Student: Kevin Mulder Date: 28 June 2019 Student number: 10173668 Email: [email protected] Supervisor: Charles Forceville Second Reader: Gerwin van der Pol MA Film Studies, University of Amsterdam Word count: 19.943 The Metaphorical Representation of Depression in Music Documentaries
Contents Abstract ...... 2 Acknowledgements ...... 3 Introduction ...... 4 Chapter 1. How Can We Define Music Documentaries? ...... 6 1.1 The Basics: The Documentary and Genre ...... 6 1.2 The Music Documentary ...... 9 1.3 How Events Shape the Music Documentary ...... 11 1.4 The Music Video and its Relation to the Music Documentary ...... 12 1.5 The Impact of Reality and Social Media in the Music Documentary ...... 13 1.6 Taboos and the Rise of the Modern Music Documentary ...... 15 1.7 Conclusion ...... 17 Chapter 2. How Can We Define Depression and its Representation? ...... 19 2.1 Defining Depression ...... 19 2.2 Metaphors Concerning Depression ...... 23 2.3 The Multimodal Metaphor ...... 25 2.4 Multimodal Metaphor as a Tool for Analysis ...... 27 2.5 Conclusion ...... 29 Chapter 3. How is Depression Represented in Music Documentaries? ...... 30 3.1 Amy Winehouse ...... 30 3.2 Kurt Cobain ...... 34 3.3 Jim Morrison ...... 38 3.4 The Club 27 ...... 42 3.5 Avicii ...... 44 3.6 Conclusion ...... 48 Chapter 4. Conclusion ...... 51 Appendix I ...... 54 Appendix II ...... 55 Appendix III ...... 56 Appendix IV ...... 57 Appendix V ...... 58 Bibliography ...... 59 Media list ...... 61 Articles Artists ...... 61 Music Videos ...... 62 Images ...... 62
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Abstract
The research in this thesis will focus on music documentaries and the depression that the musicians in it suffer from. Firstly I have analyzed the genre of the music documentary and examined its ability to discuss two distinct subjects at the same time: in my case this is the music of the artists in question and the mental affliction depression. Because depression is such an abstract but also a subject of taboo, I focused on metaphor. Metaphors can more clearly describe abstract mental illnesses, as depression is. Therefore I analyzed the metaphorical representation of depression in the music documentaries, mainly about the infamous ‘club 27,’ pop musicians who committed suicide when they were 27 years old.
Keywords: depression, documentary, music documentary, metaphor, multimodal metaphor, CMT (conceptual metaphor theory).
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Acknowledgements
For me it was unsurprising to write about music documentaries, because music was the initial reason I started doing Media Studies. For my Bachelor thesis I wrote about the music video and whether some of them could be seen as music films – in terms of story and length. Because of my affection for music I started watching more documentaries about music, and I realized that this was in fact a different subgenre of the documentary, but what I also recognized by watching the documentary Roger Waters: The Wall (Sean Evans and Roger Waters, 2014) is that these documentaries do not only focus on music. In The Wall it was apparent that the focus was on capitalism and socialism, mainly because Pink Floyd’s music bears messages about society in them. For me, right then and there, I saw a connection. Depression and the ‘club 27’, then, became my subject after seeing the documentary Avicii: True Stories (Levan Tsikurishvili, 2017), and the fact that while writing this, I am 27 years old. First I want to thank my parents, for proofreading and for hearing my explanations for examining such a heavy subject, my dad in particular. I also want to thank my sister Melanie for critically looking at the words I put on paper, and I want to thank my supervisor Charles Forceville who steered me in the right direction.
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Introduction
In the last decade awareness campaigns concerning depression, which is identified as a mental illness, appear to be more common in contemporary society. Because discussing mental afflictions is mostly seen as taboo, and because it is an abstract problem to understand, I recognized that in discussing this topic, speech and other forms of communication, tend to use metaphors. I believe this is the case because depression is such a difficult concept to understand. Therefore I will examine the representation of depression in all of the (music) documentaries that I have chosen. My focus will be on documentaries known as music documentaries, wherein artists are portrayed that are currently no longer among us. All of the artists discussed in this thesis died young, and the notion of pressure and depression is connected with them in one way or another. Documentary is a genre that has existed from the moment that the medium of film was created. It is also a genre that inclines to ask questions about problems that tend to be swept under the rug. In this thesis the focus will be on a documentary subgenre that has not been extensively researched, namely the music documentary. However, I am eager to take this a step further, as in this subgenre of the music documentary I will focus on the representation of depression. The main focus is on the documentaries concerning the ‘club 27’, a group of artists that died at the age of 27. In the first chapter I will concentrate on the documentary genre and explain what the music documentary is, and how I define it specifically. I will do this through the readings of Bill Nichols, who has written extensively about the documentary. Another work that is important in my research is the book The Music Documentary: Acid Rock to Electropop edited by Benjamin Halligan, Robert Edgar and Kirsty Fairclough-Isaacs (2013). To this date, this book is the first and only one to be researching the music documentary. Therefore I will also analyze the notion of genre, for the music documentary is a subgenre within the documentary genre. The second chapter will focus on depression and how this mental illness could be represented. I will start with defining depression. This is needed because symptoms of this mental illness could be used to construe metaphors. Subsequently, this is what brings us to metaphor and multimodal metaphor in particular. Discussing depression cannot only be seen as taboo, but depression – not unlike other mental illnesses and even death – is a very abstract concept. To make mental illness in documentaries more understandable, metaphors are used. For this reason I will look at the works of El Refaie (2019) and Forceville and Paling (2018)
4 who have written about (multimodal) metaphor concerning depression. In the third chapter I will analyze Amy (Asif Kapadia, 2015), Cobain: Montage of Heck (Brett Morgen, 2015), The Doors: When You’re Strange (Tom DiCillo, 2009), 27: Gone Too Soon (Simon Napier-Bell, 2018) and Avicii: True Stories (Levan Tsikurishvili, 2017). The first four films discuss artists that belong to the infamous ‘club 27’ and 27: Gone Too Soon focuses especially on that fact. Avicii: True Stories can be looked at differently in this respect, because Avicii died at the age of 28, and the documentary made about him – and the feelings of depression and anxiety that came along with the pressure of the music industry – was recorded before he passed away. After analyzing each documentary individually, using the concepts identified in the former two chapters, I will in the fourth and final chapter compare the documentaries. How are they similar? How do they differ? The most important questions are: ‘Can these documentaries be called a music documentary?’ and ‘How is depression represented or discussed?’ For this last question I argue that the concept of (multimodal) metaphor is vital.
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Chapter 1. How Can We Define Music Documentaries?
In this thesis I will analyze music documentaries, and especially those that portray artists who are no longer with us. These include Avicii, Amy Whinehouse, Kurt Cobain and other artists that died young. Although it is clear that I want to look at a form of documentary that has been coined the ‘music documentary’, first I need to concentrate on documentary itself. This is necessary to analyze style and aesthetics. Music documentary is only a part of a vast scale of films listed under the genre documentary. Therein I want to consider that these music documentaries have two interconnected stories to tell; this will be my main focus throughout this chapter. I will argue that these so-called documentaries usually go beyond portraying particular artists to focus on a (secondary) story related to social and taboo issues.
1.1 The Basics: The Documentary and Genre
In the research that has been done in documentary studies, it is apparent that one name seems omnipresent, and that is Bill Nichols. He states in the chapter “How Can We Define Documentary Film” in his book Introduction to Documentary that “documentary has become the flagship for a cinema of social engagement and distinctive vision” (2017: 1). He goes on by saying that sites like YouTube and Facebook have not only used but also changed the documentary form – for instance in mockumentary, which is a form of fiction that uses the documentary aesthetics – and he explains that this is the case because of “[their] next-to- nothing costs of dissemination, along with [their] unique forms of word-of-mouth enthusiasm” (Nichols 2017: 1). As a result, documentary has become an integral part of modern media, and similar to fiction film, documentary consists of a multitude of genres, of which the music documentary is but one. The fact that dissemination on YouTube/Facebook costs “next-to-nothing” does not mean that its production is similarly cheap, but it does indicate that amateur filmmakers have an accessible space to distribute their content. Nichols suggests that although documentaries “[are] often structured as stories, they are stories with a difference: the stories from the world we all share” (2017: 1). Documentaries thus are unlike fiction and also unlike news reports, for news and journalism have a neutral approach, where documentary tends to have a voice, and that the filmmakers seem to tell this story from the heart “like the great orators of the past” (Nichols 2017: 4). He continues by giving the example of independent documentary “that has brought a fresh eye to the events of the world and has told stories, with verve and imagination, that broaden horizons and awaken new possibilities” (1). Nichols goes on by saying that it is not easy to define
6 documentary, but argues that “neither a fictional invention nor a factual reproduction, documentary draws on and refers to historical reality while representing it from a distinct perspective” (5). By representing this historical reality “documentaries strive to respect known facts and offer verifiable evidence. They do more than this, but a documentary that distorts facts, alters reality, or fabricates evidence, jeopardizes its own status as a documentary” (6). Other (fiction) films can also jeopardize the reality proposed in documentaries. The film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (Larry Charles, 2006) for instance, is shot in the hand-held style of documentary films, but is largely fiction. However, there are people that are interviewed as themselves, and voice their personal, and often shocking, opinions, which is a function of non-fiction. Grizzly Man (Werner Herzog, 2005) features the voice-over by the director Werner Herzog himself, and because his accent, at least for me, is reminiscent of Borat’s, one cannot help but wonder if this film is rather a mockumentary. To clarify, Grizzly Man is not a work of fiction, and the star of the film, Timothy Treadwell, was indeed attacked and killed by a grizzly bear. “[Documentaries are] not a reproduction; [they are] a representation,” Nichols explains. “Therefore, they are not documents as much as expressive representations of what documents may contain. We judge a document by its authenticity and a reproduction by its fidelity to the original” (2017: 9, emphasis in original). According to Nichols, the main difference between a documentary and a film that was based on a true story is the role of the director, and “the degree to which the story fundamentally corresponds to actual situations, events and people” (8). In essence there is a fine line between documentary and fiction film; a line that seems to have become more and more blurred. Like fantasy, science fiction and the western, documentary is a genre argues Nichols (2017: 15). He states that:
to belong to the documentary genre, a film has to exhibit conventions shared by films already regarded as documentaries. These conventions help distinguish one genre from another: the use of voice-of-God commentary, interviews, location sound recording, cutaways from a given scene to provide images that illustrate or complicate stated points (often referred to as B-roll footage), and a reliance on social actors in their everyday roles and activities, are among the conventions common to many documentaries (15).
With this list of conventions, Nichols considers documentary a genre. To fully understand the notion of genre, we must look at Rick Altman’s article “A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre.” When we turn our attention towards the semantics of the western, as Altman
7 does, we can identify the lone cowboy, the horse as a mode of transportation and the use of long shots, to portray vast distances of the prairie (1984: 10). These would be ‘semantic’ elements of the Western. For documentary this would be the voice-over, the use of hand-held camera – mostly purposefully shaking footage that reminds us of home videos – and people ‘playing’ themselves. The syntax of the western is the tension between the cowboy and ‘Indians’ that coincides with the frontier, and “takes place on the border between two lands, between two areas, and with a hero who remains divided between two value systems (for he combines the town’s morals with the outlaws’ skills)” (Altman 1984: 11). Looking at documentary, this syntax can be seen as portraying something that is unknown or little known to the desired audience of documentaries, as well as letting ‘victims’ tell their own stories. But these examples in themselves are not enough to call documentary a genre. Documentary, then, is like fiction film in that it includes a multitude of subgenres within itself, one of which is the ‘music documentary.’ Nichols calls documentary subgenres ‘modes,’ which relates to stylistic aspects of the documentary. He explains that “most films incorporate more than one mode, even though some modes are more prominent at one time or place than another. These modes serve as a skeletal framework that individual filmmakers flesh out according to their own creative disposition” (Nichols 2010: 143). The modes that Nichols identifies are (1) expository (“provide an account of a subject through commentary and images of illustration (B-roll)”), (2) observational (“follow and observe social actors as they go about their lives”), (3) participatory (“feature engagement between the filmmaker and the subjects to draw them out in revealing ways and to develop a story or perspective”), (4) reflexive (“draw attention to the conventions, assumptions, and expectations underlying documentary films”) (5) poetic (“create an aesthetically pleasing experience in relation to some aspect of the historical world ”), (6) performative (“stress the filmmaker’s embodied, expressive engagement with an issue, situation, or event”) and (7) interactive (“structure a web-based, interactive experience to enhance our understanding of the historical world”) (Nichols 2017: 156). These modes, then, steer the viewer’s expectations.
Each mode possesses distinct qualities – qualities that are sometimes a matter of emphasis more than hard-and-fast distinctions. The qualities of each mode, along with the modes that filmmakers adopt, provide a rich toolbox of resources from which to fashion distinctive new documentaries (Nichols 2017: 158). As understood by Altman “each genre must be understood as a separate entity, with its own literary rules and procedures” (1999: 3). These rules relate to the ‘grammar’ of films, as
8 explained by Altman through syntax and semantics. Considering genre and the modes that Nichols identifies, it is essential to understand that Altman continues by stating that “the notion of genre is now fully conscripted into the legion of techniques whereby writers are trained to respect current standards of cultural acceptability” (3). The same could be argued for documentaries in their use of particular modes. The specific use of certain modes relate to what an audience expects of certain documentaries. A documentary focusing on music, for instance, could be observational when it comes to a performance, and morphs to participatory when we see the interviewer or filmmaker interact with the artist. It is unnecessary to list and explain all of these genres, for I will focus specifically on the music documentary.
