APPLYING THE CONCEPT OF NARRATIVE

(REVISED CASE STUDY)

DAVID BOWIE LET’S DANCE (1983)// MY OWN PRODUCTION

...."I think that's what this record came out of. I was sort of disappointed with the way synthesizers have bullied music into a kind of cold place. So much of the music that's being made at the moment is very earnest. It doesn't have that quality of necessity that music used to have; it's become style over content. So in a natural progression, I just went back to the kinds of music that really excited me when I started. I was listening to people like Buddy Guy, Red Prysock, Alan Freed big bands. Stuff like that has such a dynamic, enthusiastic quality; it's the enthusiasm that I actually was looking for.”

....The album was recorded in three weeks ("I must try to better that next time," Bowie cackles), and simplicity was the keynote all the way. "John Lennon once said to me, I Look, it's very simple - say what you mean, make it rhyme and put a back beat to it.' And he was right: 'Instant karma's gonna get you,' boom. I keep comin' back to that these days. He was right, man. There is no more than that. There is no more.

....Simplicity and directness of expression have become a passion for him now, he says. "I've never admitted this before - because it's never been true before - but this album is kind of tentative. I mean, I only kind of touched the edge of what I really want to do. I want to go further, much further, with the next one.....And what will that be, then?...."A protest album, I Suppose.” -BOWIE ON LET’S DANCE

(http://www.bowiedownunder.com/letsdancevideos/letsdancevideos.htm)

LET’S DANCE (1983)"Let's Dance" is the title song from English singer-songwriter David Bowie's 1983 album of the same name. It was also released as the first single from that album in 1983, and went on to become one of his biggest-selling tracks.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let%27s_Dance_(David_Bowie_song)

The success of the album surprised Bowie. In 1997, he said "at the time, Let's Dance was not mainstream. It was virtually a new kind of hybrid, using blues-rock guitar against a dance format. There wasn't anything else that really quite sounded like that at the time. So it only seems commercial in hindsight because it sold so many copies. It was great in its way, but it put me in a real corner in that it fucked with my integrity.”Bowie recalled, “It was a good record, but it was only meant as a one-off project. I had every intention of continuing to do some unusual material after that. But the success of that record really forced me, in a way, to continue the beast. It was my own doing, of course, but I felt, after a few years, that I had gotten stuck."

Bowie described the video for Let’s Dance as "very simple, very direct" statements against racism and oppression.

Joining other artists such as Kate Bush(with her song/video ‘The Dreaming in 1982) Bowie highlighted the history of the indigenous Australian population.

APPLYING THE CONCEPT OF NARRATIVETO LET’S DANCE

David Bowie’s Let’s Dance, although not conventional Bowie style in terms of lyrics and sound, was a surprising hit with the new aspects of genre Bowie used and the focus behind the song. The 1983 music video for Let’s Dance is shot in a bar in the Australian village of Carinda. The video reflects both a conceptual and performance piece focusing on Bowie and the position of the indigenous Australians, following a couple’s struggle against the metaphors of westernisation. Such struggles are represented throughout the video and with the use of mise-en-scene, editing and camerawork, the narrative of the story becomes very clear.

The video features a juxtaposition between the culture of the indigenous Australians and the westernised culture of Sydney. Claude Levi Strauss suggests that narratives are formed with the use of binary opposition, the effect created in this video being the sense of loss of land/freedom caused by westernisation.

This opposition is presented through various shots such as the industrial workplace at 1.43 presenting the westernised aspect, and the shot of the couple painting the traditional Aboriginal art on the walls at 2.48 reflecting their life before.

APPLYING NARRATIVE TO MY OWN PRODUCTION My own production uses a montage narrative, with the use of spilt screen to portray our main character’s sense of solitude. The split screen effect was used to suggest the length of time our character spends alone, the different location was also used for this reason however the split screen helps to emphasise the passing of time.

The piece also could present the use of analepsis, flashing back to an earlier point in the narrative/creating a timeline that does not present reality, to reflect this juxtaposition. This is created through the colour alteration, the colors used for the industrial sequences are greens, blues and greys that oppose the brightly lit warm tones of the sequences of the rural areas. This again creates this binary opposition between the two cultures and presents the narrative for the story- that being the comment on racism and westernisation.The colour alteration may also have been used to suggest a bleakness to the western world, the sense of loss is again portrayed through this as the audience see the rural areas/the life of the indigenous Australians as the more desirable option.

Although the music video is both performance and conceptual the lyrics are only portrayed through the shots of Bowie’s singing, the references to dancing, and more specifically the “red shoes” mentioned in the song.