«…Her clothes spread wide;
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element: but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death… »
[Hamlet, Act IV, Scene VII]
 
Ophelia’s death is one of the most emotionally poignant sonnet telling the tragic fate of a young woman gone mad with grief.
Shakespeare describes the last plaintive song of Ophelia floating on the water before giving up on life.
 
Watching this video seems to relive the same magical and disturbing feel. Straight out directly of the J. Everett Millais’ painting.
Maybe it’s no coincidence that Florence Leontine Mary Welch is daughter of Evelyn Welch, a Professor of Renaissance Studies.
So David LaChapelle - unanimously considered one of the most talented photographer of all time – has created for her a stunning backdrop that embodies perfectly the meaning and the emotional feeling of the song.
He come back to directing. As a matter of fact Spectrum is the first music video since Amy Winehouse’s Tears Dry on Their Own back in 2007. His co-director is famed choreographer John Byrne, who has worked previously with Lady Gaga, Gwen Stefani, Mary J. Blige, and many others.
“It’s a beautiful song that really touched me and inspired me to create imagery that matches its power” says LaChapelle, and Welch continues “What we’re kind of making here is a visual cacophony. Controlled chaos, as I wanted it to be…you have the tragedy and you have the triumph…”.
The result is a meltin’ pot:
the Swan Lake (in the ballet scenes), Saturday Night Fever (in the gold jumpsuit halfway through the video), an Hitchcock’s movie (for the Flo’s replicant-little-dancer-gothic-doll), the musical Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt (in hairstyle, pyramids diamond and slaves) and The Little Mermaid (when she lets her body sway:”I could be Ariel. I just remember being in the bath with a red flannel on my head”).
The strangest thing in the clip is the space of the scene, really tight, claustrophobic. Surely a deliberate choice.
Ingenious LaChapelle, as usual.
Gorgeous Florence, she’s the Diva, the queen bee, the hieratic empress who sings a mesmerizing litany “Say my name, and every color illuminates“.
 
Behind the scenes here.