Auteur Theory

Director: Mark Romanek

Artist: Jay Z

Song: 99 Problems

Mark Romanek is known for his foundry pushing, visually disturbing and thought provoking images. These are seen in some of this most famous music videos Nine Inch Nails- Closer 1994, as well as ‘The perfect Drug’. Both music videos being something disturbing and causing controversy, this being one of the main reasons his videos have been so popular to the audience.

Mark Romanek is well known for his excellent cinematic work, this is shown in Jay Z music video, 99 Problems. It highlights the directors talents as well as his known traits. The director has mostly created music videos for the rock genre so he has used this aspect of rock and roll to create a new and original rap music video, which has never been done before.

Instead of the typical male heterosexual viewer, on looking women as a sexual object (Laura Mulvely ‘Visual pleasure and narrative cinema’ 1975), the male gaze is not the main concept in Jay Z’s music video, it has little to do with the way men view women or their relationship.

Instead the concept for this music video was created from something Jay Z had requested and the director worked from this. All he asked for was to portray the areas he grew up in New York, Brooklyn, in a beautiful way. He wanted to portray the area he grew up in, in a different way than one would normally look at it. The idea of making the graffiti on the wall look like a piece of art. The way they decided to show this was by using still images, making these looks like vintage images in black and white. Giving them a crisp and raw look, with a clear artist and beautiful edge.

I will be using Andrew Goodwins ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’ to analyse Jay Z, 99 Problems music video.

The pace throughout this music video is extremely fast, showing around 60 different shots in under the first 40 seconds. These quick shots link in well with the rhythm and beat of the song. Having lyrics being said at a very fast pace matches with the quick shot changes.

Each shots is located in an area in which has a meaning behind it, for example the shot of Jay Z sitting on the sofa in a flat. This is the flat that he used to live in when he was growing up, each location has a personal meaning to Jay Z. Which therefore makes this music video have even more depth to it, and a hidden meaning. The dog fighting scene is a real footage of live dog fights, this creates a realistic feel to what living in that area was truly like. Making the music video feel more like documenting moments than putting together a normal music video.

There are some lyrical and visual links throughout the video, such as when the police man come up to Jay Z in the car and he says ‘ I know you’ll gonna need warrant for that’. As the police man wants to search his car. A quick scene shows the car boot being see through allowing the view to see that in the car are what looks like illegal substance. This therefore makes the audience understand the lyrics and the visual. For if the police officer opened up the car boot, he would have found illegal substances and would have therefore changed the whole course of Jay Z’s life, as this was said by him to have been a real life experience. Like many rap songs, expressing moments that have happened throughout their life.

There are not many shots where women are under minded, however there are a few scenes of women wearing very little clothing and washing a car. However I don’t feel this scene is used to improver Jay Z, more for him to express the real life situations that occurred in the area he lived in.

The inspiration for this whole music video concept came from the work of old vintage photos, and making something that to the naked eye may not look very ‘ attractive’, looking beautiful and very artistic.

The director really becomes in charge when he requested to Jay Z getting shot in the music video, the artist firstly did not want this to happen t all but after a while came round and allowed the director to take full control and trust his view. This shot really capture the life in which many people lead in New York, it highlights most issues. Of illegal weapon, gang violence, drug wars etc. It also shows a lifestyle in which Jay Z may have lived in if he carried on doing the illegal things he was doing before his music became his driving force out.

For Jay Z as an artist this type of music video is very boundary pushing and original. Something that you won’t see any other typical rap artist use, its very fresh and raw. It doesn’t use women in a negative way to make the artist seem powerful, it just uses normal clips of people in New York city doing normal things.