The Decemberists - ＂This Is Why We Fight＂

What this video is

Released April 7, 2011, this video accompanied a track from 'The King Is Dead,' The Decemberists' sixth studio album and their first to reach #1 on the Billboard 200. The album was recorded at Pendarvis Farm near Portland, Oregon, and carried heavy R.E.M. influences. The video's post-apocalyptic youth narrative visually echoes anxieties of the post-2008 recession era — a generation inheriting a broken world — while…

Why it matters

A landmark of early-2010s literary indie folk visual culture, the video demonstrates the genre's ambition to elevate music video storytelling to short-film quality. Its 35mm anamorphic photography, festival recognition at Camerimage, and MTV VMA wins mark it as a high-water point for indie music…

The director

Aaron Stewart-Ahn is a writer-director born in Monterey, CA, who grew up in the Pacific Northwest and studied at University College Cork, Ireland and the London Film School. He is best known for co-writing the screenplay for Panos Cosmatos' cult horror film…