1.2 The Music Documentary
As the name suggests, music documentaries explore music in all its forms. Although music documentaries have been around for decades, research on documentaries concerning music has been limited. In the introduction of the book The Music Documentary: Acid Rock to Electropop, Benjamin Halligan, Robert Edgar and Kirsty Fairclough-Isaacs (2013a) mention that “the music documentary has risen in prominence – from a mere adjunct to music “proper” to a component fundamental to contemporary popular music, and a film genre in its own right – without ever being subject to substantial critical and academic perspectives” (2013b: xi, quotes in the original). This means that their work is important to my research, as the work of Nichols is to the documentary field as a whole. It is interesting to note, then, that Michael Saffle claims in his chapter “Retrospective Compilation: (Re)defining the Music Documentary” that “no one subject, style, or era entirely defined “music documentary” thirty- five years ago. This is still the case today” (2013: 47, quotes in original). This is a fascinating notion, and it means that the music documentary can potentially be a wide range of things, within the even broader genre of the documentary itself. For my thesis it is important to look at the ‘second story’ that music documentaries tend to tell. Most relate to social issues, like the mental illness depression. “Music has been radically altered by its incorporation of screen media over the last half century, and screen media has been deprived of its old assumptions about documentary form and techniques of documentary-making through its encounters with music” (Halligan et al; 2013b: xvi). In other words, we can recognize the music documentary as a genre in itself, but in turn, music videos and music documentaries challenged the documentary genre. John Corner argues in his article “Sounds Real: Music and Documentary” that by looking at music in documentary, we have to keep in mind the style and genre, of both documentary and of the
9 music that is used (2002: 357-358). He contrasts the use of music in fiction film and documentary by stating:
Musical soundtrack in scenes of acted narrative and dramatised setting, perhaps underneath dialogue, guides us in our imaginative response to a fictional world, a world that is the rhetorical project of the film or programme to encourage us to be drawn within. The music works to position us in terms of this diegetic containment. However, documentary’s images, interviews and commentaries work largely within the terms of display and exposition. Our involvement here is different from the way in which we are spectators to a ‘visible fiction’. We may be the addressees of direct, spoken address, images may be offered to us as an illustration of explicit compositions, we may be cued to watch sequences as witnesses to the implicit revelation of more general truths. In this context, musical relations are likely to become more self-conscious, and less intimate, than when watching fiction (358, quotes in the original). For the genre of music documentary it is apparent that music is the most important aspect, closely followed by the portrayal of the artists themselves. That does not mean, however, that music documentaries will only use the music of the artist they want to discus. Corner looks at Michael Rabiger’s Directing the Documentary, who says in discussing music in documentaries that: “music should not inject false emotion; choice of music should give access to the inner life of a character or the subject; music can signal the emotional level at which the audience should investigate what is shown” (Rabiger 1998: 310, cited by Corner 2002: 358). What is made clear by this is that the use of music in documentary will steer the audience in a certain direction when it comes to emotion; as is the case in fiction film. This could be done by using the music of the band or artists themselves – as happens for instance with Avicii’s “Hey Brother” in the documentary Avicii: True Stories (Levan Tsikurishvili, 2017). Mostly, however, it is done by using ‘drones’, which are continuous tones that indicate a feeling of joy or sadness, for instance. It therefore is apparent how much influence music can have for storytelling, as told by social actors playing themselves, as well as told by the director. Silence has a part to play in this music documentary as well, according to Corner. He says that “the codes for watching silent depictions are relatively undeveloped in Western culture” (360). When we are watching real life events in silence, this does not matter, but if there is silence in a documentary, it should be functional, such as giving the audience the feeling of awkwardness. It goes without saying that the use of sounds and music in music documentaries will steer the audience towards the feeling, or emotional state, of the artist or (members of a) band in question. It is, however, also possible that the director wants to steer the audience’s emotions or attitude in a direction that does not mirror that of the artist. Music documentaries, thus, are documentaries wherein music plays a crucial role. This
10 can be the case when the documentary discusses music of a particular artist, or when artists or bands are used for their popularity to bring to light different problems that indirectly relate to the artists in question. These problems are important to the documentary, but especially for the audience, they are secondary to the music and the lives of the artists the music documentary is portraying.
1.3 How Events Shape the Music Documentary
In “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly ‘60s” by Julie Lobalzo Wright, it is stated that the documentaries about the legendary Woodstock and Altamont concerts were something else altogether than the (music) documentaries that had been made before.
These events, in themselves, have come to represent the highpoint of the 1960s America counterculture movement and its symbolic end, respectively. The documentaries drawn from the events – Woodstock (Michael Wadleigh, 1970) and Gimme Shelter (Albert and David Maysles, 1970) – helped shape both the “Direct Cinema” movement and the “rockumentary” genre (Lobalzo Wright 2013: 71). This, however, was not the only thing that made these documentaries special. Lobalzo Wright continues by saying that:
The narratives, structures, and moods of Woodstock and Gimme Shelter are clearly informed by the reception of the Woodstock and Altamont concerts. Both films are concerned with representing an experience, but while the Woodstock experience was deemed positive, the undercurrent negativity associated with Altamont and Hunter’s murder causes Gimme Shelter to come to function like a murder mystery – more than just a concert film. The impending film was mentioned in many reports about the concert, raising expectations that the Maysles brothers may have captured the murder on film. Thus, before Gimme Shelter was even completed, the film was already expected to explain what happened at the one-day concert. Woodstock, on the other hand, was a film that sought to demonstrate what made the event so special and unique (72-73). Although both films were initially aimed to represent and register events that took place during a music festival, it could be argued that circumstances lie at the heart of these films, especially when it comes to Gimme Shelter. The Maysles brothers wanted to make a concert registration of the important artists on this festival, but by (allegedly) filming the killing, the film becomes something else. Music documentaries can use circumstance to their advantage. This film, in my opinion, signifies what the music documentary is: not simply a representation of an artist playing and explaining their music, but rather a critique on taboo issues, although it must be stated that Gimme Shelter did not critique any taboo issues. The same could be said
11 for Woodstock. They did, however, help transform the music documentary from being mere registrations to a film that could focus on taboo and social issues.
1.4 The Music Video and its Relation to the Music Documentary
Nicola Dibben argues that “music videos, and many music documentaries, function as a marketing device, as well as artistic products in their own right” (2009: 134). To argue that music videos are an artistic way of promoting music is unsurprising; especially in contemporary society, where everything tends to need a visual counterpart. Music videos are, however, not necessarily a representation of reality, although one could argue that earlier music videos were. These were typically registrations of live music, unlike the music videos we know today. By contrast, documentaries are expected to be the (filmmaker’s) representation of reality in one way or another, so it seems farfetched to claim that music documentaries are also a marketing – as well as an artistic – device. However, this does appear to be the case. Although strictly speaking not belonging to the genre of music documentaries, music videos played an important role regarding the visualization of music, and therefore influenced the aesthetics of music documentaries. In Rewind, Play, Fast Forward: The Past, Present and Future of the Music Video, Saul Austerlitz argues that “[music] videos are advertisements for music, their stated intent to move widgets with maximum efficiency. This is the music video’s limitation and its strength” (2010: 39). However, there was some fear that the aural aspect of music would become secondary to the music video; that is why the Buggles wrote the song “Video Killed the Radio Star.” Halligan et al state that:
MTV began broadcasting in August 1981. The transistor radio, in this paradigm shift, would be unable to deliver the full payload, commercial or cultural, of music, and so this radio culture would wither away. And, it was commonly feared, musicianship, musicality, and even live performance would be rendered redundant. The shaman of yesteryear would be replaced by a succession of asexual, robotic models (2013c: 3). Music videos not only focus on the aural aspect, but also favor the visual mode, whereas music before music videos was the most important aspect. Because of the visual components, contemporary music is something that has to be visualized as well. For example, nowadays there are artists that by all standards are not real, like Hatsune Miku, a holographic pop star. Although she is not real – or at least she is not a physical person like the rest of us – she does perform on stage, with live music. In this performance the instruments are played live, but Hatsune Miku’s voice cannot be, for it is computer generated. The opposite can be said for
12 alleged live performances of DJ’s, whose main material is studio produced, but the DJ himself is there, turning the tables. A different example of the visual attraction being important is the British band Gorillaz, which is a collaboration between Damon Albarn – the singer known for being the front man of the British band Blur – and the visual artist Jamie Hewlett. They are seen as a visual artist, and the visual aspect is important, for the band members are visualized. The musicians (the people that actually play the instruments) are mainly in the background, although everything they play is live, and the visual representation of the band is seen on stage, instead of the ‘real’ musicians. It is apparent that “even classical music has been marketed through film, and many pop-music documentaries are manufactured in order to market the artists they foreground” (Saffle 2013: 43). Music videos in their early stages were merely registrations of performances, just as the music documentary was. They influenced each other in what was possible; like the use of animation in music documentaries, for instance. Some music videos have interview aspects in them, like Thirty Seconds To Mars’ “City of Angels,” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ntlt2tKi4do) and likewise, music documentaries can use filmic footage, or even animation. One of the differences between a music video and a music documentary is the duration. Music videos tend to be short – ranging from five minutes, to half an hour – whereas music documentaries are feature length. More importantly, music videos are created to promote one song in particular – while music documentaries focus on the artist – and can therefore feature more songs, and can even include songs that are made by their competitors. Where they differ as well is the way in which they can voice opinions about social issues. Music videos can also do this, but the audience of a documentary would engage more with the issues proposed than those simply watching a music video.
1.5 The Impact of Reality and Social Media in the Music Documentary
According to Halligan et al (2013c), as discussed in the chapter “Introduction: Music Seen,” the documentary Madonna: Truth or Dare (Alek Keshishian, 1991) “very visibly shifted the landscape of the music documentary.” This documentary is seen as trashy, scandalous and entertaining and it did so by “[looking] behind the scenes of Madonna’s 1990 Blonde Ambition tour, cementing the image of a notoriously outrageous persona that was further exacerbated by the singer’s monstrous behavior towards her crew and fellow celebrities” (17). As a result, we question the documentary’s authenticity, which has the form of staged (exaggerated) performances. Artists and celebrities are supposed to be somehow ‘more than
13 human’ for the media put them on a pedestal. It is clear that by behaving in such a way, Madonna wanted to challenge that notion. Halligan et al explain by suggesting:
This notion of reclaiming the public image from the public has since become a key trope within the music documentary. Indeed the music documentary as a vehicle for the mainstream pop star has increased exponentially alongside the global digital convergence of media, and has created a multiplicity of outlets for the distribution of the celebrity/star image. It would appear that the music documentary is no longer reserved for “serious” musicians, as evidenced by the popularity of pop documentaries, often afforded for a full theatrical release (2013c: 17-18).
It is made clear that all musicians are documenting and promoting a certain view of their lives in one way or another. With the use of social media it becomes easier to document certain aspects of the life of a star. Halligan et al go further by saying that “the echoes of this documentary [Madonna: Truth or Dare] can be seen throughout contemporary celebrity culture, particularly in reality TV” (18). Especially in reality TV, we have to think that we see everything, and in particular the things that should better be kept behind closed doors. Bill Nichols claims in his chapter “How Can We Define Documentary Film” that:
friendliness invites a friendly presentation of self, but the introduction of a sarcastic remark may prompt guardedness. Embarrassment or determination may blossom in front of the camera, and in a documentary, we assume this quality stems from the social actor’s own persona rather than a role they’ve been asked to play (2017: 6-7). In this regard we consider Madonna a stage persona, as she brings a monstrous personality to the fore. According to Halligan et al. Madonna is a social actor in the documentary, considering that she is playing herself. Although this documentary has transformed the way in which celebrities present themselves – both in documentaries and on social media – there is always the question of how this performance relates to reality; although it must be stated that ‘reality’ is an elusive and problematic concept. In relation to reality TV, Nichols argues that “we may assign more realism to certain forms of fiction than they deserve, although some reality TV shows consciously create a blurry boundary between the actual people depicted and the role they seem to adopt at the bequest of the show’s creators” (2017: 7). The same holds true for music documentary, especially when you look at Madonna: Truth or Dare. An example of an artist with two distinct personalities is Alice Cooper. On stage he is a ‘bad guy’ who ‘dies’ multiple times. In his ‘real life’ he is a devout Christian, and almost the direct opposite of his stage persona. Thomas Cohen argues in “The Emergence of the Rock Star” that:
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Once we resist reducing meaning to the emotional revelations of an authentic, ‘true’ self – a ‘ghost in the machine’ as it were – the gestures and actions that performers make on-stage can appear significant. One could even argue that, off-stage, subjects have the presence of mind to construct self-conscious presentations of their ‘true’ selves, whereas, on-stage, a performer is less likely to adjust his or her behavior for the camera. A more defensible theory, however, would examine both situations as performances (2012: 54-55). It is valuable to look at both performances, for it is apparent that both are performances. However, as Nichols stated: “a person does not present [him/herself] in exactly the same way to a companion on a date, a doctor in a hospital, his or her children at home, and a filmmaker in an interview. Nor do people continue to present the same way as an interaction develops; they modify their behavior as the situation evolves” (2017: 6). In other words, we all play roles in different situations, and the presence of a camera might make us more aware of the things we do or say. This means the onscreen persona would inevitably be different if the same situation occurred without the presence of the camera or film crew. With social media, artists no longer just document their shows, or announce a tour or a new studio album, but they also invite people to view their regular activities and therefore making them more mundane and human; for instance they are seen visiting the same places as us. Because of this music documentaries can either be viewed as boring and generic – as they can give the audience the feeling that they already know everything – or they do what a documentary is supposed to do, which is to reveal what is hidden and purposefully swept under the rug in the service of the public image of an artist. Therefore music documentaries have an important part to play to reveal the social issues and taboos.
