One of the great music videos by N.A.S.A. mentioned in that Tom Waits post (though I don’t know if it’s the best) features the distinctive work of the artist Marcel Dzama (ignore the D and you’re probably pronouncing it right). The song, ‘The People Tree’, features David Byrne so, you know – get to it.
But Dzama’s imaginatively eerie style (if his art was in a horror film, it would be an artful crayon drawing by a haunted child that makes the parents wonder just what the hell is wrong with their kid) has been better captured on video elsewhere – in this Department of Eagles video for ‘No One Does It Like You’, which the artist himself co-directed with Patrick Daughters:
(Dzama also, Wikipedia tells me, contributed to this Bob Dylan music video ‘When the Deal Goes Down’, but his contribution seems to come only at the end, by which time it may be competing for the viewer with the creeping approach of yawns and sleep.)
If you like Dzama’s style, McSweeney’s publish a collection of his work called The Berliner Ensemble Thanks You All, which is as beautiful and composed of as many small wonders of unorthodox formatting as you might hope from a McSweeney’s book.
