1988 05 21 NME "Blue Monday" video review

PAINT IT BLUE

21st May, 1988 New Musical Express

We check out the video for the new version of NEW ORDER's 'Blue Monday' and look back on how cartoonist RAY LOWRY interpreted the song when it was first released.

“BLUE MONDAY’ may owe its resurgence in the charts to the unfashionable forces of Quincy Jones and Sunkist Orange Juice, but video-wise the song retains the accustomed credible credentials we’ve come to expect art lovers Factory Records; The video is a collaboration between American artist and experimental film-maker ROBERT BREER, and WILLIAM WEGMAN brought together under the supervision of Factory America boss Michael Schamberg.

It's divided between animation (the work of Breer), and live shots of New Order and Breer's dog (the work of Wegman). Breer has been making films for over thirty years, but he's hardly a graduate of the Walt Disney school of animation. What sets him apart from other cartoonists is his use of 'flip books', the old fashioned technique of drawing a series of pictures then running them together in sequence to produce the impression of constant motion.

Breer was approached to work on the project after Schamberg saw some of his films at an exhibition, although at first he had doubts about the idea. "I said I had a principle of not working from music" explained Breer. "I link the pictures together first, then I add sound later. But I played the song over a whole bulk of my films, and saw that there was indeed a marriage possible."

Originally New Order planned to be absent completely from the finished work in their usual enigmatic way, but later changed their minds when it was felt they should give themselves as high a visual profile as possible. This was when Wegman was called in, and after a few discussions with Breer it was decided he'd take a few of the flip books used in the animated sequences for the band to flick through when they were being filmed as they refused to pose with their instruments in true rock 'n' roll styles.

Breer and Wegman use many of the techniques and themes of their past work in the video, the collaboration between the two bringing out many of their common traits. Breer has always used his flip cards to set up rhythms, beats and frequencies, which here fall into time with the song. This is extended into the live sequences, with the dog jumping backwards, or leaping off chairs in synch to the breaks of 'Blue Monday'. Wegman plays games with reality, as the tennis ball pictured in the opening shot floats around the band as they pose, adding a surreal element to the live segments and blurring the boundaries between what is animated and what is not.

The two sections are also linked by associated images and ideas, similar in many respects to word association games. The line "I see a ship in the harbour. . ." pictures a ship seen as if through the lens of a telescope, which then spins like a beam from a lighthouse. It also accounts for the band hiding their faces behind nets and fishing baskets, and the plank which is apparently suspended from the side of a ship over the sea. It is in fact another of Wegman's games, as a pair of legs walks out over the edge and continues over the air.

Breer was once reluctant to work in the commercial art circus, so what attracted him to pop video?

"My feeling was that images of mine have been absorbed by commercial TV, and I haven't been paid for that. I figured I'd do this, and at least get paid for it."

Spoken like a true artist. 

John Tague

Illustration by Ray Lowry