The Weeknd- Blinding Lights music
video analysis
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The scene immediately starts with a big close-up shot of a blood-stained man stained man
who is dressed in a red tuxedo the scene becomes tenser and tenser as the camera slowly
zooms (zoom-shot) in on his face as he cackles maniacally in mad hysteria as blood drips
from his mouth and nose. The scene then goes silent and cuts to a brief title card of the
artist’s name (The Weeknd) which is illuminated in a bright neon red light, what follows is a
sudden close-up shot of the man we saw in the opening scene at a much earlier point in time
In a location that presumably is Las vegas boulevard. A series of combined shots such as a
shakey handheld tracking-shot and a combination of a slowly tilting dutch angle and the
close-up shot is used in order to convey this man’s clear confusion and disorientation as
stumbles through the brightly neon-lit city. After a brief sequence of more stumbling around
the man finds what he was looking for which is his expensive-looking sports car (A silver
metallic Merzedes Benz) which is parked underneath an overpass of some sorts, the scene
then cuts to a close up-shot of the man smiling whilst putting on a glove which then is
interrupted by a series of big close-ups which show the man smiling and enjoying being in
his care before driving into an ever-expanding tunnel which filmed using a type of zoom shot
which is known as a Dolly zoom.
What follows is a high-speed montage of the man recklessly driving his car through the
seeming baron city streets, which is captured using a combination of jump cuts, continuous
tracking shots and extreme close-ups of the man enjoying the drive. What follows is a
change from the intensity of the previous high-speed driving scene; Now the red man is seen
entering a beautiful and large casino which is shown using a Tilting-shot and an establishing-
shot which is then timidity interrupted by a yet another sequence high-speed car montages
which are this time taken from either a high angle-shot when he is shown in his car or in a
birds-eye view-shot when he is shown to be dancing on the baron las vegas streets in pure
mind-numbing euphoria.
After this, he is shown to be enjoying a private song performance in the seemingly empty
casino which is being held by a mysterious Asian lady who is shown using a long-shot and is
dressed in a beautiful sparkling white dress, the two are framed in a combination of two
shots, long shots and close up shots as they seductively exchange looks. The Asian woman
holds out her hand as she sings and seems to be asking the man in the red blazer to come
to join her up on the stage but instead of walking up to the stage like a normal person
usually, would the man dressed in red begins to magically float towards her after which the
two stare each other in the eyes longingly, this is the part of the video where its true colours
begin to appear as it becomes more and more apparent that the man dressed in red is on
some sort of drug trip and has been on it for the entire video, which is why instead of a
normal streamline and coherent story, we are instead presented with small bits and pieces of
different events that happen throughout the night, which are presented in the forms of high
energy montages and sudden cuts to which are all over the place, we are watching the
man’s version of what transpired that night and are pretty much trying to piece together the
puzzle alongside him. This theory is pretty much proven during a scene you get to see a
POV shot of him driving where everything is a weird blurry Dolly zoomed mess.
After this, the man is seemingly snapped back to reality by a beating from two bouncers
because he came too close to the Asian singer he is later also shown losing control of his
vehicle. The video ends with the close-up shot of the man who is standing on the side of the
road seemingly coming off of his drug trip and as he smiles remembering the Asian singer’s
beautiful voice, the R&B background track begins to fade leaving the man in bliss
presumably still on his trip.
