Video for lovely Dylan song "When the Deal Goes Down" off his new album "Modern Times."

Features gorgeous Scarlett Johansson in pastiche of home movie footage of her having Dylanesque Minnesota upbringing.

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"When the Deal Goes Down"

         

director = bennett miller

         

now how did this treatment work?

"We follow a young woman around, it's shot on super 8, looks like the sixties, blah blah blah... oh yeah, did I mention it will star SCARLETT JOHANSSON? alright give me the goddamn budget now I'm leaving tomorrow to shoot this video."

actually i always wonder what comes first in these types of videos: the director, the actor, or the concept.

         

Hey I think the imagery is all very inspired--that couple dancing with animal head masks, the big fish, the scary ride at the fair... and besides it has Scarlett.

         

This kind of thing has been done a zillion times but who cares when you're looking at Scarlett Johansson

         

just beautiful. fantastically edited, shot just right (inspired indeed), over and over watchable... something very nabokovian about it (oh to be that butterfly...)

         

ah, scarlett... news.independent.co.uk

         

Quite nice. I think that the various images are quite interesting and rather more crafted than they first seem. The manatee is brilliant. But there are lots of nagging things that I don't really like about this.

I bought a bunch of unmarked super 8 reels off eBay a while back, just out of interest. Those were much more strange and moving somehow, even without the music - watching someone else's memories totally out of context. In many respects, it was the real version of what this film is purporting to be.

With this I just get the unsettling 'Marta Tura' sensation that what's keeping me watching is voyeuristically intimate footage of an attractive girl.

Also - where is it written that all 8mm footage must be devastatingly fogged? We got that it's 8mm from the first frame. I'm guessing it was actually shot on Super 8 - but if not, the grade / grain is pretty much bang on, so why the need for all the orange shit? It's distracting.

         

erm... pretty sure that's actually a dugong...

         

I may have committed a terrible Sirenian faux-pas!

         

(only reason i remarked: in order to say "erm". and that's because now i know scarlett says "erm" too.)

         

cute, endearing at times... but mostly insanely bland. I was laughing at parts where it seems to me the editing almost mocks Scarlett.

benroll, the orange shit is absolutely necessary to cover the fact that this video has no heart.

         

Many a many little Dylan injokes here that I find a little clunky (but interestingly so): Dylan's granddaughter, Guthrie's Bound for Glory, William's record, Holly's record, Duluth Plates 14 years after his birth, the lone boy wheeling a tire, I also want to say that old woman is someone (an old girlfriend, Echo Healstrom maybe?)

If we consider this as some kind of retrospective of sorts (similar to Cash's Hurt in a pre - not post - form), many images fail: Weird Barney esque Kubuki sequence, animal mask dancers, the hipsters playing that tennis like net game in the yard (why am I at a loss for its name?), the manhattan approach via sea, and I'd also put Johansson on the top of this list. She feels neither engaging nor muse like, instead, a blatant reminder of the trendy now.

One image that clobbered me; the manatee. An explosion. Because for a moment you think, maybe our love interest is more than that. Maybe she's really a mermaid of sorts. Explosive.

And one I havent made my mind up yet: The horror show at coney island. I think I'm stalling at how slight that sequence feels. Maybe I expect too much from a girl roaming around a purposefully haunted house. I don't know...

I agree with Benroll about the footage. The blur and frame burns are annoyingly defensive, as if covering up for things -- especially when the same orange pattern repeats.

All in all this tracks a winner, as is the album.

         

who cares

         

I found it to be really easy to watch. I scroll through most videos and I would have watched this for much longer. I guess that has to do with feeling as though this was Bobby Zimmerman's last home movie before heading east. Sure Super 8 is overused and it doesn't always have light leaks but that doesn't factor in much when I watch this. It felt nice and I think its tough to say a video like this has no heart.

         

when you have such a solid song from such an amazing artist and you have to continually resort to light leaks, one has to wonder (as lusk81 put it) if they are covering up for something. for me, it is lack of heart. this video just feels emtpy because miller fell flat to convey 1/3 of the emotion dylan so brilliantly captured in this song.

         

prog: What does 'Scarlett says erm' mean? 'Erm' about the video? 'Erm' about the comments? Or 'erm' in general?

Actually, what does 'erm' mean. Contradiction or hesitation?

         

Nice. I like that contrived amateurish stuff, Scarlett is beautiful and the song is great. I guess I'm just an old softy. Dick.

         

unique to get 16mm film to look worse than super 8. very poor..they should have got me to do it. maybe bob did this himself because if a cameraman did it,it is tragic. maybe russian 16 or 1950s bolex with a rather bad light leak; check out the opening sequence in the sean penn film the game.that is proper beautiful home movie footage. or anything by derek jarman.