The music video for Stand By Me was performed by Ben E King and also stared River Phoenix and Will Wheaton. The reason for these two actors involvement was that the song accompanied the film ‘Stand By Me’, in which Phoenix and Wheaton were the stars.
This video is particularly interesting due to the various different scenes being cross-cut, each with intercutting relationships throughout. I feel that this represents the overall message and impact of the lyrical content as it illustrates a progressive relationship based on trust and friendship, and also gives the sense of growing up and staying true to oneself and the other.
The first of these relationships is highlighted through use of the first and last scene. The first scene we see is that of a bedroom, with a typical mise-en-scene of a teenager, including scruffy worktop, baseball glove and schoolbooks, immediately setting the scene of a fairly youthful persona. With this being the initial image the audience sees, it provides a sense of ease and calmness, and somewhat remembrance to their own youth due to the objects involved being fairly universal. This is juxtaposed however with the final scene, which shows a similar setting of a desk, presumably the same one as before, yet with relatively older props, such as a computer, which could highlight the image that whoever’s room it is has grown older and become more mature and work based, yet still the music is playing in the room to emphasise the connectivity.
Interestingly, the music playing in the room forms the next connection throughout the music video. The source of the music comes from a television, and when in the youth setting it is much older quality than in the adult setting, however the same content is still on their screen, with the adjustment of Ben E King changing himself through age. The first image of Ben E King is in black and white, showing the age, and is a performative angle to the song, the second is in colour and shows the progression of the songs success in that he is still performing the song years later and with many people behind him.
We then delve inside the image itself, and instead of the performance being shown through a tv screen, it is shown in a ‘live’ viewing mode. This form of presenting the music allows the audience to relate to the singer and begin to enjoy his star quality. As we progress to the montage of photographs of him we gather insight into his transition through age as a performer, and this provides a gentle move into the ‘modern day’ performance.
It is in the modern day performance that we have the ‘reality’ of River Phoenix and Will Wheaton’s friendship during the performance, which is juxtaposed with intercutting images of the film, and their on-screen performance. Their costume also shows this due to them both wearing black tops and jeans, physically showing their connection.
The intertextuality of using the film clips not only promotes the film, but the relationships within the film also, which are in synch with the lyrical content within the song. A particular nice touch to fans of the film is the sliding motion of hands between Phoenix and Wheaton within their audience cameo, implying that the characters have come out of the film and are real rather than the actors playing them. Also, towards their end there is a montage of the most famous shots within the film which also includes four close-ups of the main four characters, showing that they want to express the involvement of all of them and to indicate that each presence is important to both the film and music video.
The video then moves on to involve the audience. Ben E King firsts invites the two stars up, and they dance together to very old fashioned choreography, showing respect to the originality of the song. After a film montage, the camera shows the whole audience getting involved, with Phoenix performing on guitar, and this provides a sense of traditional ‘togetherness’ that the music has inspired.
Labels: Music Video Analysis
