In 2006 with the release of their second album Sams Town, follow-up to the massive Debut Hot Fuss, Las Vegas band The Killers decided to release ‘When You Were Young’ as the lead single complete with 5 minute promotional music video. In the past The Killers had been known for their theatrical pop music videos, particularly Mr Brightside, but the band were experimenting with a more mature refined rock sound and their new video had to promote and establish this new image and album. The song was very successful and reached number two in UK, the album later went on to win a Brit award and the video won a Q award for best video in 2007.
The video was filmed in Tlayacapan, Mexico and has strong themes of religion, innocence and adultery. The setting is essential to the story and the setting allows us to focus on the song and understand the situation the woman is in. The fact she has a traditional upbringing and will probably have to settle for a husband she does not necessarily love. The city is also very old and poor and we can understand why she wants this new exciting man, to escape not only her religion but her boring life. It also works well with the desert theme running through The Killers albums (they grew up in Vegas near the Mojave desert), the album focuses strongly on their childhood and personal upbringing.
The story itself is pretty basic but with front man Brandon Flowers compelling lyrics and a cleverly executed video the video can really pull at the heart strings.
As the video opens we see a large white cross high above a Mexican city. A young Mexican woman approaches dressed in white, she is followed by a man who slowly pulls up in a car, he seems frustrated and bangs his head against the steering wheel. The camera returns to the woman as chilling echoes of the lyrics battle against the wind. The woman weeps against the cross, her a face a picture of agony as we glimpse quick flashes of a couple, candles, crosses and a woman’s hand running across a mans back. The woman, clearly distressed sinks to her knees as the man rushes to her side to comfort her. The song opens loudly and suddenly and the story unfolds. Amongst clips of the band performing in a small bar we are shown the woman praying at church and leaving to meet her husband. The next scenes seem to play out in reverse as she returns home to find him in bed with another woman, she runs out in tears followed by her husband. The video then shows their wedding, the woman washing feet and then the bar were she meets her husband. The video plays out their realtionship in reverse and ends with the couple on the cliff side.
The lyrics corresponds perfectly with the video, this girl is obviously very young, good, devout and innocent. She is looking for a Jesus like figure, a man who is pure, honest and trustworthy, traditionally Latin girls have a very religious upbringing but what she wants is a saviour ‘To save you from your old ways’. She then meets someone who is risky and exciting ‘he doesn’t look a thing like Jesus, but he talks like a gentleman’, she is torn between what is right and what is wrong ‘they say the devils water it ain’t so sweet…but you can dip your feet…’ She believes he loves her and she marries him believing she can make him a good man ‘can we climb this mountain? I don’t know’. The lyrics ‘You play forgiveness, Watch it now, here he comes’ implies that her husbands devious nature has been sent to test her faith and in the end he breaks her heart and she is faced with the ultimate challenge. The relationship has changed her, her trust and her innocence. Her ideas are now the past ‘when you were young’. The video and song can be interpreted many different ways, the ‘devils water it ain’t so sweet…but you can dip your feet every once in a little while’ could be talking about her husband, how to sin is bad but human and that her image of a ‘beautiful boy’ that lived up to Jesus could never exist and was only ever going to be imagined ‘when you were young’.
The mise-en-scene is a vital part in telling the story and this is done throughout ‘When you were Young’ with a mixture of setting, props, actors, costume and lighting. The video is set in Tlayacapan, a poor and traditional Mexican city, it is the perfect setting for the song and fits the story particularly well. We can empathize with the girls for her dull, traditional life and understand why she is thrilled to find this man and how she can be so naive. The city also has the same cowboy, traditional image The Killers are trying to promote. The fact religion is so important and the poverty she grows up is very prominent throughout the video and we see many dilapidated building and crumbling church monuments.
She is very sheltered, literally and in her life style, she is nearly always in a building until after she finds out about her husbands betrayal when she is on the hillside. You finally see the light. The lighting after the church when she comes out to meet her husband is also very light, he is dresses mainly in white and this almost paints him in a good light, you can see how she falls in love with him and believes there is a good side she can salvage. The lighting is also light and innocent in the wedding scene, in contrast it is very dark and dull in the bedroom and bar, the only light is the from the flashing crucifix.
