An exis­ten­tial read­ing of Paul Thomas Anderson’s ​‘Day­dream­ing’

Vide­ol­o­gy is a new col­umn that looks at music videos through the lens of movies while explor­ing the crossover between the two mediums.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s col­lab­o­ra­tions with Radio­head gui­tarist and key­boardist Jon­ny Green­wood have result­ed in sin­gu­lar­ly evoca­tive sequences in There Will Be Blood and The Mas­ter, brood­ing films in which the rep­e­ti­tion of Greenwood’s has an almost hyp­not­ic effect.

The direc­tor has teamed up with Radio­head again for their lat­est video ​‘Day­dream­ing’, con­sist­ing of Anderson’s cam­era track­ing a griz­zled Thom Yorke mov­ing walk­ing through one door after the oth­er, chang­ing loca­tion with­out explic­it rea­son. Wher­ev­er he walks, Yorke looks dis­sat­is­fied, in search of some­thing that seem­ing­ly can­not be artic­u­lat­ed. He is direc­tion­less, and yet we still want to fol­low him. Each door­way is not so much an oppor­tu­ni­ty, but a missed chance to escape.

He enters and exits so many doors – even ones that explic­it­ly say ​“exit” – and finds noth­ing in them. In this sense the video evokes Jean-Paul Sartre’s ​‘No Exit’, which plays with the very ideas of con­scious­ness and exis­ten­tial dread. There are oth­er peo­ple in the places where Thom Yorke walks, but he bare­ly looks at them, and they bare­ly look at him. Maybe it real­ly is Hell.

Paul Thomas Ander­son has dipped his toes into music video mak­ing sev­er­al times before, work­ing with Fiona Apple on ​‘Hot Knife’ in a col­laged style, and Michael Penn on ​‘Try’, whim­si­cal­ly play­ing with self-image and more track­ing shots. Ander­son has proved that his style is mal­leable, and yet it is always instant­ly recog­nis­able. His autho­r­i­al voice is present again in this work, but as a col­lab­o­ra­tive com­po­nent with the musi­cian, Penn’s angst meld­ing with Anderson’s inno­v­a­tive­ness and Apple’s frus­trat­ed eroti­cism with Anderson’s sub­dued sexuality.

The Esch­er-esque qual­i­ty to ​‘Day­dream­ing’, which recalls Spike Jonze and Char­lie Kaufman’s Being John Malkovich. We watch Yorke, his stringy hair sway­ing from side to side, trapped in a world with end­less paths that lead only to con­struct­ed ideas of hap­pi­ness: fam­i­ly, suc­cess, ful­fil­ment. Yorke finds puri­ty and solace nowhere, and he sings, ​“And it’s too late, the dam­age is done.” Even empti­ness seems con­struct­ed, and that desire for some­thing organ­ic, authen­tic is but a daydream.