Music Video
The video, a 5:42 Requiem Publishing production, was directed by Laurent Boutonnat, and François Hanss, who filmed several subsequent videos for Farmer including "Je te rends ton amour", "Innamoramento", "Dessine-moi un mouton", "Redonne-moi", "Avant que l'ombre..." and "Déshabillez-moi", made all the important shots, with a budget of about 30,000 euros. The screenplay was written both by Boutonnat and Hanss. It was shot for two days in Marne-la-Vallée, France: one day for the monk and the white horse, and another for Farmer and the stage's decoration ignited. Two explosives and a rocket-flame were needed to set fire to the stage. In the video, Farmer appeared on stage, her face bathed in sweat and locks of hair pasted to her forehead, then she is in front of a cemetery.
The video's backstage were filmed by an amateur who sold unofficially this video; it contains many secrets of the 1989 concert tour's video, and that of "Allan" (for example, Farmer slips on the dress for the video in her car because there was no dressing room on the stage). In the video, the monk who opened the cemetery's gates which were used as stage's set during Farmer's concert lights the fire to this set. The scene takes places in a field. The photograph of Edgar Allan Poe burns in the video.
In 1990, in the Toutankhamon studios, the novelist Philippe Séguy attended exclusively to the showing of the music video, accompanied by Farmer and Boutonnat. According to an analysis made by the biographer Bernard Violet, "Boutonnat grafts his own imagination on that of Edgar Poe: two worlds of confusion illustrated by this tornado of fades in which a black horse tramples the portrait of American writer ( ...). The song begins with the cries of the crowd which here have a different meaning of specific hysteria of the singer's shows. Faces of spectators spring superimposed at the bottom of the frame, giving the illusion of a strange fire fueled by their cheering."
"Allan" does not feature on the VHS En Concert, but as well as the video of the following single "Plus grandir", was included on Les Clips vol. III, as both songs songs were released as live singles.
Read more about this topic: Allan (song)
Famous quotes containing the words music and/or video:
“The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practise politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)
“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)