1.6 Taboos and the Rise of the Modern Music Documentary
Erich Hertz states that “the spate of feature and documentary films focused on Joy Division in the last decade [..] share [a] particular attention to the decrepit state of England” (2013: 132). They can call themselves music films or documentaries because they focus on the band Joy Division. But this is not their only focus, which make music documentaries a double-edged sword. “The effect, again, is to link not only the band with their geographical place, but also to make implicit the authenticity of the musician’s pain or anger: only out of wretched circumstances can genuine music come” (132). Herein it is made clear that location plays an important role, which means that in making the music documentary, the city – in the case of Joy Division that is Manchester – cannot simply be a background. This was also the case with Ian Curtis’ suicide. Since he was the lead singer, this fact simply cannot be ignored. It means that taking away Manchester, and the music scene that came with it, as well as Curtis’ suicide,
15 we would have a different documentary altogether, and by withholding information that was vital to the band’s story this could harm the documentary as a result. This brings us to a developing trend seen in music documentaries. Over the years, there seem to have been a growing number of artists who have died young. Most of them died from natural causes, but others, like Kurt Cobain, committed suicide, and some overdosed. Because of their deaths, (music) documentaries are made to tell their stories, and that of their bands. Some also focus on the myth of the ‘club 27’, and the growing number of artists that have become of part of this club. According to Hertz it is difficult “to excavate a past which is no longer with us, but contains remnants in our present. Ian Curtis and his historical moment are no longer available to us, but [Grant] Gee’s documentary is a document to unearth this past” (136). Archival footage can be helpful to make sense of the past that is no longer available to us; instead in the form of articles and sound or film recordings. But it is problematic to portray someone who does not have the ability to comment on the end product. This, of course, happens with people that are alive as well. The filmmaker, in the end, decides on the end product to tell their story; or rather the way in which they see and want to tell this story. Michael Saffle goes on by saying that “music documentaries may be entertaining, but with few exceptions they appeal primarily to “niche” audiences” (2013: 47, quotes in the original). The documentary Believer (Don Argott, 2018), for instance, could be perceived by the fans of the band ‘Imagine Dragons’ as a film about the band, and their third studio album, on which “Believer” is one of the singles. The recording of the music does indeed play a minor role in this film, but it mainly focuses on the creation of the Loveloud Festival that came into being because of the rejection of the LGBT+-community by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or simply the Mormon Church. The name of this film, Believer, therefore works in two ways: not only to attract Imagine Dragons fans to watch this documentary, but also to signify that the creators of the festival, during which the band performs, genuinely believe in change. Music documentaries, therefore, tend to focus on a problem, by not only making it personal but by using music and artists to put taboo subjects in the foreground. In Believer it is the inequality that LGBT+-youths experience in relation to the Mormon Church. Another example that is given in this film is that for Tyler Glenn, the singer for Neon Trees, his homosexuality and his openness towards his sexuality resulted in excommunication from his church. It is clear then that being ‘your real self’ as an artist is not always received positively, as we have seen with Tyler Glenn in relation to his church. That is why artists sometimes feel
16 the need to create a stage persona. Sunil Manghani and Keith McDonald (2013) discuss the similarity of Kylie Minogue and Madonna by arguing that
this dual representation [the way in which Kylie Minogue is represented both on and offstage in this documentary] relies on the notion of a binary opposition between the carefully choreographed on-stage persona and the back-stage authentic identity; a convention summed up by Michael Chanan as relying on the idea that “every habitus has an off stage doppelganger” (2013: 219, quotes in original). In this documentary, then, we can see two versions of Kylie Minogue. Today, we can see this, for example, in contrast to how a singer behaves on stage versus how he or she behaves on social media. Modern music documentaries, therefore, are more than a representation of music, as the early music videos were. They are no longer even documentaries to solely consider music, but also taboos like homosexuality, or depression. As Erich Hertz says:
Many claims about Joy Division’s authenticity rest on the tragedy of Ian Curtis’s suicide. That is, when you listen to that depressing and moody sound, those introverted and isolated lyrics, you know that Curtis must have meant those feelings because he acted on them; he was not faking (2013: 138). This quote relates to the feelings of depression, which I will return to in the following chapter. Gimme Shelter was supposed to be a documentary about a music festival not unlike Woodstock, but a murder during the Altamont concert transformed the meaning of this documentary. Documentaries concerning Joy Division have to take Ian Curtis’s suicide into account, and by listening to the lyrics written by him, we can see – or rather hear – his mood, or his depression. Music documentaries, therefore, have evolved from mere registrations of artists’ lives, to a tool that helps musicians – and filmmakers – to tackle important social issues, of which depression is just one.
1.7 Conclusion
We have seen thus far that music documentary is not easily defined, and that this type of documentary has a multitude of subgenres in itself, such as the rockumentary. What I have argued is that music documentaries, in contrast to what is often thought, are not simply the registration of live performances, accompanied by shots of the artists that comment on their show and everything that has to happen before a show starts. With Madonna and her documentary we have seen that music documentaries cannot only be entertaining, but that they can be serious as well. Her documentary changed the way in which we saw reality, and with this type of documentary reality TV has been influenced.
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The same can be said for how celebrities now represent themselves on social media. Joy Division has been the subject of multiple films – fiction and documentary alike – and it was made apparent that both the depiction of the environment and the lead singer’s depression played an important role in the documentaries. It is therefore peculiar that the music documentary, which highly influenced reality TV and social media presence, has been largely ignored in documentary scholarship. The music documentary can be seen as a tool where the presence of famous artists can use their popularity to create awareness of certain issues. For artists that have already died, the messages that the music documentaries convey are seemingly more apparent. On the contrary, for artists that are still among us, the music documentaries will usually require a message that relates to their music. However this does not always have to be the case, as we have seen with the documentary Believer, which focuses mainly on LGBT+-youths and the discrimination they receive through the church. In my next chapter I will discuss the representation of music documentaries further, and will take a closer look at how depression is represented in them in particular.
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Chapter 2. How Can We Define Depression and its Representation?
In this day and age, more people seem to suffer from mental health issues like (severe) anxiety and depression than ever before. According to the World Health Organization depression affects 300 million people worldwide (https://www.who.int/mental_health/management/depression/en/). For anxiety, which is a mental illness that could ultimately lead to depression, this is an astonishing one in five people, according to a recent campaign from the Dutch government (https://www.heyhetisoke.nl/). In this chapter I will focus on how depression can be represented in a (multimodal) metaphorical manner. For the purpose of this thesis, the notion of fame – or celebrity status – plays an important role in this. In terms of representation, the notion of metaphor is meaningful as depression is impossible to represent literally, because the concept is very abstract. Sometimes metaphors can illuminate the impact that mental illnesses have. The metaphors can be text-based, or be construed through visuals, music, or even lighting. This chapter will not focus on textual analysis, for I think this will be better worthwhile for the analyses in the third chapter. Textual analysis is important, but needs little introduction. The same cannot be said for metaphorical analysis, especially multimodal metaphor, which I will explain in this chapter.
2.1 Defining Depression
First and foremost, it must be stated that this is not an MA thesis in psychology. Therefore I will mainly focus on the visual representation of the mental disorder known as depression. This concept itself will therefore only be discussed briefly; especially in the case of anxiety. The reason why I will introduce and identify these disorders briefly is to recognize how they are being represented in our society. My motivation for explaining anxiety is because in the film Avicii: True Stories (Leven Tsikurishvili, 2017) Avicii is talking about this affliction. In the metaphors, however, it is clear that what actually is discussed is depression. Initially it can be stated that anxiety is an emotion we all experience. Most people experience this emotion when they start a new job, go on a work interview, or when they experience something more extreme like skydiving. In this sense the feeling of anxiety is not particularly negative, as it is not a constant feeling. “Common psychological symptoms of anxiety include irritability, intense fear, worry, difficulty concentrating, and a general “keyed up” feeling” (Swartz; 2007: 57). This general “keyed up” feeling is a certain excited or
19 nervous feeling and it is supposed to be constant, which without proper help could only intensify. When people have a feeling of constant anxiety – even during times they should be able to relax – a problem occurs. As a result of this, anxiety can restrict people from experiencing new things, or they will have more problems focusing on new tasks; this can be problematic in the work place, for instance (2007: 56). When it comes to performing tasks it is made clear that “a perception that others have perfectionistic expectations for oneself [is] related to increased severity of depression” (Flett et al; 1991: 65). This means that some people focus (often an excessive amount of time) to perfect something according to what they think others expect of them. That notion is exactly my point of discussion, as people with a celebrity status are expected to be better than the rest of society. This puts celebrities, artists in particular, under an enormous amount of pressure. Many of us remember the mental breakdown that Britney Spears suffered in 2007 when she shaved her head, allegedly because she wanted to be in control of her own life. Britney Spears has been a celebrity from the moment she was only a child, meaning that the pressure for her to perform has always been present (https://www.hellomagazine.com/healthandbeauty/health- and-fitness/2017062740179/britney-spears-anxiety-caused-breakdown/). Miley Cyrus seemed to have a similar breakdown, for she, too, shaved her head and was seen naked, swinging on a wrecking ball, in a music video with the same name (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My2FRPA3Gf8). That it was part of an alleged breakdown seems to be proven by Miley Cyrus herself, who has stated that she has regrets doing the video, because people will always remember her for her naked performance rather than for the song itself (https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2018/03/miley- cyrus-says-she-regrets-wrecking-ball.html). Charles Forceville and Sissy Paling mention in the article “the metaphorical representation of DEPRESSION in short, wordless animation films” that “depression is a complex affliction, defined here as ‘an illness characterized by persistent sadness and a loss of interest in activities that you normally enjoy, accompanied by an inability to carry out daily activities for at least two weeks’ (World Health Organization, 2016-2017)” (2018: 2-3). This signifies the severity of the affliction and the impact it has on a person on a day to day basis. For a celebrity the activities that would give them joy would be their jobs, supposedly. But when it comes to celebrities, feelings of anxiety and depression seem to be largely ignored. The celebrities are expected to perform in their field, and their job should be something fun, instead of a job that pressurizes the celebrity to a certain extent. With the presence of social media celebrities are, in a sense, always in a public place where opinions are voiced by
20 anyone who wants their opinion to be heard. For example, after winning a Grammy, rapper Cardi B shared her success on Instagram. She then was criticized, because some people thought her album was not the best amongst the nominees. As a result, Cardi B deleted her Instagram-account (https://www.thefader.com/2019/02/12/cardi-b-instagram-grammys). She is not the first celebrity that has suffered a backlash after a post on social media. Ed Sheeran, for instance, deleted his Twitter-account after receiving criticism for his performance in an episode of the TV-show Game of Thrones, as people found the singer’s part useless (https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/7873105/ed-sheeran-twitter-game-of-thrones- rumors). Sheeran commented on this, saying he had wanted to delete his Twitter-account for some time. Even though these artists deleted their accounts, the criticism does not simply go away along with it, unfortunately. What it does result into is that people have less space to vent their problems with the celebrity; or at least they would have lost a direct way to voice their problems with the celebrities in question. In the article “A journal in Celebrity Studies” Su Holmes and Sean Redmond state that “fame does not reside in the individual: it is constituted discursively, ‘by the way in which the individual is represented’” (2010: 4, quotes in the original). They go on by arguing that “the film, sports or rock star have primary texts or performance arenas through which [they are] to be identified and promoted” (5). These representations can be stage personas, like Madonna has shown us in her 1991 documentary, but because of the presence of paparazzi and the impending power of social media platforms, this can be something else as well. With the presence of these entities celebrities feel like they have little or no privacy, which could cause an increased feeling of anxiety and/or insecurity. Depression could be a result of a permanent sense of anxiety, and left untreated this could result in severe consequences, like a breakdown, and could even lead to death – likely suicide. Holmes and Redmond argue that “the star was used to refer to a representational interaction between the on/off-screen persona” (2010: 4). By using the words ‘representational interaction,’ Holmes and Redmond identify significant differences between the on- and the off-screen persona. They go on by saying that the difference exists because of the distinction between public and private; however, they state that this boundary should be redefined. This has to do with social media presence being virtually anywhere. It also needs to be stated that celebrities who are famous through visual means have a greater likelihood of being recognized in public than artists who are mostly known for their writing or painting. For example, Daft Punk is known for their electronic music, but the duo wears helmets in their video clips and on stage. They are famous, and yet no one would recognize them if they
21 would pass them on the street. In the lives of artists there can be different factors that can result in a heightened feeling of anxiety or depression. “Alcohol and certain illegal drugs can cause depression, as can withdrawal from alcohol, cocaine, or amphetamines. Drugs can cause other mental changes as well” (Swartz; 2007: 4). Especially among rock artists, substance abuse is very common. We can even find it in the phrase, ‘sex and drugs, and rock-‘n-roll’, which seems to be the mantra for their lifestyle. It appears to be a part of the artist environment, and by using a certain amount of drugs the feeling of pressure to perform is numbed. This can cause serious problems in the long term, like major (mental) health issues. Giving up their lifestyle seems to be a step in the right direction, but some effects that drugs have can be permanent. As we will understand with Avicii, getting out of the artist environment does not always mean that feelings of anxiety will simply disappear. Besides the fact that patients no longer enjoy certain activities that normally gave them pleasure or relief of stress, Swartz states that individuals suffering from a depression can also have “overwhelming feelings of sadness and grief” (2007: 5). Being less energetic can also be a result of depression, as well as “feelings of guilt, worthlessness, and helplessness. Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide” (2007: 5). For these feelings we can merely guess if an artist is feeling them or felt them if they do not talk openly about it. This can be the case because, according to Holmes and Redmond, celebrities “have a profound effect on knowledge, power and representation” (2010: 7), meaning that celebrities are seen as role models. Apart from this, through the network that celebrities have, millions, and potentially billions of people, can be reached. If they would discuss issues like depression, they and their stories would become a symbol for that mental illness. This is not always ideal for certain celebrities; which is something that has mainly to do with the artist’s image. This is especially true for celebrities that do not seem to be suffering from depression, but then again, we cannot look inside the heads of celebrities. It also has to do with the “[celebrity’s] significance for media ‘users’, audiences and viewers. [..] celebrity exists at the core of many of the spaces, experiences and economy of everyday life” (2010: 7, quotes in the original). It signifies how much influence celebrities have on the rest of society, and how their stories and their influence can help the public to at least think about difficult, or taboo, issues. When it comes to representing depression, there are a number of things that are possible. Forceville and Paling look at wordless animation films for metaphors of depression. They identified the metaphors DEPRESSION IS A DARK PLACE and DEPRESSION IS DOWN and DEPRESSION IS A MONSTER, among others (2018: 3). Depression, here, is
22 represented through metaphor, and mainly via images. Of course, there are other ways in which depression can be represented. (Music) documentaries are a representational genre in itself. If depression is discussed, this is automatically represented verbally. But because artists are put on a pedestal and sometimes considered to be ‘more than human’, talking about mental issues is taboo, especially if it does not fit the artist’s particular image. “It has been argued that mental illness is not really an illness at all, and that when we speak in these terms we are, unbeknownst to ourselves, talking in metaphors. Thus when mental illness is treated by doctors in hospitals with drugs, the metaphor is being taken literally” (Bowers; 2003: 2). Since artists often refuse to talk about depression, a documentary filmmaker will seek non- verbal manners to suggest that an artist is depressed. This leads us to the specific metaphors concerning depression for artists that died at a young age, and mostly expressed themselves through their music; either textually or by the mood and tempo of their music. A filmmaker can for instance play with the color of the footage, and therein we can construe a metaphor concerning depression. The contrast between black and white is very important in that respect.
