Steady Diet of Film

Music Video Epiphany: the Beyonce edition

Welcome to the second installment of Music Video Epiphany wherein we mine pop videos for their secret cinematic greatness. 

Today we'll be discussing Beyonce's "Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)", the first single from Ms. Knowles' latest  album "I am.. Sasha Fierce". Directed by Jake Nava the video for "Single Ladies..." has been described as inspiring many grown men to experience "a second puberty" but in its sexy minimalism we see even more potential.

The choreography was largely inspired by Bob Fosse's Mexican Breakfast which was also recently the subject of a viral video sensation with Gwen Verdon's performance being set to DJ Unk's "Walk it Out":

The black and white composition also seems reminiscent of the Sophia Coppola-helmed music video for the White Stripes' cover of Dusty Springfield's "I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself". The video features a scantily clad Kate Moss performing a somewhat awkward pole dance:

And it has escaped the attention of few that Beyonce wears some kind of robot (possibly Terminator-inspired) power glove in the piece. It's similar to the one worn by Ed Westwick (now playing the charming yet conflicted villain Chuck Bass on the CW's teen melodrama "Gossip Girl") in Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men where he played a video game-addicted teenage son of Clive Owen's art collector cousin:

Which brings us to the final result:

See also:

• The Slate Gabfest Guide to Beyonce-ology
• E! Online: Whose Idea Was Beyonce's Shiny Metal Glove?

Have any videos you want run through the Epiphany machine? Leave us a comment below.

Music Video Epiphany: the Rihanna edition

Many great film directors get their start in music videos (Brett Ratner notwithstanding) and so many music videos are inspired largely by film. Steady Diet of Film, secret pop music lovers that we are, are delighted to introduce a new series called Music Video Epiphany wherein we watch pop videos and tease out their cinematic greatness.  

If you take Delphine Seyrig's costumes (designed by Coco Chanel) from Last Year at Marienbad (dir: Alain Resnais):

Plus the sets from Tim Robbin's PTSD psychodrama Jacob's Ladder (dir: Adrian Lyne)

And riff on the title from Disturbia (dir: DJ Caruso) aka the "Hitchcock for Teenagers" primer starring Shia LaBeouf:

You get Rihanna's "Disturbia".

See also:

• The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco will be screening the very out of print Last Year at Marienbad as part of a tribute to Alain Resnais starting this week.

• Karina Longworth's tribute to the close-ups of David Fincher's music video oeuvre.