Beck - Deadweight

What this video is

Released in late 1997, 'Deadweight' occupied a unique intersection of American alternative rock's commercial peak and the era's Hollywood-indie crossover soundtrack trend — following Trainspotting (1996) and preceding the post-Napster collapse of physical soundtrack sales. Beck, fresh off the Grammy-winning Odelay (1996), contributed the track as part of his self-described 'Brazilian trilogy,' blending bossa…

Why it matters

A landmark artifact in the Gondry-Beck creative relationship and in 1990s art-music-video history. The video represents the apex of in-camera practical surrealism as a dominant music video language, predating the CGI saturation of the 2000s. Its cross-media structure — embedding feature film…

The director

Michel Gondry (born May 8, 1963, Versailles, France) is a French film director, screenwriter, and producer. He began directing music videos in the 1990s after creating clips for his own band Oui Oui, which attracted Björk's attention and led to their…