2.2 Metaphors Concerning Depression
According to George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, “ordinary everyday English is largely metaphorical, dispelling once and for all the traditional view that metaphor is primarily in the realm of poetic or “figurative” language” (1980: 204, quotes in original). We cannot find this in only proverbs and expressions but in normal everyday language as well. Some subjects seem to be discussed in a preferred metaphorical manner, like death, for instance. This has to do with the abstract nature of concepts like death and depression are but two. As we are discussing depression, it seems fitting to identify metaphors concerning this mental affliction. In this respect it is important to distinguish ‘target’ and ‘source.’ Lakoff and Johnson explain their role by deconstructing the metaphor LOVE IS A JOURNEY – among others – by stating that LOVE is the target domain, and that the source domain is space (1980: 224). For DEPRESSION IS DARK, then, DEPRESSION is the target domain, while the source domain is darkness, or the absence of light. Visual images, then, map darkness to the state of mind; ergo, depression. In discussing depression, the metaphor of DEPRESSION IS DOWN/DESCENT is commonly identified in comics and graphic novels (El Refaie; 2019; 158). In the English language being sad is identified as feeling down and the descent signifies the metaphorical journey on a mountain; in this sense good, or succeeding is ascending, and bad is descending, and thus failing. The expression ‘rock bottom’ is frequently used in this respect, signifying
23 that you could not possibly fall any lower; though in depression it is occasionally stated that rock bottom has a basement, which means descending even more. In discussing a drawing that illustrates depression, El Refaie states that the metaphor DEPRESSION IS DOWN/DESCENT is construed by showing that
Stacy [the depressed heroine in a graphic novel] is lying down (diegetic); the way the viewer is positioned so that he or she seems to be looking down at her from above, making her appear vulnerable and powerless (interactive); and the placement of the text blocks and the bed, which together suggest a reading path with an emphatic downward orientation (compositional) (2019: 158). Via the drawing, the metaphor that is construed is not simply textual, but also visual. In this drawing, which is black and white, the notion of dark and light is very important. This leads us back to the initial identification of GOOD IS LIGHT and BAD/EVIL IS DARK. Forceville and Renckens (2013) argue that there are expressions “that cue HAPPY IS LIGHT (‘a radiant smile’, ‘to light up’, ‘beaming with joy’) and UNHAPPY IS DARK (‘my darkest hour’, ‘his eyes clouded over’)” (7). Here we can see that the contrast of darkness and light play a clear role in discussing one’s mood. Because depression is connected with the feeling of being sad, it makes sense to see depression as darkness. Coming back to Stacy, who is lying down in her bed, clutching a white pillow, in an otherwise dark room signifies that her situation is far from ideal. Focusing on the white pillow, you could argue that Stacy tries to hold on to something light, and thus something good. This light/dark contrast is also shown by identifying depression as having, or being accompanied by, a black dog (Emmons 2010: 105). “Rather than having a proprietary relationship – implied by having a black dog – the progressive tense of living with implies daily engagement” (2010: 105, emphasis in original). Replacing ‘dog’ with ‘depression’ makes clear that by having it you can get rid of it, while if you live with it, this seems to be more challenging. It goes even further than this when Emmons deconstructs a drawing of a man sitting on a bench and “the shadow he casts takes the form of a black dog. The shape that the man takes in the world – the amount of sunlight his form obscures – is that of his figurative depression” (2010: 105). This may seem not very relevant when we take into account that this metaphor concerns a drawing, as in the real world it would be very strange if one’s shadow would turn into that of a black dog. However, Cobain: Montage of Heck (Brett Morgen, 2015) uses animation, wherein shadows and darkness play an important role. Emmons also gives meaning to the drawing of a man on all fours, “and superimposed on him [..] is the shadow of the black dog” (2010: 105), which means the man now is the black dog. Sometimes people not only say that they are depressed, but mistake their depressed identity
24 for who they are. Apart from the metaphors concerning ascent/descent and light/dark, there are other metaphors which focus on containment and restraint, and on weight and pressure (Charteris- Black 2012: 15). Containment could be identified with a confined space, like a prison, and could be made worse by being restrained, like locked chains that keep a person in place. Weight could be traced back to the metaphorical mountain climb, where one has to push a boulder up a mountain, which is therefore weighing you down. The pressure is commonly identified with Atlas, who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. As mentioned earlier, people experiencing depression could have the feeling that others only expect perfection from them, which means that depressed people who gave in to this pressure, did not overcome the weight they feel on their shoulder, but were rather immobilized by this. A question that frequently gets posed is ‘what is weighing you down?’ This weight could be best identified when it is visually and metaphorically represented, like the boulder. Fahlenbrach’s article “Audiovisual Metaphors and Metonymies of Emotions and Depression in Moving Images” focuses on metaphors about complex concepts – of which depression is but one – and how these metaphors are construed in audiovisual media (2017: 99). She states that “if we take the manifestation of these basic emotion metaphors in different languages and cultures as a strong evidence also for their cognitive valence it seems obvious that they are not only used to articulate depressive states in languages, but also in audiovisual media” (100, emphasis in original). We mainly have seen metaphors which were construed primarily through textual means, although El Refaie’s, Forceville and Paling’s and Fahlenbrach’s examples were visual as well. Textual and visuals are only two of the modes in which a metaphor can be construed, which leads us to the multimodal metaphor.
2.3 The Multimodal Metaphor
While it is certainly interesting to look at metaphors pertaining to depression in speech in music documentaries, this is not my only intention. It is important to analyze the use of music, but this should not be limited to lyrics. The mood of the music itself – is it a love song; is it sad or upbeat, for instance – in combination with images are more essential to pay attention to. For this it is necessary to apply the multimodal metaphor. Forceville states that “non- verbal communication is more easily comprehensible and has greater emotional appeal than verbal communication” (2007: 27). This can relate to the phrase ‘a picture says more than a thousand words’, and it goes beyond this as the ‘pictures’ I will analyze are moving and have a soundtrack. Forceville does state, however, that in order to understand a metaphor, one
25 should have knowledge of the culture in which they, in my case the music documentaries, are made. This has to do with the fact that metaphors are not universal – although some can be – which means that people who speak a different language, could focus on different aspects to try and construe a metaphor. In other words “cultural national connotations adhering to a source domain are bound to affect interpretation” (2007: 27). Because I will focus mostly on English speaking artists, the English language is important in that respect – as are the cultural differences between England and the United States. It has to be taken into account, however, that Avicii is Swedish, although the music he made is English. Forceville states that researchers in conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) “[restrict] their investigations to language and [pay] little attention to non-verbal manifestations of conceptual metaphor” (2007: 16). While it is true that language is important in an analysis of metaphor, I would rather focus on the visual means for my analysis of the chosen music documentaries. To do so, I have to consider the multimodal metaphor which, as the name already suggests, focuses on more than one mode through which metaphors are possible to construe. “Multimodal metaphors are “metaphors whose target and source are each represented exclusively or predominantly in different modes”” (Coëgnarts and Kravanja 2012: 297, quoted from Forceville 2006). Forceville further defines the multimodal metaphor by taking five modes into consideration, namely “(i) written language; (ii) spoken language; (iii) visuals; (iv) music; (v) sound” (2007: 16). Because my objects of analysis are music documentaries, written language is something that will play a role of little importance – although written language can be used, in the form of intertitles. Subtitles do not fit this description, for they are a translation of the spoken word. Therefore, my focus will be on visuals, music and sound, respectively. Metaphors in spoken language are also important, as talking about depression in the literal sense is impossible, for it is an abstract concept. Whilst speaking of such a subject, comments about the illness could be made mostly metaphorically. We now have learned that metaphors are constructed in the written language. However, when it comes to visual media, metaphors need to be construed in a different manner. This does not mean that written or spoken metaphors are not used; on the contrary. But with visual and aural aspects, a metaphor is constructed in a different manner, which does not always seem apparent to the viewer or listener, respectively. Forceville argues “apart from their greater degree of comprehensibility, metaphors drawing on images, sounds, and music also, I submit, have a more intense, immediate emotional impact than verbal ones” (2007: 27).
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How, then, can we use this multimodal metaphor for the analyses of the representation of depression in music documentaries?
2.4 Multimodal Metaphor as a Tool for Analysis
“Drawing on conceptual metaphors allows creators of audiovisual media products to communicate complex meanings in an embodied gestalt that their public understands in a reflexive manner” (Fahlenbrach; 2017: 95). In other words, by making a film there are more ways in which the audience of this media product could understand and identify a metaphor than in language. Fahlenbrach argues that this relates to “mentally based metaphoric concepts,” which are easier to identify when there are multiple modes that together construe a certain metaphors (95). Forceville and Paling look at how depression is represented in wordless animated films, and come up with a number of metaphors for depression. The Mental Health Awareness film they discuss, for example, construes the metaphor DEPRESSION IS A DARK CONFINING SPACE, but also point towards the fact that the woman in this animated film wears a mask (2018: 3). This mask might be literal in the animation film, but in the everyday world, this mask is not something that is visible – however, one could argue that the use of make-up will hide your ‘true self.’ As stated in the first chapter, people are never the same version at home as they are at a friend’s house, or at the doctor. Being aware of the fact that you feel like you have to wear this mask in order to be accepted – or in the case of depression, the fact that you have to smile, while you rather feel like crying – can strain a person. In a sense, the mask to hide behind is the stage persona – or online persona when using social media accounts, for instance. Mental disorders go far in this sense, because when you wear a mask for an extensive period of time, you might mistake that mask for your own face – or in the literal sense, your personality. When we take music documentaries into account, masks are always worn – figuratively – but it is not always apparent what appears to be the mask, and what is perceived as the ‘real’ person. Therefore I shall look for other metaphors as well. The ‘dark confining space’ for example, could be the studio, the dressing room before a show, or the hotel room, far away from friends and family. In this case, it is important to examine the lighting. Why is the background dark? Why is the footage dark or maybe darkened? Darkness symbolizes something negative. How, then, can that be contrasted between a light setting, and the use of white or vibrant colors? The same can be said for being lost. Forceville and Paling talk about this by discussing the Mental Health Awareness film (2018: 8-9). There, after removing her
27 mask, the girl is transformed into a bear that is lost in the forest. Besides that, we see the bear from a bird’s eye view – which means we are looking down on her/it. Of course we can take this literally, for people suffering from depression might think that people will look down on them – and thus in a sense reject them – when they are showing their true face; what is hidden behind the mask. Being lost and being free are in this respect very different things. What this means in terms of analysis is that the use of camera framing – loose framing, wide framing – and the use of color and lighting in certain shots of music documentaries are potentially very important for the representation of depression. By discussing the stop-motion animation film Depression, which is more artistically based and less narratively based, we see a heart made of clay which is surrounded by branches, and because it is black it is not made clear if they are ropes or snakes (Foreville and Paling 2018: 11). Forceville and Paling state that it is possible to have two types of metaphors present within the same image: DEPRESSION IS A DARK MONSTER and DEPRESSION IS A DARK PRISON (11). In the case for Depression, Forceville and Paling recognize that the metaphors DEPRESSION IS DARK ROPES/SNAKES and DEPRESSION IS A PRISON are connected through the same means. It is apparent that with animation there are more possibilities to create metaphors than in ‘real footage.’ Embedding images or sounds that are highly metaphorical is not impossible, however, and the influence of the filmmakers’ knowledge of the emotional state of the artists (ergo, (severe) anxiety or depression) will have a prominent role in the presence of these metaphors. Coëgnarts and Kravanja state that “the mapping of one cluster of images onto another cluster of images constitutes a new conceptual metaphor. Because montage is vital to initiate the mappings between the two domains we can further speak of a filmic metaphor” (2012: 109). If it is only visual, this will mean that it is a monomodal metaphor, and therefore a metaphor that is construed only through one mode. Although this is not unheard of, usually those images will be accompanied by sounds and/or music, which will most likely strengthen the metaphor that needs to be construed. By examining all the modes of interpretation, I will look at how metaphors concerning depression are being construed in the music documentaries. I will focus especially on darkness and feeling lost or alone, which are mostly identified with depression. In the analyses in the next chapter the majority of the documentaries I have chosen have been made post mortem. Only the documentary focusing on Avicii was made before his passing, but relates to depression just as well as the other documentaries. The focus shall be on similar questions, namely how is black, or the metaphor which comes with this color used
28 in the documentaries? How is the artist portrayed? Is there mentioning of depression, and how is this mentioned? Through these questions we will look at the five music documentaries, all focusing on artists that have died at the age of 27; only in Avicii’s case this was 28. And how is suicide or death in general, approached in these films? This leads us to some questions, such as those Fahlenbrach also posed: “what prototypical emotion signals are depicted in vision, sound, and movement (including body posture)? Which explicit information about the depicted state of depression is given by the linguistic comments” (2017: 101). How does this relate to the music documentaries, and is there a different approach when it comes to the representation of depression?
