Have you seen Johnny Cash's take on "Hurt" by Nine Inch Nails? The music video is stunning, sobering, saddening. When watching it recently, I was struck by the way the film depicts Johnny in his very own memento mori still life, especially during verse 2 (from 1:45 to 2:30 on the youtube video link above; embedding has been disabled for that video, so you have to go to youtube to see it).
There is a long and varied art tradition of memento mori, which is Latin for "remember you shall die." This music video borrows imagery from one chapter of the m.m. tradition - that of the Dutch still life painters, who crammed their paintings with decadent tables, loaded down with the richest food of the day. The lobster, being one of the fanciest food of the time, made a lot of appearances, as it does in the music video.
On the surface, these paintings seem to simply celebrate the abundance and luxury life has to offer. However, often a skull or an hour glass would appear along with the food to remind the viewer that, even in the midst of such abundance, time marches on. If left on the table for a few days, the food would begin to decay. The moral of these works was this: Though today you feast, remember that decay, that inevitable and inexorable force, will have its effect, not only on food - but on you. On your body, on your mind, on your life... and as the Borg would say, resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
The video mimics these Dutch paintings perfectly. Johnny sits at a table laden with lobster, caviar, and fish. Even the lighting and coloring of this scene borrows from the feel of the Dutch still life(s). But as one close-up shot of the fish demonstrates, the point is not to emphasize Johnny's wealth and luxurious lifestyle, but to emphasize that death lurks in the midst of wealth and luxury. The fish lies cold on the table, eyes unseeing, dead. The lobster too is stock still, unmoving, dead. The man sitting near them will one day die, and sooner rather than later at his age. Johnny's imminent death is the theme that the video hammers home as the intensity of pounding piano chords grows and then slowly ebbs away, until Johnny closes the piano cover in silence - and doesn't it feel like the closing of a coffin? All of the experiences he had, the fame he enjoyed, the possessions that fame enabled him to buy - they are fleeting. His "empire of dirt" is crumbling, illustrated by a shot of a "Sorry, we're closed" sign on the door of the Cash Museum.
This portrait of the mortal Johnny results in one very somber video. It makes people cry. It has made me cry. I've been thinking about how it could be used in church, and I've concluded that I would show this music video during the Ash Wednesday service as a way of illustrating the refrain of that holy day: "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." Even if your name is Johnny Cash.
p.s. The director Mark Romanek says here,
"This [concept] is completely and utterly alien to what videos are supposed to be. Videos are supposed to be eye candy — hip and cool and all about youth and energy. This one is about someone [moving] toward the twilight of his career, this powerful, legendary figure who is dealing with issues and emotions you're not used to encountering in videos."
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