Yeah Yeah Yeahs- Sacrilege (Textual Analysis 2)

Written by: Brian Chase, Karen Orzolek, Nick Zinner

Director: French director group, Megaforce

Genre: Indie rock, art rock, post-punk revival

Structure: Narrative

The music video is a narrative the video consists of chronologically reversed sequence of events outlining the rationale and events leading to a group of people shooting a man and burning a woman alive.The shots keep getting repeated however each time something new gets revealed in the story as the shot goes through the reversed sequence.

A dominant shot used is a close up to show the characters feelings and so the audience can connect with the plot. Also they use a lot of long shots to show the location. The idea behind the music video is a girl is been prosecuted by people who she has committed adultery with against her husband therefore, at the beginning of the video a lot of close-ups are used of the people who hold no significance later become significant as the video carries on.

The video is confusing at first as you do not realise that the video is in reverse therefore the audience will feel disorientated. The editing pace speeds up as the video goes along and the narrative becomes clearer this will influence the audience’s excitement as the video reveals more. The editing also quickens as the pace of the song speeds up which is a convention of music videos

The mise-en-scene used within the video reflects the narrative not the genre and by not being conventional the audience will sympathise to the girl who’s costume is very innocent however her attitude isn’t, which does reflect the genre of punk. The iconography of fire and rebellion within the music video does relate to the songs genre. The genre of post-punk revival is shown through the video having a hard hitting story line. The location of the video is obvious as the iconography relates to America i.e. wooden houses and props and costume relate such as a sheriff is used and cars such as a pick up truck. 

The videos lighting lightens as the narrative develop, this is used as a contradiction because at the start we believe that the girl is innocent, which connotes the idea of white and brightness, however the lighting is very dark and harsh but as the story goes on you realise the girl isn’t that innocent the lighting becomes bright and sunny.