2.5 Conclusion
In this chapter we have identified anxiety and depression, and how depression can be represented through the multitude of metaphors that exist concerning this mental affliction. Through the use of metaphors we have learned that there are different ways a problem can be represented. An interviewee can, of course, speak metaphorically, but this is not very common. When interviewees speak metaphorically about depression, this does not always mean that their metaphorical statement fits the condition of depression. Instead we will look at the metaphors that are multimodal, which means that they are not only visual but also aural in nature, for instance; it has to be taken in account, however, that purely visual or purely musical metaphors are still monomodal. The multimodal metaphor will work as a tool for the analysis of the music documentaries is the next chapter. My focus shall also be on the music. These documentaries center around artists, and when doing so, their music cannot be ignored. Especially for the documentaries that have been made post mortem, the underlying feeling of depression will be apparent. It is obvious that the artists in question have no means to comment on the fact, so all we can do is examine the documentary makers’ perspective on their subjects in relation to mental illnesses, like depression. There are a number of different metaphors concerning depression. In our next chapter we have to take the metaphors DEPRESSION IS A DARK PLACE, DEPRESSION IS DESCENT, DEPRESSION IS BEING LOST, DEPRESSION IS A BURDEN and DEPRESSION IS CONTAINMENT/CONFINED SPACE into account.
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Chapter 3. How is Depression Represented in Music Documentaries?
So far we have defined music documentaries and learned how depression can be represented (metaphorically). With this knowledge we can analyze the music documentaries concerning the ‘club 27’ and the documentary concerning Avicii; for Avicii I will still take the notion of anxiety in mind, for he talks about this himself, mostly in the context of depression. I will analyze the documentaries through the questions that I constructed in Chapter 2 in the analyses. This means that I take a closer look at how metaphors like DEPRESSION IS BLACK/DARKNESS are construed, but also how the symptoms and circumstances of depression – ergo alcohol and drugs – play a role. In the following sections the screenshots taken from the films that are discussed often support the – visual – metaphors that are construed. In my appendices I have constructed specific schemas which further clarify which depression metaphors are being used and through which mode(s) this is done (see Appendix I to V).
3.1 Amy Winehouse
The documentary Amy (Asif Kapadia, 2015) tells the story of Amy Winehouse’s career from start to finish. The popstar died in 2011, which means that the director had knowledge of her demise, which is made clear in the way the documentary is structured. It is, therefore, unsurprising that the substance abuse that eventually caused her death plays an important part in the documentary. My focus, however, is on depression, and how this is discussed or represented (see Appendix I for the schematics). In terms of style, Amy is an interesting documentary, for the simple fact that we do not see the interviewees while they are talking (see figure 3.1.1) – which most documentaries do show when social actors are interviewed as themselves. Here they are shown in pictures or short home video clips, but the filmmaker has chosen not to draw upon visualizing the emotion of family members, friends and people that worked with Amy. This does not mean, however, that there is no emotion. We can hear it in the voices of the interviewees. This choice also emphasizes that Amy Winehouse is the main subject of this film, and that the filmmaker did not allow other people to steal her spotlight.
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In figure 3.1.1 we see footage of pianist Sam Beste, while we hear his voice-over, as is done with other social actors (Amy, 00:24:54).
In terms of metaphors in this documentary we will focus on darkness, and more specifically black. This plays an important role in Amy’s life and career. We cannot ignore one of her biggest hits “Back to Black” from the album which bears the same name. This song is important, and that fact is made clear by the filmmaker, who focuses on Amy’s relationship with Blake Fielder-Civil, at least in the early stages. “We only said goodbye with words/ I died a hundred times/ You go back to her/ And I go back to black” (lyrics from “Back to Black”). It is apparent that the black to which she returns is a state of mind, and thus we can construe the metaphor DEPRESSION IS A DARK (CONFINING) SPACE in Amy’s lyrics. In the documentary, there is also focus on the words which are shown alongside the music (see figure 3.1.2). These words can be understood as referring to depression, although the ‘black’ Amy is referring to – if we take in mind that black is also the color of mourning – can also point out what she had lost. As we have seen with Forceville and Paling, one of the metaphors they identified was ‘DEPRESSION IS DARKNESS.’ In these lyrics, the two people – namely Amy herself and Blake – return to two different situations. In the documentary, by use of Amy’s own commentary, it is made clear that Blake returns to his girlfriend. Amy stays behind, and “goes back to black” and falls back into a depression.
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In figure 3.1.2 we see Amy Winehouse recording “Back to Black” in the studio, and while she is singing, lyrics appear on screen; this is done frequently to draw attention to the lyrics (00:51:13).
In Amy, the music Amy writes and sings are important aspects that relate to her emotional wellbeing. “Rehab” is a song about substance abuse, and how Amy did not want to go to the rehab clinic; and that her father did not realize that Amy had a problem. Through the course of this documentary, we learn that Amy used (making) music as a coping mechanism to deal with her problems. The music, in this sense, becomes therapeutic. Although Amy voiced that this was still the case for her at the time, her fame does play a role in properly venting her emotions through her music. This has to do with the pressure to perform; ergo to make a new album as good as or even better than the last was. As Flett et al (1991) have stated perfectionism played a part in the depressed state that Amy was in, especially in combination with the pressure of the media. The filmmaker let Amy talk about the fact that she did not care about being famous, and about getting her singles at the top of the charts. It is apparent, however, that she seemed to need alcohol and drugs to numb the pressure she felt that coincided with being famous. Amy wanted to make an album, and do it her way; the way she did it with her first album. Unfortunately, her label restricted her from doing this and wanted her to release an album as soon as possible. This added problem created increased levels of anxiety, and Amy’s only solution was to drink, smoke weed, and eventually she turned to hard drugs like heroin and (crack) cocaine. She did this to numb her anxiety and the pressure she was under, and as we will see in the other documentaries, she is not the only one who turns to drugs to cope with depression or anxiety in this manner. The contrast between Amy when she was sober – watching the Emmy’s, and
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confiding in a friend that it did not feel right without feeling high – and when she was under the influence of what seems like several types of drugs – as seen in the footage of Amy playing at a Serbian festival (scene in Amy (01:54:50 – (01:57:44)) – is astronomical. During this performance Amy, who is under the influence – and the fact that it was made clear that Amy did not want to be there – receives booing from the audience as a reaction to her behavior. The pressure from the media, audience and management appear to be greater than Amy’s own influence on her career. The filmmaker shows us Amy saying that the only thing she needed – in this she was talking about her parents – was someone to tell her no. Her mother did not seem to be capable of saying no, her father did not see any problems, and her husband Blake not only enabled her to continue drinking and taking drugs, but also got her hooked on the hard drugs, like heroin and cocaine. Eventually, her record label urged her to sober up, otherwise they threatened to end the partnership for Amy’s new album. As a result she substituted the hard drugs for alcohol, which makes clear that Amy needed something to numb herself from the pressure she was under, and from her depression. Going back to the subject of black, and the metaphor through which it is connected, we must look at the color of the footage. Most pictures that feature Amy with one of the interviewees that we hear speaking seem to be darker than other footage in the film. When they are dark the subject itself is dark as well. When they talk about her bulimia, for instance, or when Amy talks about the fact that she did not know what a depression was. She said: “I don’t think I knew what depression was. I knew I felt funny sometimes and I was different. I think it’s a musician thing. That’s why I write music” (Amy 00:22:38 – 00:22:48). By showing this footage which is slightly darker, the filmmaker is saying that the subject is not a light, and thus easy, one (see figure 3.1.3 and 3.1.4).
In figure 3.1.3 we see Amy Winehouse (left) when discussing fame (00:14:39), and the contrast between her in figure 3.1.4 (center) in which she is promoting her album “Back to Black” (00:56:17).On the right (figure 3.1.5) we see social actor Ian Barter in a lighter setting (00:13:45), and mood than Amy in figure 3.1.3.
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Lastly, we have to look at the notion of suicide. Now it must be stated that Amy died from alcohol poisoning. She did know that too much alcohol could kill her – because years of substance abuse gave her heart irregularities, which is something that is clearly mentioned in the documentary – and friends and family tell in the documentary that Amy did want to get clean. Swartz stated that recurrent thoughts of suicide point towards a depression (2007: 5). Amy did talk about this, especially in combination with fame. She did not consider herself famous, and she told people that she would kill herself if she was famous – she did this on multiple occasions, and in different ways, as is shown in the documentary. With the end of the documentary, the question arises if Amy actually did kill herself. This is the case, because she died from alcohol poisoning. She did talk to her friends before the end, and she was seemingly her (sober) self, which suggested that she was feeling better. Unfortunately for her and those around her, Amy never got the chance to show her friends and family that she was capable of living a life without alcohol and drugs. The filmmaker draws upon darkness when it comes to Amy, and related to depression this makes sense. The metaphor that is construed throughout this documentary is DEPRESSION IS DARKNESS, or rather, DEPRESSION IS A DARK (CONFINING) SPACE. This documentary tells the story of Amy’s career, and death, in which music plays an important role. This is not only because Amy’s lyrics were metaphorical, and thus a sign of her depression, but also to show Amy’s fans her performances, and how she recorded her songs in the studio. Music is still an important aspect of this documentary, which makes this a music documentary, by the definition I coined in the first chapter.
3.2 Kurt Cobain
Similar to Amy, darkness has a key role in Cobain: Montage of Heck (Brett Morgen, 2015), albeit in a different manner. While Asif Kapadia uses much archival footage, and even photographs – especially when people are interviewed – Brett Morgen does this differently. He uses interviews, and shows the emotional response of family members and friends of Kurt Cobain, but what is even more apparent is the use of animation (see figure 3.2.1 to 3.2.4). The use of shadows is apparent in this animation, especially when you look at figure 3.2.3. This is the moment that we hear Kurt Cobain speak about his suicide attempt. He wanted to throw himself in front of a train. What we see in figure 3.2.3 are the lights from the train, which took a different track. We can see this also as a metaphorical track. One is a track in which his life has ended; the other track is where he is given a second chance. This track can be seen as a part of the journey metaphor, where he can go forward. But looking at the
34 darkness and light in this still we can recognize the metaphor DEPRESSION IS DARKNESS, which is in contrast with the light (see Appendix II for the schematics). The light/dark contrast does not end there, however. In figure 3.2.4 we see a black cat walking through Kurt Cobain’s house while he is playing guitar. In the second chapter we have seen the metaphor of having a black dog was the same as having a depression. A black cat, however, is mostly signified as a sign of bad luck. Through pictures and found footage it is made clear that Cobain actually had a cat, but it was not black (as seen in Cobain: Montage of Heck (00:35:02)). This makes the cat’s color a figurative sign, instead of being a metaphorical representation of Cobain’s pet.
In figure 3.2.1 (00:20:06), (upper left) and 3.2.2 (00:21:19), (upper right) we see the shadows and darkness in the animated part of the documentary in which Kurt Cobain discusses his childhood/adolescence. In figure 3.2.3 (00:22:47), (bottom left) we see the lights from the train after Cobain’s failed suicide attempt. Figure 3.2.4 (00:38:57), (bottom right), shows a black cat, signifying Kurt’s depression, for he did not have a black cat.
