David Bowie - The Next Day

What this video is

Released on 8 May 2013 as the title-track video from Bowie's 25th studio album, itself his first release in a decade following his near-fatal cardiac episode in 2004 and subsequent withdrawal from public life. The video arrived into a cultural moment of intense scrutiny around Bowie's return — The Next Day was his ninth UK number-one album and his first chart-topper since 1993. Its provocative fusion of Catholic…

Why it matters

A landmark of post-2010 art rock video production, 'The Next Day' video reasserted the music video as a site of serious auteurist and literary ambition at a moment when the form was widely considered commercially diminished by streaming. Sigismondi's direction synthesised baroque painting,…

The director

Italian-Canadian film director, photographer, and music video auteur born 1965 in Pescara, Italy; raised in Hamilton, Ontario. Studied painting and photography at the Ontario College of Art and Design. Transitioned from fashion photography to music video…