Another reminder of the omnipresent religion is that there is almost always a cross in the scene, right from the beginning she leans against a large white cross, this scene is reminiscent of how Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross to atone for human sin. In the next scene she is kneeling before a mural with a crucifix as she prays. As her husband and his mistress make love a picture of the virgin Mary with a crucifix round her neck flashes as his wife enters leaving her crucifix on the table. After this there are no more images of crosses until the last scene. Another symbolic prop is the bedside photo of the husband and wife happily married, it crashes to the floor as the wife backs out of the room after catching her husband, it is a superficial as their marriage. The props in the bar are also very necessary for highlighting what kind of place it is, blinds are shut, it is dark dull and dings and bar is littered with bottles and cigarettes.
Costume is also very important, as well as setting the scene the colours are a good way to relay the emotion of the scene. In the beginning we see the wife dressed from head to toe in white, she embodies purity and innocence as white traditionally portrays. When she stands next to the cross the colour makes them as one especially when her husband dressed in dark denim arrives, the contrast of colour and moral standing is particularly prominent. Red the colour of anger and passion also occurs throughout such as the mistresses red bra and when (before they married) her husband hands her a red apron when she comes to work in the bar, she takes it and puts it on and seems to literally seize the new risky man so detached from her upbringing. Another theme from the Killers album is their new Vegas cowboy attire and image which they adorn throughout the video with trademark ponchos and hats.
I think the actors were perfectly cast, the man is clearly older and charms the young woman with his smiles and confidence, he certainly doesn’t look a thing like Jesus! The actors attire and image fits with the impression we get of his character we get form the song. The young woman is also well cast, she looks very simple and young in comparison the mistress and her facial expressions express her anguish particularly well.
The cinematography starts of very slow during the opening, there are lots of wide establishing shots of the wife and the cross and then close up panning of the man in his car looking for her. Other wide establishing shots are when the couple meet after church and are wandering through the religious monuments of the city emphasizing the religious theme and culture of the song. This use of wide establishing shots is repeated at the end and really establishes the setting. The only movements from the camera are very slight and they are mostly panning, tilting and lots of close of close ups and mid shots. Because the clips are kept to an average of 2 seconds there is not much time for the camera to move. The camera is all about telling the story, throughout the video it focuses on introducing all the character sand scenes with close up panning and tilting. The camera make good use of close ups and mid shots to capture the expressions from the woman when she meets and falls in love with her husband and as she grieves when she find out what he has done. Another interesting piece of cinematography is the extreme close ups in the beginning in when the couple are reunited, the camera first looks at the woman’s tortured, pained eyes and then the remorseful tenderness of her husbands face as he cradles her head, it reminds us that even through sin they still treasure each other and that although he is not perfect he truly loves her. Considering the negative way the husband is seen throughout the video I think this is an important reminder and makes the pain even harder to deal with.
The editing of the video is very simple which fits with the simple, plain cinematography and mise-en-scene. The main focus is clearly the story and all transition from clip to clip are quick cuts. The very beginning and ending shots are the longest but throughout the rest of the song the pace of the clips is irregular but fats to fit with the general temp of the song. The cutting of the clips and does not seem to have any pattern, obvious pace or correspondence with the lyrics except slower pace of cutting clips when the wife is washing her feet (this is the middle eight) and the music slows, then as the tempo gains in momentum to so does the cutting. Another good moment when the editing changes is in the beginning, there are about six very quick flashes of intriguing shots as the wife leans against the cross of later shots hinting there is a story to be told.
In many ways this video conforms to the conventions of music videos, it tells a story and uses lighting and mise-en-scene to tell the story and create an image for the band. The cinematography also complements the story focusing on facial expressions particularly. The promotional video has certainly come a long way from the days of spoony melodies. The video has a lot of symbolism and meaning throughout and can truly be called an art form, an expression of faith and love in music and short film two of the most popular, diverse and flexible canvases for art. However it remains a promotional video and it does its job, to their target market the intrigue and excitement this video creates will surely persuade them in to finding out more and ideally buying the single or album.
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