The animated sections in this documentary are dark, and narrated by Cobain himself, as he recorded his own voice to likely vent his problems, as the recording of music and making art was another. Animation is not commonly used in documentaries, but here it strengthens the feelings of helplessness and depression, especially when it comes to the use of color. Herein it is clear that darkness and shadows play important roles. The animated part of the documentary starts with Kurt taking marijuana, and his narration is accompanied by a string
35 and instrumental version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana. The main story that Cobain tells here is that he wanted to kill himself, but that, in his own words he “didn’t want to leave this place without knowing how it was to get laid.” After his attempt to get laid backfired and he got bullied at school (they called him ‘the retard fucker’), he decided to kill himself, regardless. This did not work, only because the 11 ‘o clock train did not take the track that he was lying on. Cobain goes on by saying that the train scared him enough to give life another try, and he started to lift weights and doing his best in school. He did state that “I was systematically depressed, but still didn’t have any friends, because I hated everyone for they were so phony” (quote by Kurt Cobain (00:23:04) – (00:23:12)). The animation is not the only aspect of the documentary which seems to represent feelings of depression. Morgen shows us drawings that Kurt Cobain made from a young age. At first, they seem just drawings that every child makes, but around the time his parents get divorced the drawings seem to change. The drawings appear to be more violent. The commentary that Krist Novoselic, the former bass player of Nirvana and Cobain’s friend, gives at the start of the documentary, that they should have seen what was going on with Kurt, is significant. He states that “when you see the art, I mean, a lot of his messages are as plain as day. I’m just not even going to say what they are but you see it. And it’s all there. But you know, in 20/20 hindsight, oh my God why didn’t I see that. I should have said something” (quote by Krist Novoselic (00:02:30) – (00:02:50). It is made clear by Novoselic that it is always easy to state something about mental health issues after his suicide. This is how the documentary starts, and along the way it is made clear how troubled Cobain was, especially when notes of Cobain’s journal are shown on screen, where he mentions multiple ways to end his life, including overdosing and jumping off a roof. That they are showed in his own (supposed) handwriting makes the feeling of helplessness and worthlessness seem more apparent. This is a feeling that teenagers seem to identify with, and the radio commentary that was added in Montage of Heck, where a DJ feels that Kurt Cobain should see a therapist, instead of putting his despair in his music, for millions to hear and relate to (01:10:07 – 01:10:30). As we have seen with the analysis of the short animated films, art is a way in which to deal with, and hopefully face and overcome problems like depression (Forceville and Paling 2018). In contrast to the animated films, Nirvana’s songs have been played millions of times, especially with the release of the album Nevermind. With this, also comes public opinion, like that of the radio DJ, but also the tabloids. But with the fame there comes public analysis as well. Tabloids started writing about Cobain’s wellbeing, and wrote: ‘Kurt looks fragile, as if he might break’ (see figure 3.2.5). This is a metaphor that leads back to
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DEPRESSION IS A BURDEN, but also to the pressure which Kurt Cobain was under. The metaphorical response to this is either bend – which means you adapt – or break, which means that adapting is not possible, and thus giving in to mental illnesses such as depression. When Nirvana was at the height of its fame, problems arose as well. This is signified by the documentary by showing the images from the music video “Smells Like Teen Spirit” but instead of the original version a choir version, performed by Scala is played which makes a vast difference. The instrument that is chosen in this song is the piano, which is played slowly and softly, in stark contrast to the original, which is up-tempo and played on guitar. It makes the images – which are of Nirvana playing at a school prom – seem out of place. Depression, here, is signified as not being there, or not being yourself, which is a trait commonly linked to depression.
In figure 3.2.5 we see one of many quotes about Kurt Cobain, and this one (01:33:19) is highly metaphorical: relates to DEPRESSION IS A BURDEN.
In his youth, Cobain started using marijuana, but as his life progressed he continued by using harder drugs, like heroin and crack cocaine. Just as Amy Winehouse’s husband enabled Amy to take and experience these drugs, the same can be said for Kurt Cobain and his wife Courtney Love. The reason for the numbing, caused by the excessive use of these (hard) drugs, is explained by Cobain himself to hide the fact that he thought of himself as weak. In this documentary it has been made clear that Kurt Cobain was highly sensitive, and reacted to Courtney’s thought of cheating by swallowing sixty-seven rohypnol pills, which resulted in Cobain’s coma when they were on tour in Rome. This suicide attempt did not prove
37 successful, but a few weeks later he died from a self-inflicted wound from a shotgun when he returned back home. This can take into question the song “Hate Myself and Want to Die” that was taken off the initial last studio album of Nirvana. An interviewer asks how literal the song was, and Cobain answers that it was as literal as you want a joke to be. In the last section of the film, in which the mental health of Kurt Cobain is discussed, there is a certain alienation in the images, which seems to be strengthened by the darkness of these images (see figure 3.2.7). It is clear that the shadows and darkness in these shots are used on purpose, for we can see this woman – who is Kurt’s mother – in a lighter setting earlier in the documentary (see figure 3.2.6). It is done not only because they discuss Kurt’s state of mind, but also his death – particularly the moments that lead up to his death. These images, then, also relate to the metaphor DEPRESSION IS A DARK (CONFINING) SPACE, which is construed visually.
In figure 3.2.6 (00:01:47), (left), and figure 3.2.7 (01:54:51), (right), we see Kurt Cobain’s mother at the start and at the end of the documentary. When she is talking about Kurt’s depression, we clearly see the frame is darker than at the start of the documentary.
As we have seen in the music documentary concerning Amy Winehouse, the music that Kurt Cobain made, namely with his band Nirvana, plays an important role by being an outlet for his depression. We do not see Kurt with his band in the studio, but we do see early and later performances of the band. The music is important in the story the documentary tries to tell, which makes this documentary a music documentary.
3.3 Jim Morrison
The documentary The Doors: When You’re Strange (Tom DiCillo, 2009) opens with shots of the desert. The shots used are mainly long shots (see figure 3.3.1), reminiscent of the Western. Instead of music, we hear drones – a monotone sound that is continuous. Both
38 signify the feeling of being lost, and thus construing the metaphor DEPRESSION IS BEING LOST. This feeling gets strengthened when the person we see in figure 3.3.1 – who looks a little like Jim Morrison – get into a car, in which the radio plays. On the radio we hear that Jim Morrison has died in Paris. The metaphor concerning being lost, in this instance does not refer to feelings of depression in the case for Jim Morrison, but rather the question of what will happen to the youth culture that had risen with Morrison and The Doors, respectively (see Appendix III for the schematics).
In figure 3.3.1 we see a lookalike of Jim Morrison walking through the desert (00:01:53) and by using long shots, construing the metaphor DEPRESSION IS BEING LOST.
The singer of The Doors lived and died in an era much different from Kurt Cobain’s and Amy Winehouse’s. The Doors were popular in the late 60s and early 70s, up to Morrison’s death in 1971. Jim Morrison was one of the original members of the infamous ‘club 27,’ and was preceded by Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Brian Jones. While he was a heavy drug user – which ranged from alcohol to LCD and heroin – the exact circumstances of his death remain a mystery, for there was no autopsy performed. In the documentary the voice-over mentions that even after Morrison’s death, there had been sightings of him, and therefore creating a myth in the tradition of Elvis Presley. While in Amy and Cobain: Montage of Heck the voice-overs that occur are those of family, loved ones and colleagues, the voice-over in When You’re Strange is done by a fan, namely by famous actor Johnny Depp. By doing this, the documentary seems more like a history lesson than the other films, and lacks the emotional depth that the other documentaries did possess. The same can be said for the metaphor ‘DEPRESSION IS BLACK’ that was clearly construed in the other two documentaries. A question then arises: was Jim Morrison then not depressed in a certain manner, or did another metaphor take shape?
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Most of the information that is given to us in this documentary is via voice-over, which is primarily done by Johnny Depp who is explaining the setting and history of the images we are shown. However, we hear Jim Morrison’s own voice when he explains his frame of mind, and in his explanation his words seem to be visualized. He explains, for instance, what he felt like when he was doing drugs. “No, the mood I get most is kind of a heavy, sort a gloomy feeling, you know. Like of someone not quite at home, or you know, not quite relaxed. You aware of a lot of things, but not quite sure about anything” (00:18:45 – 00:19:11, quote from Jim Morrison). This could be identified as the metaphor DEPRESSION IS FEELING LOST. The metaphor seems not only to be construed through Morrison’s words, but also the accompanying images (see figure 3.3.2). We have the same framing as in the desert, and not only do we see the people in this shot as black silhouettes, but the building itself gets darker. That the silhouette – which is the silhouette of Morrison – is seemingly alone, or at least has the feeling of being alone, helps construing this metaphor.
In figure 3.3.2 we see Jim Morrison walking through the halls backstage of a venue (00:19:12) in which tight framing is used; this signifies feeling lost, and this is strengthened by his own voice-over about his mental state.
What is already clear in this documentary is the alternation between color and black and white footage, seemingly from the same time period. This could be the case because of the time period – which is the sixties and early seventies – or because the filmmaker wanted to show more, or less, with this footage. Most black and white footage is clear, while the color footage is grainy. With the color footage we see less than we did with shots that we see in black and white.
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While Amy Winehouse did not know what depression was, and Kurt Cobain who was hypersensitive, Jim Morrison’s depression seems to be clearer. Songwriting, and especially poetry, helped Morrison through his depression, although Jim’s girlfriend Pam urged him to go to a psychiatrist. According to Depp’s voice-over Morrison only goes to one session. When on stage his depression seems to worsen, he drinks more and takes more drugs. The voice-over says that the band had to keep Jim alive on stage (see figure 3.3.3 and 3.3.4), which could be literal or figuratively, for they dreaded the appearance of Jim’s alter ego, which they coined ‘Jimbo.’ At the last show that The Doors give, Ray Manzarek states that he sees all of Jim’s psychic energy leaving his body. In this sense, Jim Morrison dies on stage, but his regular life, without The Doors, seems to go on.
In figure 3.3.3, (left), (01:14:28), we see Morrison lying on stage, and his metaphorical death as explained by Manzarek in the voice-over. Figure 3.3.4, (right), (00:44:07), signifies Morrison’s behavior when he is under the influence of drugs, and has become his alter ego ‘Jimbo.’
The documentary has the same shot at the relative start and the end of the film: a burning match that is blown out (see figure 3.3.5). This could be seen as a metaphor for dying, DEPRESSION IS BEING ON FIRE or DEPRESSION IS BEING BURNED OUT. Depp’s commentary with this footage at the end of the film is typical. He says that you cannot burn out if you are not on fire. Being on fire might be figurative speech for doing things well, but in the case of Jim Morrison, being on fire seems not ideal. His lifestyle not only seemed to have drained all of his energy, but the things that gave his depression relief – ergo writing songs and poetry – now seemed to come with added pressure. Blowing the match out also relates to the metaphor DEPRESSION IS DARKNESS, or rather, DEATH IS DARKNESS. By blowing out the flame, which is the only source of light in this frame, it is apparent that
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Morrison in this sense gave in to the darkness; this can be seen as dying is giving in to the depression.
In figure 3.3.5, (00:03:55) at the start of the film and again (01:18:05) at the end of the film, we see a shot of a burning match being blown out, which signifies not only Morrison’s passing, but also his mental state; light giving way to complete darkness.
Music plays a more important part in this documentary than in the two former documentaries I have discussed. This music, as well as Jim Morrison’s poetry, was a way in which he coped with his depression. In this documentary we also see The Doors recording in the studio, and perform on several occasions. This documentary, then, is also a music documentary, for the music and the performances, are a main part of the story.
3.4 The Club 27
The documentary 27: Gone Too Soon (Simon Napier-Bell, 2018) specifically discusses the deaths of artists that died at the age of 27. As we have seen in the first three documentaries, it is made clear that the use of metaphors is important in discussing the artists and their depression, mostly because interviewees are friends or family. In this documentary this is not the case, however, although the notion of depression is discussed. What is important in this documentary is the role alcohol and drugs have in relation to depression and the eventual end of the artists’ lives (see Appendix IV for the schematics). Unfortunately, the footage that this documentary uses is not clear enough to construe a metaphor – really any metaphor in any mode – and that seems problematic, especially when I
42 am searching for these metaphors. The problem, therefore, lies in the way in which the documentary is constructed. While the other documentaries rely on interviews with friends and family, this documentary relies on interviews with experts. Most are mental health professionals or people that work – or have worked – in the music industry. It succeeds in signifying the problems of alcohol, drugs and depression in the music industry, but gives us not much information about the state of mind of these artists. Whilst discussing the artists, and depression, there are images used that keep recurring in this documentary (see figure 3.4.1 and 3.4.2), but there are other images used in the same manner, all relating to drug use (or rather abuse). Instead of construing a metaphor by using these images, it is only used in discussing the destructive lives of the artists. The drugs that the artists use – sometimes provided by the management of the band – is pointed towards as the cause of depression and the ultimate suicide that followed. In this documentary the experts seem convinced that each of the artists in the ‘club 27’ killed themselves. However, as we have seen in the documentaries discussing these artists – especially Jim Morrison and Amy Winehouse – suicide does not seem conclusive. In this way 27: Gone Too Soon seems like a documentary designed to absolve the music industry of all blame; as if they have done all they could.
In figure 3.4.1, (left), (00:01:56, 00:02:34, 00:25:30 (in black and white) and 00:32:12), and figure 3.4.2, (right), (00:39:20 and 01:05:18), we see drugs and syringes. These images are shown whilst drugs and artists are being discussed, and they signify their destructive effects they have on artists, and seem to be pointed to as the cause for depression and suicide.
Unlike the other documentaries I have analyzed thus far, this documentary cannot be described as a music documentary. While they discuss artists, they miss a critical factor in being a music documentary, and that is talking about, or even playing, music. The music they do use does not belong to any of the artists that are being discussed, and it sounds like it is
43 being used purely to fill the silences. This documentary might be talking about the music industry and her casualties, but it does not talk about music in the slightest. Therefore, it is not a music documentary as I have defined in Chapter 1.
