
University lecture? I thought it was Don acting on a stage... Here's my interp:
The song opens; the set is being done up. Don and the other actors are rehearsing. He's centerstage, reading off a script. We see that it's an empty house.
Then, it goes to a scene of what appears to be a mother and father arguing in front of unhappy children during the verse "I know people hurt you so bad..." We don't know if this is backstage, or in Don's memory. We don't know what's real.
The camera cuts back to the stage: "I was either standing in your shadow.." First you just see Don, then Don and the woman - a real fight? - then as the camera pulls back you realize he is playing a scene with a woman. She leaves and once more he is delivering his "lines" alone, the actors on the sidelines seeming oblivious, as if they're not a part of the play; again, the blurring of reality and stage. This blurring also occurs as the next scene takes us past a bunch of the actors to Don and the woman again - this time there seems to be an illusion of privacy - backstage? But then we see him again out front, this time in a suit, this time without the script. It's showtime. The audience is now full. Don's performing... the woman watches, the audience watches...
And then the camera pulls around to once again see the empty house. Was all of that in Don's head?
IMHO, this isn't a video about being intellectual. It's a video about how emotion can confuse us and make us blur the distinction between what was real and what we wanted to be real. The stage - drama - is an element of the song - "I was either standing in your shadow, or blocking your light." The woman he is with craves drama, is even a bit of a drama queen. That's why we see that mingling of his drama with the woman "backstage" and his stage drama with the woman "onstage." They both know how tiring it is to smile for the camera, though. The element of performance - Don as a performer who has to make people feel what he feels, even if it's not singing but acting - also works perfectly.
Perhaps I'm prejudiced because I really adore this song - it's one of my favorites. However, I think it's a great video.
Always in our hearts, Never forgotten
Good analysis, soda. I think you are dead on.
Same here!(and I adore the song too, but that's now why I agree with your analysis lol)
Always in our hearts, Never forgotten
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