Billy Idol's 'Dancing with Myself' Horror Film Aesthetic.

by Fionn Morris

The song, “Dancing With Myself,” became a turning point in the career of artist Billy Idol, signaling not just a massive increase in popularity, but too, a change in style. Overnight, Idol became a hard core rocker to the face of the new wave of musicians that combined the core punky and glam rock aesthetic with rhythms and melodies more adjacent to disco and dance. Despite this, the origin of the song is complex, as it was originally released by Idol’s previous band, “Gen X,” in 1980. By no means unsuccessful, the original composition found itself peaking at number 62 in the UK singles charts. It was only after, “Gen X,” broke up later that same year, that Idol and producer Keith Forsey remixed the track, with Idol telling Guitar Center Sessions that their aim was to keep the same, “punk energy, but streamline the music at the same time and make it great to dance to and slightly more sexual.” Resultantly, the powerful rock sound that the original reveled in transformed into an anthemic dance track that hid under a punk aesthetic. Initially successful on its own, the release of the music video on MTV during 1981 saw the single reach unfathomable heights of popularity, charting not only in his home UK, but also reaching number 27 on the US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart.

Idol’s original concept for the video was directly inspired by Boris Sagals’ 1971 science fiction classic, “The Omega Man,'' in particular he wanted a similar premise of a lone survivor in a post apocalyptic world, along with a similar commitment to practical makeup and set design. However, despite these horror inspired criterias, Idol also made it clear that the video overall must remain lighthearted and playful both as a way to capture the dance inspired mood of the remixed track along with meeting the guidelines to be aired on MTV. It might seem odd, then, that the musician’s first and only choice for director was none other than legendary filmmaker Tobe Hooper, whose most prolific work, Texas Chainsaw Massacre(1974) , became infamous due to its grotesque imagery and commitment to a gritty, realistic setting through on location sets and an emphasis of improvisation in the actors performance. Despite this, in a 1984 interview with Steve Newton, Idol stated that the film had, “good bits of humour, really black humour but it’s always funny.” It is this ability to bring humour in an otherwise deeply disturbing scene that became the backbone for the music video, with Hooper using many elements he implemented in, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, into Idol’s music video.

One such example is the performances, with both the character of Leatherface and the zombies that occupy the music video enforcing erratic behaviour that is both absurdly comedic and grossly discomforting. Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s, closing escape scene best applies to this, with the Gunnar Hansen irregular and jittery movements as Leatherface, all while towering above both the truck and Marylin Burn’s character Sally, his presence is more an omnipresent force who seeks to only attack. The sound further reinforces this sense of presence, with the chainsaw that Leatherface holds onto always being present within the mix, even as Sally escapes on the truck, suggesting a never ending hunt that is impossible to run from. By making Leatherface this all-powerful beast, the tone of the film is put into question, as the stakes seem ridiculously out of the protagonists' favour. Simon Abrams further develops into this aspect of Hooper’s film in his 2017 article, “A Tale of Two Chainsaws: Humor and Horror in the Films of Tobe Hooper.”“You can never tell how seriously you can take Hooper's film because what made his and co-writer Kim Henkel's pitiless scenario so upsetting is that it almost never lets up… .You sometimes can't tell if the helplessness you feel while watching this scene is itself the punchline.”

We can witness a similar comedic nihilism in Idol’s music video, as the extremely dire situation that is portrayed comes off as slightly historical. An example might be the presence of the mutants within the video, who play a similar role to Hasen’s Leatherface in being an unstoppable evil force. However, while Hansen attenuates this sense of omnipotents through his massive stature, the mutants seem to overwhelm through numbers, with a small army of them populating the frame behind Idol, forming an ocean that surrounds him. The first shot of Idol in the video plays on this idea, by having a medium shot of his face fade out to reveal a shot of the mutants stretching hands, quite literally having his image be drowned in a sea of the mutants.

Another similarity between these two works of Hooper is through the sense of isolation, using techniques in slightly different ways across the two works to enforce a mood of seclusion. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, does this through its use of sweeping establishing shots, with Hooper making strong use of extreme long shots when filming the exterior. The wide shot of Pam and Kirk first seeing the cannibals’ home. The set design purposefully encloses the frame through a lack of any distinct landmarks that might draw the viewer's eye, instead having the only objects occupying the frame being the swinging bench and the house itself. Resultantly, the emptiness makes the scene seem simultaneously vastly open and extremely confined, as the characters are surrounded by nothing. The sound also helps add to this, with a distinct lack of any non diegetic sound being played throughout the scene, in a sense giving the audience no way out of the scene and entrapping them with the characters on screen.

Hooper utilizes similar techniques throughout the music video, with the opening shot of the building which the music video takes place in combining that same use of extreme long shots and empty mise en scene to establish this emptiness that surrounds the audience. However, there is also an added sense of alien-ness to this shot which furthers the mood of isolation. The winding building extenuates this, with it bending and curving in different sections making this otherwise normal building a feat that is geometrically impossible. Too, does the flat night sky in the background play into this, with its vibrant colours playing off of the flatness of the painted portrait. In turn, the audience, seeing objects somewhat familiar to them but twisted in an impossible way, are made to feel isolated due to the foreignness of the land portrayed, unable to fully comprehend its supernatural nature.

by Fionn Morris, December 2022

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