3.5 Avicii
What is interesting about the documentary concerning Tim Bergling, known as Avicii, is that unlike the other documentaries I have discussed, Avicii: True Stories (Levan Tsikurishvili, 2017) was made before his death in April 2018. This documentary is different because it discusses why Avicii wanted to quit – touring specifically – and how he came to that decision. Avicii starts the documentary by saying that the first four or five years he liked the touring, and he compares it with jumping out of a plane. As we have seen in the second chapter, jumping out of a plane can give you a sense of anxiety. It is a feeling that passes when you return with both feet on the ground. He says that on stage he played with the feeling of almost dying, and that when he stood up on that stage he felt special, and more importantly, accepted (see Appendix V for the schematics). This feeling of almost dying is repeated by Avicii’s manager Arash Pournouri (see figure 3.5.1). This dying signifies the pressure that accompanies the notion of being famous. For some people, Pournouri is seen as being responsible for Avicii’s death, because of the pressure he exerted, while he should have been there for him to protect him against this.
In Figure 3.5.1 (00:13:16) we see Avicii’s manager, Arash Pournouri, explain what will happen with Avicii with all the interviews that are to come.
While 27: Gone Too Soon is a documentary that tries to explain the nature of depression in the artists belonging to the ‘club 27’, Avicii: True Stories gives the artist the chance to explain
44 his own situation. This is possible because Avicii was not dead at the moment the documentary was made. In this documentary we see and hear people that worked with Avicii, and childhood friends, but not family, like we have seen in the documentaries concerning Amy Winehouse and Kurt Cobain. In contrast to the other documentaries, which feature interviews with friends and relatives – not really counting 27: Gone Too Soon – Avicii: True Stories interviews artists; DJ’s in particular. David Guetta, a prominent French DJ, states that he, like Avicii, is a shy and anxious person. At a later point in the documentary Avicii states that he feels that he has always been judged for being an introvert instead of an extravert. He says that he read Carl Jung, and that he realizes that being introvert is not a bad thing, but that the music industry would rather have had that he was an extravert person. For Avicii, this explains his behavior of drinking while he is up on stage. As in all of the other documentaries I have analyzed, alcohol, drugs and depression play a big role. The drugs that Avicii took, however, were legal drugs, like Percocet. According to Avicii this drug is basically heroin, and while the doctors in the United States insisted it would work, Avicii himself experienced something different. Although these drugs were legal, they did have a similar effect to heroin. Because of his tour schedule, and the lack of rest, Avicii had to spend some time in the hospital (see figure 3.5.2). The first time was on tour in Australia. Avicii also stated, while in hospital in the United States, that the legal drugs made his anxiety worse – which is something he had medication for as well.
In figure 3.5.2 (00:25:30) we see Avicii lying in a hospital bed, after his touring had taken a huge impact on his rest and health.
In most documentaries analyzed in this thesis, we have seen the importance of metaphors when discussing depression. This documentary is no different (see figure 3.5.3). Here we not
45 only see a darkened image, but Avicii also states that he does not want to go back to that dark place again. This metaphor is only construed by speech, and it related to the metaphor DEPRESSION IS A DARK (CONFINED) SPACE. Saying that he does not want to go back to that place again tells us that he is familiar with this dark place, and returning to this place has to be avoided. This place is a state of mind, like we have seen with Amy Winehouse. Looking at figure 3.5.3 we could argue that there is not only darkness, but also stones that remind us of pushing a boulder up the metaphorical mountain, and therefore signifying pressure. This pressure is exerted in this conversation about why Avicii should not cancel his shows. In discussing the cancelling of the shows (see figure 3.5.4) we hear Avicii say that he does not want to do the shows, for they give him anxiety. This fact does not seem to be taken seriously enough, for none of the crew, his friends, or other people in the room seem to want to comfort him, or even look him in the eye. He might not be physically alone, but you can say that no one is on his side – literally in the frame, and metaphorically when it comes to support.
In figure 3.5.3 (01:17:55), (left), we see a dark shot in which Avicii is discussing depression, and not wanting to “go back to that dark place again.” In figure 3.5.4 (01:13:48), (right), we see Avicii in tears, saying that his concerts give him anxiety.
Darkness plays a prominent role in this documentary, although not all of this darkness can be seen as metaphorical. This has to do with Avicii’s job, being a DJ playing shows, usually late at night. This takes us to his last shows, one of which is aurally signified as a ticking bomb. Avicii’s wellbeing in this instance is treated like this ticking bomb, which exploded at one of his shows. The images we are shown are busy – although this seems just the representation of the pressure behind the screens – but what is more prominent is the sound of ticking, coinciding with the beating of a heart (figure 3.5.5). The ticking bomb is not only discussed, but we also hear the ticking and the beating of the heart, as if the filmmaker wants us to experience the anxiety of the moment.
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In figure 3.5.5 (01:00:55), we see Avicii, lighted up, in a dark place before one of his shows. The light is made by his laptop, and makes it apparent that he is alone in a room filled with people.
While this is the only documentary I have analyzed which focuses on the problem of Avicii while he was still alive, the documentary seems set on a happy ending. Avicii has made it clear in this documentary that he has seen doctors, psychiatrists and tried various diets whilst on tour. What he really wanted and needed was rest from the emotional rollercoaster he was riding, in part to recover from his illnesses, and in part to rest from his intense tour schedule. It is also made clear that Avicii’s manager, Arash Pournouri, considers Avicii young and naïve and that is because he became famous right after high school, and that there was a certain knowledge that he missed. The documentary ends with shots like figure 3.5.6, in which Avicii seems free. With the loose framing that we see in this shot we can argue that Avicii had found peace of mind. Although this documentary ends on a positive note – while none of the others do – we still have to examine the aftermath. In April of 2018 Tim Bergling, also known as Avicii, sadly took his own life. He had been working on what is now his final studio album. The first single from that album, called “SOS” has been released post mortem,
47 in April 2019, and is now considered a cry for help from the 28 year old Swedish DJ and producer1 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8tdT5pAE34).
In figure 3.5.6 (01:33:09), we see Avicii sitting, seemingly at peace, because he has no more concerts or festivals that he has to play. Because Avicii is still alive at the end of making the documentary, this film thus ends on a positive note.
While this documentary was different than the previous four because it concerns an artist that was alive when this documentary was made and released, it is the same as the first three for it is a music documentary. This is the case because we see Avicii in the studio and performing his shows, and because his music is also used, in contrast to what we have seen in 27: Gone Too Soon. The music was also signified as a way cope with his anxiety and his depression, which means that music, as with three of the other documentaries, plays an important role.
3.6 Conclusion
As we have seen in this final chapter, metaphor is an important tool in discussing depression in music documentaries. Subsequently, we have seen that not all documentaries concerning artists or the music industry can be necessarily seen as what I have defined as a ‘music documentary’. This had to do with the lack of the use of music from these artists, interviews with the right people – ergo the people who were in the proximity of these artists, and not professionals that glanced upon their careers from afar – and footage taken from live performances. All these things make up what we can see as a music documentary. In the analyses and comparison of these documentaries we have seen that drugs and
1 For more information on this, you can watch “Avicii – The Story Behind “SOS” ft. Aloe Blacc” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jit18JpiXc).
48 alcohol played important roles while discussing depression, anxiety and the pressure that the artists were suffering. These – mostly illegal – substances were used to alter the state of mind the artists were in. Strangely enough, the use of these substances was not mentioned in terms of metaphor. The metaphors that were used mostly related to darkness, as we can see with Amy Winehouse and Kurt Cobain. In their documentaries the metaphors concerning darkness were used were clearer than in other documentaries. This has to do with the fact that these metaphors were construed through multiple modes, while in the documentaries about Jim Morrison and Avicii speech seems to be more important; which means that the metaphor is only construed in one mode, mostly. Setting the quality of the documentary 27: Gone Too Soon aside, it is clear that the filmmaker of this documentary wanted to discuss the ‘club 27’ and the depression that came along with it – as well as suicide – although in the case of Jim Morrison and Amy Winehouse, suicide seems inconclusive. As we have seen, this documentary turns to mental health professionals and people from the music industry. The artists that feature in 27: Gone Too Soon seem out of place, for they are not singers from well-known bands. One can wonder, why interview the singer from the band Years and Years is interviewed rather than for instance Dave Grohl, former drummer from Nirvana, and current lead singer of the Foo Fighters? The problem continues, however. The music that is used in this documentary does not belong to the artists they discuss, and they rush through the deaths of five prominent members of the so-called ‘club 27’ in little over an hour. That makes this film less of a documentary that we can take seriously because it seems like a documentary solely made to absolve the music industry of all blame for the deaths of all these artists, and to state that people that are too fragile should not be in this creative business. Depression is a difficult concept for, as with most mental conditions, it is abstract. It is unsurprising that this concept is spoken of through metaphorical means, to be more comprehensible. Four out of five documentaries discussed have used metaphors concerning depression, and anxiety was only mentioned in 27: Gone Too Soon and Avicii: True Stories, to make the audience aware of the feeling associated with the mental illnesses. The other documentary – 27: Gone Too Soon – cannot be seen as a music documentary in the way I have defined this, which means that music documentaries do use (multimodal) metaphors in order for us to comprehend abstract concepts, like depression is, at least in these instances. It should be noted that not all documentaries apply the multimodal metaphor as well as they could have. Darkness seems to be a recurrent theme, however, which makes it easier for us to
49 construe the metaphor DEPRESSION IS DARKNESS in ‘music documentaries’, concerning Avicii and the infamous ‘club 27.’
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Chapter 4. Conclusion
In this thesis my aim was to define the ‘music documentary’ as a subgenre of the documentary that does not only focus on music, but also addresses taboo topics, of which depression is but one. Then I analyzed these music documentaries in terms of the representation of depression. Because depression is a complex and abstract concept, which is intangible, metaphors are being used to make it tangible and to better comprehend this mental state. Therefore, my focus was on metaphor; monomodal- and multimodal metaphor in this case. In the first chapter I defined the music documentary by first taking a step back and focusing on the documentary. For this purpose I used Bill Nichols’ Introduction to Documentary (2017) which is a work that has extensively researched documentary. While there is said much about documentary, its aesthetics and certain modes of documentaries – like performative and participatory are just two – the music documentary was not mentioned, nor defined. Even more so, The Music Documentary: Acid Rock to Electropop (Halligan et al, 2013) is the only book devoted to defining the music documentary. Because this book is made up by chapters written by various researchers, it was made clear that there was not a singular definition for the music documentary. I clarified my interpretation of the music documentary by looking back at Altman’s notion of genre, and defined the music documentary as a documentary that revolves around an artist, their friends and family, and of course music. In doing this, music documentaries tend revolve around music, but also tend to raise awareness on social and taboo issues. This story relates to the artist who is being discussed, but this storyline is secondary to the music. For the second chapter I discussed the specifics of depression. To do further research I read psychology papers and a medical paper, which explained the causes of depression. Using Avicii’s documentary I briefly explained anxiety. Although there were no metaphors concerning anxiety in neither this nor the remaining analyzed documentaries. Avicii did discuss anxiety, but did this in terms of depression. We discovered that feeling anxious is not a bad sign, unless it becomes persistent. Depression was sometimes the result of alcohol and drug abuse according to Swartz (2007). The presence of these drugs had to be taken into account when focusing on the representation of depression. This presence is not the only facet, however. That is why I focused on multimodal metaphor, because depression is an abstract concept. In understanding depression, I argued, metaphor would be used to describe a certain feeling related to this mental affliction. By including recent studies done on metaphor
51 concerning depression in this thesis, like Forceville and Paling (2018) and El Refaie (2019), it was apparent that the metaphor DEPRESSION IS DARKNESS/BLACK was frequently used to describe this state of mind. This might not be the only metaphor concerning depression, but it does lie at the heart of it. In the third chapter, I analyzed five documentaries that discussed depression in one way or another. This is where we have seen the role that multimodal metaphor played in the representation of depression. In the analyses of the documentaries I argued that the documentary 27: Gone Too Soon cannot strictly be seen as a music documentary. There was also a lack of not using metaphors of any variety. This lack had to do with the documentary’s aim to discuss the mythical ‘club 27’ and depression that seemed to be a part of that, instead of letting the artists and/or their friends and families speak up about the subject. They do, however, discuss quotes from family, but never in terms of metaphor. By contrast, the other four documentaries not only discuss depression, but also use (multimodal) metaphors whilst talking about it. Because they are music documentaries, and the life and music of the artists is more important, the story about depression seems to be secondary. In the first three documentaries I have discussed, about Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain and Jim Morrison, there are a lot of metaphors being used. The metaphor that seems to dominate in all these documentaries – including the documentary concerning Avicii – is DEPRESSION IS DARKNESS/ BLACK. For Winehouse and Cobain this is construed through multiple modes, namely visuals and music. In Jim Morrison’s case it is construed through visuals, and for Avicii the metaphor is construed mainly through speech. Each of these documentaries discuss depression in this respect. Another metaphor that I came across when analyzing the films was burning out. We now use ‘burn out’ to describe a mental state, or even illness, but in the case for Jim Morrison and Avicii it had to do with the initial metaphor of being ‘on fire’ – which means that you were doing well. The notion of being depleted from all energy because you used it all up is important to think about. As I have stated in the analysis of The Doors: When You’re Strange being on fire is not an ideal situation, as can be said for the aftermath of being on fire. It is apparent how close this metaphor is to those that describe (almost) dying, at least in the four documentaries that I have defined as ‘music documentaries.’ Metaphors are frequently used whilst discussing and representing depression. The documentary 27: Gone Too Soon has shown us that it is not necessarily vital to use metaphors, but it is apparent that a cause – for instance the excessive use of alcohol and drugs – needs to be pointed out. When we take music documentaries into account, it is clear that this
52 subgenre of the documentary does use metaphor in discussing depression. When looking at the five documentaries I have analyzed and discussed, we can conclude that depression, and alcohol and drugs that often accompany this mental illness, is present in all analyzed documentaries. Most of these documentaries also focus on the metaphorical darkness of depression, except for 27: Gone Too Soon. The reason for this is that this documentary cannot be seen as a music documentary; at least not in the manner I have discussed and defined music documentaries, for this documentary does not focus on music. Finally, it is apparent that each of these documentaries’ formats differ, although most were released in the same decade. However, four of these documentaries stay loyal to the criteria of a music documentary as I define it, as they use their music from the artist they discuss and images from their performances. To test whether my definition of the music documentary is correct, additional research should be conducted concerning music documentaries. These documentaries can discuss depression or other social and taboo issues, but the main focus should be on music. It is possible that (multimodal) metaphor plays a part in telling this ‘secondary story’ of the music documentary. Unfortunately, I could only lay the groundwork for this research in this thesis because there has not been much research conducted in the field of the music documentary, and because of my specific focus on the metaphorical representation of depression. While it is an important aspect in these documentaries, it does not mean that the focus of ‘secondary stories’ within the music documentaries will be on this issue specifically. To further test my first hypothesis, there is a need to continue analysis on music documentaries.
