The Auteurs - Light Aircraft On Fire

What this video is

Released February 1996 at the height of Britpop's commercial dominance, Light Aircraft On Fire was the lead single from After Murder Park — widely regarded as the definitive anti-Britpop album. Produced by Steve Albini (fresh from Nirvana's In Utero), the album was a deliberate refusal of the era's sunny nationalism, and its visual counterpart, directed by a pre-fame Chris Cunningham, extends that hostility into…

Why it matters

Documents a pivotal pre-breakthrough commission for Chris Cunningham, one of the most influential music video directors of the late 1990s. As an early-career artifact predating his celebrated Warp Records collaborations, this video offers rare comparative evidence of Cunningham's developing visual…

The director

English music video director and video artist, born Reading, Berkshire, 1970. Early career spanned comic book art, prosthetic make-up, and model work in film. Was headhunted by Stanley Kubrick after work on the 1995 Judge Dredd film to design animatronic…