Individual Analysis 2: REM - Losing My Religion

Here we can see the protagonist of the video sitting down on a chair looking rather sullen, with a man standing next to him. As the next few pictures show, he is seen walking away. It is raining outside. This may be a pathetic fallacy, the rain representing how he feels.

 As the figure in the waistcoat walks away, another person appears. He is jogging. The camera begins to pan, observing the movements of the running man. He is looking towards the sky.

 At this point the panning and the tracking stops. What can be seen within the frame is a glass off milk. I must also mention this shot has been continuous, and so far there have been no transitions or changes of shot. This has simply been a 14 second shot, establishing the theme of the video. The music has not started yet. The camera zooms into the milk.

 The glass falls, and breaks. Concurrently, the music starts. I believe this to be symbolic of the protagonist's emotional state, believing that there is no use crying over spilled milk, and begins to move on, starting the song.

 Upon the start of the song, shots begin to rapidly change, as the following images show. Here is a shot of the people performing the song. The video is synchronised to the song. Shots change on every crotchet beat.

 There is of course, one deviation of this, however. This shot lasts two crotchet beats. It is of the mandolin player playing the main riff of the song, and one of the most iconic and easily recognisable aspects of the song/band. This is both a medium shot and a two shot. You can see the mandolin player in the foreground playing his instrument, and another person in the background. Noticeable, the rule of thirds has been in practice for a lot of the video, with most shots being from a more dynamic angle. Hardly any shots have been of just one person in the centre of the frame. In this shot, the depth of field is in deep focus.

 To send a more powerful message to the audience, in this closeup, the depth of field is in shallow focus, with the protagonists face out of focus, the hand appearing consoling him is emphasised, giving the audience a feeling of melancholy. In terms of mis-en-scene, a lot of opening shots contain the protagonist, along with the other characters, looking down, towards the floor. This further pushes the idea of sadness to the audience. Each character looks gloomy, bored or upset in their own way.

This shot contains foreshadowing, if one would put it that way. This shot is also seen at the end of the video, but longer and clearer. This distortion of the perception of time adds to the artistic style in which the video is narrating the story.

 Moving past that, this now shows the mandolin player playing, adding to the performance aspect of the video. This lasts for a while, allowing the audience to settle, and prepare for the expected singing that is to occur.

 This is a close up of the previous shot, zoomed into the mans hand on the protagonist's shoulder. This reinforces the idea that he is consoling the character.

This next shot is of a character holding his arms up. He had just waved them in an outwards motion, responding to the words bigger. It is a medium long shot to ensure the audience is able to track his movement.

Here shows the protagonist pacing. Pacing is what somebody would do when they are either anxious, upset or stressed. Although it responds to no specific lyrics, he is dancing whilst pacing, showing the element of a dance in the video.Here the is shown to have a set of wings on/behind him. This is seen as an angelic feature.






Once again, this is a medium long shot to expose the entirety of the wings. This may have been symbolic of Hellenistic mythology, specifically that of Icarus - the story is about a boy, Icarus, who could not fly, as he was a human. However, his father, a master craftsman named Daedalus, made him some wings and warned him not to fly to close to the sun. Icarus ignored his fathers instructions and did it anyway, thus the wings melted and he fell into the sea and downed. This may represent how the protagonist feels, considering the time of the songs release. Seeing the singer of the band was a homosexual, this may have been symbolic of despite the warnings his fellow christians gave him he embraced his sexuality, thus feeling like he had turned his back on his religion.

This is a medium shot of the protagonist on the floor. The character sings the lyrics "Oh no, I've said too much". He has a hand on his head, a sign of frustration or dismay. He isn't clearly visible in terms of lighting, and he's sat on the floor. This is also a longer shot, possibly to let the feeling of sadness settle with the audience, almost saying that he looks desperate.

What we have here is a long shot of the workers previously shown. This shot specifically is foreshadowing, and does not last very long. There is an anvil on the left hand side of the frame, implying there up to some kind of manual labour.

This is a representation of the story of doubting Thomas, a biblical story. The story goes upon Jesus' resurrection Thomas does not believe that Christ has resurrected, and believes him to be a fraud, despite his physical ailments. In the end, he put his finger inside the wound, and established he was, in fact, Jesus and he did resurrect himself from the grave.

This may represent that religion is man made, due to the wings being made of steel, however this also references the story of Icarus, seeing as Daedalus was a blacksmith. This is a long shot of the blacksmiths and the steel wings. This also potentially is stereotypical of the artists' sexuality as muscular men in uniforms are aesthetically pleasing, stereotypically at least.