Final Rating: 2.5/5
The music video to feature length film route is a pipeline that is riddled with some of the best and most imaginative modern directors working today. You have talents like David Fincher, who went from Madonna and Paula Abdul to Fight Cub and The Social Network. Or Jonathan Glazer who went from Radiohead and Jamiroquai to Under the Skin and The Zone of Interest. Or Spike Jonze who went from Fatboy Slim and Beastie Boys to Being John Malkovich and Her. That’s not including names like The Daniels, Antoine Fuqua, Francis Lawrence and more who all took a similar path.
In Michel Gondry: Do It Yourself!, directed by François Nemeta, we learn about the life and career of one of the most unique and visionary directors. From his start making music videos before jumping to the world of commercials and finally being given the opportunity to express himself with feature length films.
The film opens with narration from Nemeta, who talks about growing up in France and falling in love with the music of a local band named Oui Oui and wanting to make music videos for them. Nemeta impressed the band by filming a concert of theirs and asked them who was directing their videos in an attempt to steal away the job. Unfortunately it was the drummer, a young Michel Gondry, so Nemeta didn’t have a shot to replace the young visionary.
Gondry grew up in a musical household with hippie parents who let him do as he pleases. As a teenager, he became enthralled with the punk scene and their DIY ethos. Eventually Gondry left Oui Oui because he enjoyed making stop motion animation and homemade special effects more than he enjoyed making music and to be a full time director.
From there we get a greatest hits of 90’s and 00’s music video history. We see how Gondry made iconic videos for such artists like Beck, Kylie Minogue, Daft Punk, The White Stripes, Björk, The Chemical Brothers and more. Many of these artists including Beck, Jack White and Björk all appear in the film next to Gondry talking about their relationship and praising his artistic vision that helped elevate their own careers.
We see how Gondry pioneered visual effects in a time where working with computers was still a new and exciting medium. At the same time that Gondry was on top of the music video pyramid, there was one other person who rivaled him for creativity and mainstream work and that was Spike Jonze. Jonze went from filming skate videos to being an in demand music video director who’s whimsy and humour made him an ideal short filmmaker.
The two directors viewed each other as rivals, but quickly realized they had much more in common. We get interview sessions with the two of them reminiscing on their thirty year friendship, including how despite making eight videos with Björk over the course of her career and helping to establish her stardom, Gondry was jealous that Jonze made one video with her.
The movie messes with timelines a little bit as Nemeta claims that after filming a video for The Rolling Stones, Gondry felt he was at his apex and decided he would move to Los Angeles to become a commercial director. In fact Gondry directed his first video for the Rolling Stones back in 1995 and spent a considerable amount of time continuing to make music videos afterwards.
While working as a commercial director Gondry, he was able to use bigger budgets and dabble further into the world of visual effects. His commercial for Smirnoff Vodka was so cutting edge that Hollywood producer Joel Silver called him up to tell him that a film he was working on called The Matrix was copying his idea for a sequence that was later dubbed “bullet time”. At this time, Gondry was trying to figure out how to take the next step to direct feature films.
His old friend and rival Spike Jonze had just made his debut film Being John Malkovich that was written by Charlie Kaufman and he introduced the pair who hit it off as quickly as Jonze had with Gondry.
Michel Gondry made his feature film debut with Human Nature in 2001, written by Kaufman and starring Tim Robbins. The wildly experimental film convinced studios to give the duo a bigger budget where they co-wrote and Gondry directed Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
The film starts to lose steam as it tries to cram in every facet of Gondry’s career, despite being only 80 minutes long. Too late into the film do we learn about Gondry’s family life, including an odd tangent of how his mother was temporarily in a cult until she was kicked out for not having lived enough past lives.
The film ends with a bittersweet note, despite Nemeta not acknowledging it, Gondry’s capital with Hollywood likely has been spent after the commercial flop of The Green Hornet and the lack of critical acclaim for Mood Indigo. While he has continued to direct music videos, shorts and even a miniseries with Jim Carrey (Kidding), he doesn’t get the same opportunities he once did.
Overall the film paints a fascinating picture and shows the behind the scenes process of an iconic artist, but doesn’t offer much in the way of true insight or originality to the documentary format. Gondry is self-deprecating and offers the most honesty when he is alongside Spike Jonze or his brothers, but otherwise rarely opens himself up.
Michel Gondry: Do It Yourself! was seen during the 2024 Hot Docs Film Festival. Thank you to Hot Docs for the screener. Check out our Hot Docs wrap up podcast.
