Music Video
The popular music video for "The Scientist" was notable for its distinctive reverse narrative, which employed reverse video. The same concept had been previously used for Spike Jonze's 1996 music video for The Pharcyde's "Drop." The reverse video style had first been seen in 1989 for the video for the song "The Second Summer of Love" by Scottish band Danny Wilson. In order for Martin to appear to be singing the lyrics in the reversed footage, he had to learn to sing the song backwards, which took him a month. The video was filmed at various locations, including London and at Bourne Woods in Surrey, before the first leg of the A Rush of Blood to the Head tour. It was directed by Jamie Thraves. The video premiered on 14 August 2002.
The video opens, looking down on Martin who is singing, as he lies on his back on a mattress. As the camera shot pulls back, the mattress is revealed to be outside. A cyclist cycles past in reverse and Martin leaps up from the mattress. He walks in reverse through a city, out into the suburbs and eventually crossing a railway line and into woods, picking up his suit jacket as he goes. Upon arriving at his car, a black BMW, he gets in and briefly passes out. His girlfriend, at first shown lying dead on the ground in front of the car, is shown flying back in through the shattered windscreen of the car. The car rolls back up a hill in the woods and through a broken fence, which mends itself as the car passes back through it. As the video closes, the couple are shown driving back up the road. It is revealed that Martin's girlfriend had removed her seat belt, in order to put her jacket on, just before the car accident, causing her death. Irish actress Elaine Cassidy is featured as Martin's girlfriend.
In 2003, "The Scientist" won multiple MTV Video Music Awards for Best Group Video, Best Direction, and Breakthrough Video. It was also nominated at the 2004 Grammy Awards for Best Short Form Music Video but lost to Johnny Cash's video for "Hurt".
Read more about this topic: The Scientist (song)
Famous quotes containing the words music and/or video:
“But listen, up the road, something gulps, the church spire
Opens its eight bells out, skulls’ mouths which will not tire
To tell how there is no music or movement which secures
Escape from the weekday time. Which deadens and endures.”
—Louis MacNeice (1907–1963)
“We attempt to remember our collective American childhood, the way it was, but what we often remember is a combination of real past, pieces reshaped by bitterness and love, and, of course, the video past—the portrayals of family life on such television programs as “Leave it to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best” and all the rest.”
—Richard Louv (20th century)