Natalie Imbruglia - Torn

What this video is

Released October 1997 as the lead single from Imbruglia's debut album Left of the Middle (RCA/BMG), 'Torn' arrived at the peak of the post-Britpop commercial boom and the global MTV-driven female alt-pop wave inspired by Alanis Morissette and Sheryl Crow. The video's meta-cinematic concept — exposing the apparatus of music video production — resonated as an act of authenticity in an era suspicious of pop artifice.…

Why it matters

Landmark in the 'confessional female pop' tradition of the mid-1990s, bridging alternative rock emotional directness with mainstream pop production. The video's meta-theatrical single-shot concept influenced a generation of low-concept, high-concept music video aesthetics and remains among the…

The director

Canadian-New Zealand director born July 31, 1958 in Ottawa, Ontario, to New Zealand-born parents; immigrated to New Zealand in 1972; graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts, Auckland (BFA, sculpture, 1982). Known for short film Kitchen Sink (1989), Cannes…