Ben Morgan

Everybody Hurts REM Music Video Analysis

In the opening sequence of this music video for the song Everybody Hurts, it
starts off with an establishing shot from a low angle of a car and increasingly
moves further away showing a birds eye view of the road. At this moment in
time, everyone seems to be worry free but within an instance we see hundreds
of cars at a standstill who are obviously stuck in traffic. This tells the audience
that all of these people are in the same position which links back to the lyrics and
song title as at some point in everyones lives they will suffer from pain. I can
infer that this song isnt just aimed at one target audience because many people
from various age categories would be able to relate and this is represented
throughout when different demographics are shown.

A visual metaphor represented throughout is of long strenuous days where all

youre doing is sat doing nothing and this is shown through the use of a traffic
jam. This helps reinforce the meaning of the song as no one likes just sitting in
traffic doing nothing which tends to have a bad effect on the peoples days. It
reminds people they arent just the only ones who are put in a tricky situation
and faces struggles.

In this music video they have incorporated the band members meaning it is a
narrative music video however there are aspects which make it a concept video
due to the symbols in the video building up the meaning of the song. They have
restricted how much we see of the band as the shots that are shown to us are of
their shoulders, side faces etc not making them recognisable and the main focus
of the video because they are trying to focus on the moral of the song. It creates
an enigma code due to the lack of screen time they are shown. An enigma code
denotes to any element of the story that is not fully explained and hence
becomes a mystery to the reader.

As the song picks up in tempo the band members start to feature in the shots a
lot more, gaining more screen time. We are shown a medium shot of the
protagonist getting out of his car in frustration and is the first to do this. I can
infer that he doing this to let his feelings that are inside him escape to the
outside world and relieve a bit of tension and stress that were on his shoulders.
Richard Dyers theory of star power, was clearly demonstrated in this music
video and this was when the lead singer from REM gets out of his car and he
starts to perform which becomes part of the narrative with everyone replicating
his actions of leaving their cars and walks together down the road. This yet again
represents their unity and the lyrics signify this through the key word
everybody. Although the band has gained more screen time, the shots change
abruptly and are reduced in time scale to blend with the increase in tempo of the
song which reinforces the climax of the narrative. Once the tempo change has
become known, all of the band members are seen in a wide shot on a higher tier
to everyone else which implies their strength due to their relationship as they
can rise above any worries that may occur to any other individuals. The height
resembles their strength and willpower.
Ben Morgan

Within this music video an array of shots from different angles are accompanied
by a subtitle with a mixture of lyrics from the song or messages which link but
are either serious or humorous. By having this it gives the audience an
understanding into how they are feeling at that stage in the video and can show
the emotion through the phrases. For example, Silence is golden, Nobody can
see me., Stop singing stop singing stop singing and Theyre going to miss me.
These subtitles keeps the viewers attention throughout due to the fact that it
puts a thought into their mind about what will happen when the rest of the story
is revealed later in the video. This is effective because it makes the music video
slightly more intriguing and interesting to watch whilst it will also become
popular due to the unique effect of the usage of the subtitles.

This music video had glimpses of being a concept video but the symbolic type
due to the constant religious references however they were very subtle. These
symbols included a figure of Jesus in the back of a car that was shown through a
close up, the man ripping pages out of the bible and letting them float away and
also the protagonist from the band lying on the bonnet of the car in the
crucification symbol. This illustrates that whatever pain people are put through
God is always there to help them through it every step of the way even if they
feel as though they cant take anymore. As these symbols are subtle it could
imply that God isnt very obvious to everyone especially the ones who dont
believe in religion however he is always there nevertheless.

At the end of the music video it concludes by cutting to a news report after the
music had stopped. The camera is blurry and hand held making it realistic
showing the queue of cars that have been stranded by everyone after making a
statement. This added feature to the video makes it realistic due to the fact that
if this happened in this day and age the news would be straight on the case
filming about the event which makes this situation convincing. This is also
effective because it implies that if people come together and unite they can
make a threat to the outside world and have a huge impact.