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	sound & vision: the directors label dvd showcase the music video directors mark romanek, jonathan glazer, anton corbijn and stéphane sednaoui by nick hyman fall 2005 within the bling and the cliché of today’s music videos, there are still visionaries who continue to demonstrate innovation. spike jonze, michel gondry and chris cunningham created the director’s label dvd series to highlight the works of individual music video directors. the latest volume features mark romanek, jonathan glazer, anton corbijn, and stéphane sednaoui each with their own dvd. under the radar spoke with each director about their works, the directors label, and the continuing relevance of the genre. mark romanek chicago native mark romanek is arguably the most-recognized video auteur. in 1997, he won the inaugural mtv video vanguard lifetime achievement award; his videos for madonna’s “bedtime stories” and nine inch nails “closer” have a permanent home at new york city’s museum of modern art. these days, the la-based artist continues to make videos (coldplay’s “speed of sound”) and is working on a script to follow up his last film, one hour photo, starring robin williams. a supposed perfectionist, romanek said he was hard on himself when choosing which of his videos to feature in his director’s label dvd. “i wanted to be honest with myself at the time i did the video, and i remember that some videos, when i finished them, i was like, ‘it’s not exactly what i wanted’”. to defuse the seriousness of his approach, the director also included on his dvd the short film romanekian in which williams, chris rock and ben stiller comment on romanek’s work. “i think part of it arose from the fact that there was a real desperate need on my part to be somewhat self-deprecating, ‘cause there was the quality of the documentary that they were putting together and the nature of the commentaries was starting to become a little bit overly serious. i was very flattered by it, but they’re music videos. let’s lighten this up a little bit”, romanek says. an earlier incarnation of romanek’s collection almost came out a few years ago through criterion. “ i spent a year and a half working on it, then criterion decides ‘we’re over extending ourselves and probably should just stick to our bread and butter, the release of these great art films, and maybe we shouldn’t be in the music video business.’ i was really angry and disappointed,” romanek relates. in retrospect, however, he was relieved the deal fell apart, “i think some of the best videos i ever did happened after--- like, the johnny cash [“hurt”], and the jay-z [“99 problems”] videos. it all worked out for the best,” he says, pointing out two videos which appear on his director’s label dvd. the director is brutal when describing current video trends. “[earlier,] there was a sense of newness and excitement about it which has now become kind of jaded and corporatized. mtv sold out the medium. they not only bit the hand that was feeding it, they chewed it up to the elbow. it’s just that the music’s been really bad for a while, it seemed like there was just more exciting stuff going on musically [before].” but romanek concedes that announcing the death of the medium is premature: “there’s something too elemental about the combination of pop music and movies. it’s not gonna go away, it’s gonna evolve and change, it’ll go in phases like anything else. the very fact that there’s a whole generation of kids who grew up watching videos and maybe admiring video directors means that there’s probably a whole other group of filmmakers coming—that’s my optimistic view of it anyway. assuming anyone’s alive to watch them.” click to visit the under the radar website click to visit the official directors label website back to press