Tonight, and the Rest of My Life

I have recently become enamored of (or addicted to) the art form known as the AMV, or "anime music video" -- in which visual artists, music lovers, and movie fans create music videos by setting video clips (often, though no longer exclusively, anime) to the lyrics of a favorite song. The pairing of lyrics and images are sometimes incongruous, sometimes ironic, and sometimes deeply poignant. Recently our blog featured a mainstream film trailer (for Watchmen) that actually works as a beautifully rendered AMV:



You can read the original feature on Watchmen here.

The AMV is a remarkable medium, and I look forward to discovering more of it. Our art editor, Jessica Fusch, has been trying her hand, and has granted me permission to share some of her beautiful experimentation with our readers. Here is her take on the film Advent Children, set to Nina Gordon's song Tonight:



I was startled by the choice of song, but how hauntingly the words and the images dance together, until the lyrics take on quite a new meaning. I found especially haunting the sight of the broken landscape of the planet set to these lines,

And the sky might catch on fire
And burn the axis of the world
That's why I prefer a sunless sky
To the glittering and stinging in my eyes

Having Gordon's haunting lyrics set to an equally haunting visual of a world beneath a sunless sky (in a film about a hero who wishes at first to turn away from saving that world so as not to feel the glittering and stinging in his eyes) sends shivers through me.

Post a comment -- our art editor would welcome either praise or feedback, I am certain. In most other hours of the day, she is a gifted photographer -- you can see her camera-work here.

You can also read an earlier feature on Advent Children, and a few other films, here.

Daniel