I'll Follow You Into The Dark - Death Cab For Cutie

"I Will Follow You Into The Dark" by Death Cab For Cutie is a music video based around the bands genre of Alternative Rock. The song, played throughout the video is primarily based around death and the acceptance of death. To accompany this, the video uses heavy symbolism to highlight dark issues such as life, death and "the afterlife". The establishing shot is of a window with light coming through, symbolising the idea of light and life. Later on however, we see this shot contrasts with the main theme of the video through the way the growing hole in the floorboards represents the idea of time and eventual death.The black hole itself is symbolic of the "unknown" in terms of death and dying. Therefore, when the man slips and accidentally falls into a smaller area of the black hole he is seen as "dying". When he finally accepts this fate and jumps in, he is dead. This acting therefore gives the audience an idea of acceptance and the acceptance of death. The blackness recurs a theme of sadness, as does the mundanity of the video, that being the only shots are of one man, in one small room in a repetitive motion. As this gives the audience the feeling of both isolation and loneliness, the idea of sadness throughout the video is repeated. This mundanity throughout the video is also reiterated through the colours used in the music video. The house in which the entire video is situated in is neither bright nor colourful, giving both a realistic edge to the video aswell as the constant reiteration of the tempo of the song, that being quite sad and gloomy. To relate the music video to the band, the bands singer is featured solely throughout with the occasional shots of him playing the guitar,or singing the song featured. At times also, from shots of the "black hole", the sound becomes muffled or subdued to imply to the audience that the source of the music is situated from the room. As the song is very simplistic in terms of its tone and tune, its music video projects this through the simplicity of both the character, and content. There is no drama or CGI or scenes designed to scare you and this is because the subject the music song and video is dealing with (that being death) is serious and scary enough without added drama. By contasting the simplistic tune and video with the dramatic subject of death, a comparison ensues designed to envoke emotion from the audience watching.