Tony Kaye vs Joy Division

During the first viewing of Tony Kaye’s 1993 commercial for Dunlop tyres the audience may find it more intriguing than weird, It clearly can provoke a reaction from certain viewers but simply as advertisement it serves its purpose as it sticks in your mind from its surreal imagery, but what is important to understand is that the films provocative use of fetishism relates to a sense of impulse and control that symbolizes the product, portraying the women like goddesses in a sexual nature, beautiful and desirable which symbolises the car and tyres, as the men are fat, rich and exited by the desired subject, consumed by their uncontrollable lust and/or greed for the subject. These uses of fetishism can be seen by the use of clothing worn by both sexes in the film such as leather corsets and gimp masks. The marbles that are thrown down in front of the car by the characters is an symbolic reference, the characters are asking how can they control their lust and greed, much as what the audience may be asking towards the product, and as the tyres run straight over these marbles expressions of realisation appear on the characters faces as they see their answer is to just go for it, also symbolizing the answer to the audiences question, ‘buy the product’. The soundtrack also completes this theory with Venus in Furs by Velvet Underground. Which when you look up the lyrics is about BDSM (Bondage, Discipline, Dominance, Submission and Sado-Masochism).

After Joy Division's video to their song ‘atmosphere’ without knowing what it is about you may consider it boring, confusing, and a strange combination of different imagery that doesn’t fit together and make a whole lot of sense, however once learning it is mostly a tribute to Ian Curtis after his death it has a completely different effect, the stills of him throughout the film are deliberately used rather than video of him is an attempt to make the video even more emotional,  which may also explain why it is all in black and white, or perhaps that and the use of grain is an attempt to try and date the video. The uses of contrast in plus and minus signs, and the monks in either all black or all white could be symbols of life and death, and how things never stay the same, or maybe the monks are there to add religion and make the video seem like a funeral, and the contrast displays different aspects of his life.

In comparing the two pieces atmosphere is more emotional and somewhat depressing with a fixed target audience to their fans, this is proved by the fact that if you did not know of the lead singers death the video is not half as powerful. However Tony Kaye’s commercial for Dunlop has a wider audience and can be understood by anyone whom is willing to think deeply about the symbolizations. There is a huge difference in the films as the commercial is in high saturated colour, with fast edits, whereas the music video is slow and entirely in black and white.