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Appendix I
In this appendix we find schema 1, in which it is made clear what metaphors are construed through which modes, and schema 2, in which the use of drugs, portrayal of family, or other attributes of the music documentary in question are laid out. These schemas relate to Amy (Asif Kapadia, 2015). Schema 1
Metaphors Construed Construed Construed Construed Construed concerning: through through through through through Music Sound Visuals Written Spoken Language Language Blackness/Darkness ✔ X ✔ ✔ ✔ Containment X X X X X A Burden X X X X X Feeling Lost X X X X X Ascent/Descent X X X X X Dying ✔ X X X ✔ Schema 2
Representation Through Through Through Through Through Music Sound Visuals Written Spoken Language Language Drugs ✔ X ✔ X ✔ Depression ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ Family X X ✔ X ✔ Friends X X ✔ X ✔ Professionals X X ✔ X ✔ Him/herself ✔ X ✔ X ✔ Impact of being X X ✔ X ✔ famous Professional X X X X ✔ help?
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Appendix II
In this appendix we find schema 1, in which it is made clear what metaphors are construed through which modes, and schema 2, in which the use of drugs, portrayal of family, or other attributes of the music documentary in question are laid out. These schemas relate to Cobain: Montage of Heck (Brett Morgen, 2015).
Schema 1
Metaphors Construed Construed Construed Construed Construed concerning: through through through through through Music Sound Visuals Written Spoken Language Language Blackness/Darkness ✔ X ✔ ✔ ✔ Containment X X ✔ ✔ X A Burden X X X ✔ X Feeling Lost X X X X X Ascent/Descent X X X X X Dying X X X X X Schema 2
Representation Through Through Through Through Through Music Sound Visuals Written Spoken Language Language Drugs ✔ X ✔ ✔ ✔ Depression ✔ X ✔ ✔ ✔ Family X ✔ ✔ X ✔ Friends X ✔ ✔ X ✔ Professionals X X X X X Him/herself ✔ X ✔ ✔ ✔ Impact of being X X X ✔ X famous Professional X X X X X help?
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Appendix III
In this appendix we find schema 1, in which it is made clear what metaphors are construed through which modes, and schema 2, in which the use of drugs, portrayal of family, or other attributes of the music documentary in question are laid out. These schemas relate to The Doors: When You’re Strange (Tom DiCillo, 2009).
Schema 1
Metaphors Construed Construed Construed Construed Construed concerning: through through through through through Music Sound Visuals Written Spoken Language Language Blackness/Darkness X X X X X Containment X X X X X A Burden X X X X X Feeling Lost X ✔ ✔ X ✔ Ascent/Descent X X X X X Dying X X ✔ X ✔ Schema 2
Representation Through Through Through Through Through Music Sound Visuals Written Spoken Language Language Drugs ✔ X X X ✔ Depression X X ✔ X ✔ Family X X ✔ X X Friends X X X X X Professionals X X X X X Him/herself ✔ X ✔ X ✔ Impact of being X X ✔ ✔ ✔ famous Professional X X X X ✔ help?
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Appendix IV
In this appendix we find schema 1, in which it is made clear what metaphors are construed through which modes, and schema 2, in which the use of drugs, portrayal of family, or other attributes of the music documentary in question are laid out. These schemas relate to 27: Gone Too Soon (Simon Napier-Bell, 2018). Schema 2
Metaphors Construed Construed Construed Construed Construed concerning: through through through through through Music Sound Visuals Written Spoken Language Language Blackness/Darkness X X X X X Containment X X X X X A Burden X X X X X Feeling Lost X X X X X Ascent/Descent X X X X X Dying X X X X X Schema 2
Representation Through Through Through Through Through Music Sound Visuals Written Spoken Language Language Drugs X X ✔ X X Depression X X X X ✔ Family X X X X X Friends X X X X X Professionals X X ✔ X ✔ Artists X ✔ ✔ X ✔ Impact of being X X ✔ X ✔ famous Professional X X X X X help?
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Appendix V
In this appendix we find schema 1, in which it is made clear what metaphors are construed through which modes, and schema 2, in which the use of drugs, portrayal of family, or other attributes of the music documentary in question are laid out. These schemas relate to Avicii: True Stories (Levan Tsikurishvili, 2017). Schema 1
Metaphors Construed Construed Construed Construed Construed concerning: through through through through through Music Sound Visuals Written Spoken Language Language Blackness/Darkness X X ✔ X ✔ Containment X X ✔ X ✔ A Burden X X ✔ X ✔ Feeling Lost X ✔ ✔ X X Ascent/Descent X X X X ✔ Dying X X X X ✔ Schema 2
Representation Through Through Through Through Through Music Sound Visuals Written Spoken Language Language Drugs X X X X ✔ Depression ✔ ✔ ✔ X ✔ Family X X X X X Friends X X ✔ X ✔ Professionals X X ✔ X ✔ Him/herself ✔ X ✔ X ✔ Impact of being X X ✔ X ✔ famous Professional X X ✔ X ✔ help?
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Bibliography
Altman, Rick (1984). “A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre.” Cinema Journal, Vol 23, No 3. Austin: University of Texas Press. pp 6-18. Altman, Rick (1999). Film/Genre. London: British Film Institute. Austerlitz, Saul. Henry Keazor and Thorsten Wübbena eds (2010). “Don’t You Cry Tonight.” Rewind, Play, Fast Forward: The Past, Present and Future of the Music Video. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. Bowers, Len (2003). “Introduction.” The Social Nature of Mental Illness. London: Routledge. pp 1-6. Charteris-Black, Jonathan (2012). “Studying the Bell Jar: Metaphor, Gender, and Depression.” Metaphor and Symbol 27. pp 199–216. Cohen, Thomas F (2012). “The Emergence of the Rock Star.” Playing to the Camera: Musicians and Musical Performance in Documentary Cinema. New York: Columbia University Press. Corner, John (2002). “Sounds Real: Music and Documentary.” Popular Music, Vol. 21, No. 3, Music and Television. 357-366. Dibben, Nicola (2009). “Nature and Nation: National Identity and Environmentalism in Icelandic Popular Music Video and Music Documentary.” Ethnomusicology Forum, Vol. 18, No. 1: 131-151. El Refaie, Elisabeth (2019). “Trapped in Spacetime. Metaphor in Graphic Illness Narratives About Depression.” Visual Metaphor and Embodiment in Graphic Illness Narratives. New York: Oxford University Press. pp 154-183. Emmons, Kimberly K. (2010). “Isolating Words: Metaphors That Shape Depression’s Identities.” In: Kimberly K. Emmons (eds), Black Dogs and Blue Words: Depression and Gender in the Age of Self-Care. London: Rutgers University Press. pp 94-121. Fahlenbrach, Kathrin (2017). “Audiovisual Metaphors and Metonymies of Emotions and Depression in Moving Images.” In: Francesca Ervas, Elisabetta Gola and Maria Grazia Rossi (eds), Metaphor in Communication, Science and Education. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp 95–117. Flett, Gordon L., Paul L. Hewitt, Kirk Blankstein and Sean O’Brien (1991). “Perfectionism and Learned Resourcefulness in Depression and Self-esteem.” Personality and Individual Differences, 12. pp 61-68. Forceville, Charles (2007). “Multimodal metaphor in ten Dutch TV commercials.” The Public
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Journal of Semiotics 1:1. pp 19-51. Forceville, Charles and Sissy Paling (2018). “The metaphorical representation of DEPRESSION in short, wordless animation films.” Journal of Visual Communication (available online since 21-9- 2018 at
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Saffle, Michael (2013). “Retrospective Compilation: (Re)defining the Music Documentary.” In: Benjamin Halligan, Robert Edgar, and Kirsty Fairclough-Isaacs (eds) The Music Documentary: Acid Rock to Electropop. pp 42-54. Routledge, New York. Swartz, Karen L. M.D (2007). “Mood Disorders.” The John Hopkins White Papers: Depression and Anxiety. Baltimore: John Hopkins Medical, 2007. pp 1-55. Swartz, Karen L. M.D (2007). “Anxiety Disorders.” The John Hopkins White Papers: Depression and Anxiety. Baltimore: John Hopkins Medical, 2007. pp 55-68.
Media list
27: Gone Too Soon. Director Simon Napier-Bell. Premiere Picture, 2018. Amy. Director Asif Kapadia. Film4, 2015. Avicii: True Stories. Director Levan Tsikurishvili. Black Dalmatian Films, 2017. Cobain: Montage of Heck. Director Brett Morgen. HBO Documentary Films, 2015. The Doors: When You’re Strange. Director Tom DiCillo. Rhino Entertainment, 2009.
Articles Artists
“Britney Spears opens up about the ‘overwhelming’ anxiety that caused her 2007 breakdown.” Hello Magazine. (27-06-2017). Chloe Best. (https://www.hellomagazine.com/healthandbeauty/health-and- fitness/2017062740179/britney-spears-anxiety-caused-breakdown/) “Cardi B deleted her Instagram.” Fader. (12-02-2019). David Renshaw. (https://www.thefader.com/2019/02/12/cardi-b-instagram-grammys). “Ed Sheeran Denies Deleting His Twitter Because of ‘Game of Thrones’ Backlash.” Billboard. (19-07-2017). Alexandra Holterman. (https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/7873105/ed-sheeran-twitter-game-of- thrones-rumors) Hey het is oké. Overheidscampagne angststoornissen. (https://www.heyhetisoke.nl/) “Mental Health Page.” World Health Organization. (07-04-2017). (https://www.who.int/mental_health/management/depression/en/) “Miley Cyrus says she regrets ‘Wrecking Ball’.” (22-03-2018). Newshub. (https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2018/03/miley-cyrus-says-she- regrets-wrecking-ball.html).
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Music Videos Avicii. “SOS.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8tdT5pAE34). (10-04-2019). Miley Cyrus. “Wrecking Ball.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My2FRPA3Gf8). (09-11-2013). Thirty Seconds to Mars. “City of Angels.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ntlt2tKi4do). (29-10-2013).
Images
Cover page Poster Avicii: True Stories (https://www.netflix-nederland.nl/veelbesproken- avicii-true-stories-docu-komt-naar-netflix/). Poster Amy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY9HuVYWn_Y). Poster Cobain: Montage of Heck (https://www.moviemeter.nl/film/102757). Poster 27: Gone Too Soon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUAQQR2FZ1I). Poster The Doors: When You’re Strange (https://nl.pinterest.com/pin/137148751137164226/). Logo University of Amsterdam (https://02025.nl/organization/4384/-universiteit-van-amsterdam).
3.1.1 Amy (2015).00:24:54. Film still. 3.1.2 Amy (2015). 00:51:13. Film still. 3.1.3 Amy (2015). 00:14:39. Film still. 3.1.4 Amy (2015). 00:56:17. Film still. 3.1.5 Amy (2015). 00:13:45. Film still. 3.2.1 Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015). 00:20:06. Film still. 3.2.2 Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015). 00:21:19. Film still. 3.2.3 Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015). 00:22:47. Film still. 3.2.4 Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015). 00:38:57. Film still. 3.2.5 Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015). 01:33:19. Film still. 3.2.6 Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015). 00:01:47. Film still. 3.2.7 Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015). 01:54:51. Film still. 3.3.1 The Doors: When You’re Strange (2009). 00:01:53. Film still. 3.3.2 The Doors: When You’re Strange (2009). 00:19:12. Film still. 3.3.3 The Doors: When You’re Strange (2009). 01:14:28. Film still. 3.3.4 The Doors: When You’re Strange (2009). 00:44:07. Film still. 3.3.5 The Doors: When You’re Strange (2009). 00:03:55 and 01:18:05. Film still.
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3.4.1 27: Gone Too Soon (2018). 00:01:56, 00:02:34, 00:25:30 (black and white) and 00:32:12. Film still. 3.4.2 27: Gone Too Soon (2018). 00:39:20 and 01:05:18. Film still. 3.5.1 Avicii: True Stories (2017). 00:13:16. Film still. 3.5.2 Avicii: True Stories (2017). 00:25:30. Film still. 3.5.3 Avicii: True Stories (2017). 01:17:55. Film still. 3.5.4 Avicii: True Stories (2017). 01:13:48. Film still. 3.5.5 Avicii: True Stories (2017). 01:00:55. Film still.
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