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Director: Michael Gondry
Location: I have no idea
Related links: Knives Out single | Knives Out lyrics | Amnesiac
A sort of... strange video. This, unlike most of Radiohead's videos, isn't particularly emotional or clever. However it is fun. It takes place in a room.. There's a trainset on top of a television. On the television we see images of Thom and Emma de Caunes, seeming like a couple. They talk, laugh smile etc. Then the camera moves away from the TV and reveals images of Thom lying in bed. He's not sleeping, but acting very disturbed and nervous. The camera moves further, to see the girlfriend (Emma de Caunes) on an operating table... Except she's inside like the board game. Remember Operation, where you had a picture of a man, and you had to take the pieces out of him without touching the edges? Well the girl is in the board, and a load of doctors are running around trying to take pieces out of her... She winces in pain as Thom stands by her side.
The video continues like this with some changes... Thom and the girl get into a sort of fight on the TV, then he offers her a ring and they smile at each other. The train tracks start to carry bones and body parts across the top of the TV... Eventually a skeleton with a heart for a head plays the guitar with a picture of Emma de Caunes inside its heart. Thom becomes the microphone and the video closes. You'd really have to see it to have any idea what I'm on about...
Director Michael Gondry describes his ideas for this promo in an August 2001 article of REBEL magazine::
In the video that I have just finished for Radiohead, Knives Out, I reconstructed my memories. It's an autobiographical video. Emma de Caunes plays the role of my ex-girlfriend and Thom Yorke interpretates my role. I received the record the moment we separated. The video, unlike the film, is all based on memory. All these images just came to me. I hadn't managed to have any others. I suggested them to Thom who agreed. It is the story of my girlfriend who had leukaemia and the time I spent watching over her in the hospital. She is practically cured now. The speed at which the illness
progresses is horrifying!
It's terrifying, I watched over my girlfriend in hospital for weeks and weeks. All that medication… I have always had a thing about that… I speak a lot about it because it was a failure, not health-wise but from an emotional point of view. We split up. Why? We had separated once before her illness. I was so sad, I said to myself that I couldn't do anything. She always spoke to me of marriage, so I went to see her and offered her an engagement ring. The next day she had leukaemia. She must have already had it… the problem is that we got back together for all the wrong reasons. She came back to me because she was ill. We stayed three more years together.
She is much better now. She had the will to live and excellent doctors. Guys who arrived at four in the morning. Four of the best doctors. As we lived at that time in Los Angeles, I had to play by the system and paid for everything in cash. That was a big problem for my girlfriend. She felt guilty that I invested myself so much, in the literal sense of the word. She turned everything against me, unconsciously. It's unfair and that’s the reason why I did the video. It is a bit tough for her.
One of the most interesting things about the Knives Out video, is that it's the first time any band member has acted as a character for the video. In all their other videos, the band play the part of themselves, and have no real role to play besides being Radiohead... In this video, Thom plays the part of a different person, in a surreal world, with his girlfriend Emma de Caunes. A different perspective to most of the Radiohead videos, and I like it.
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