Pitchfork/2012/Mar/Interview

===Interviewhttps://pitchfork.com/features/directors-cut/8783-grimes-oblivion/===
Grimes: “Oblivion”
Claire Boucher and Emily Kai Bock talk about their dreamy, subversive video.
by Ryan Dombal
MARCH 5 2012
When Grimes’ Claire Boucher, director Emily Kai Bock, and cinematographer Evan Prosofsky were making their way to a football game to shoot the “Oblivion” video last October, they didn’t exactly know what to expect, or what kind of footage they would come away with. “We were laughing a lot, like, '‘hat the hell are we doing going to do in a football stadium?’” recalls Boucher. And that sense of playful spontaneity gives plenty of life to the finished clip, which finds the singer performing in big arenas—but instead of projecting from a stage, she’s mugging from the cheap seats as cheerleaders and motorbikes gracefully glide through the air behind her.
The from-the-crowd setup neatly inverts common notions of spectator and spectacle: Boucher is the venue’s star because the camera’s trained on her, and half the fun of the video is derived from impromptu “fan” reactions. The clip also features staged scenes with Boucher holding court over a bunch of ripped, shirtless dudes working out and shoving each other around with teenage abandon. The scenes are wildly masculine but, at the same time, there's no doubt who's controlling the action.
“Claire was the first girl in our scene to play a show alone at the loft venue I co-ran in Montreal,” says Bock, 28, who befriended Boucher about five years ago when they were both living in Vancouver. And, with the “Oblivion” video, the pair wanted to convey a feeling of female empowerment while not being too overt or didactic about it. Thanks to Boucher’s charmingly off-the-cuff performance, along with Bock and Prosofsky’s eye for gorgeous, atmospheric frames, they pulled it off.
Pitchfork: A lot of the power of this video comes from dropping these very dream-like sounds and images into unexpected, male-dominated spaces.
Claire Boucher: The sports world is so different from what we normally engage with, so it was like this voyeuristic look into a really violent community. Art gives me an outlet where I can be aggressive in a world where I usually can’t be, and part of it was asserting this abstract female power in these male-dominated arenas—the video is somewhat about objectifying men. Not in a disrespectful way, though.
Emily Kai Bock: It’s about the gladiator archetype and how boys are predisposed to that as a universal role model, which always seemed silly to me. Girls don’t have the same pressure to measure up that way, but they have different pressures. I really like the metaphor of Claire entering these typically-male territories and being like, “What’s up, I’m here to sing my song.” In a way, it represents how it feels as a girl in the film and music worlds, because we sometimes get a sense of not being taken as seriously.
Pitchfork: What’s your relationship with sports in general? Have you guys ever played on any sort of team?
CB: I was on the worst team in the Christian girls basketball league when I was young, but I’ve always felt alienated from that world. I hadn’t really dealt with sports people, except for really negative relationships with jocks in high school. But this shoot was a totally different experience than what I was expecting: I had a great time at the football game. It dawned on me why people do this stuff—it’s actually pretty fun.
While we were shooting, we realized the beauty of these spaces. The motorbike rally was in a 50,000 person arena, it’s insane. I’m never in a super-loud environment filled with smoke and crazy shit and people risking their lives. Every time those guys would go off a jump, I’d be like, “Oh, shit! What’s gonna happen?” I have new appreciation for sports. I’ve gotten into football since we shot the video.
EKB: [laughs] Have you?
CB: Well, at least TV dramas about football.
Pitchfork: Would you ever want to perform at a sporting event like that?
CB: Absolutely, I would love to sing the national anthem at any game ever.
Pitchfork: There’s a great shot in the video of Claire in the crowd performing to the field—it really jumbles up the idea of spectacle and spectator.
EKB: We wanted to subvert the usual distance between those two things. I like being behind the camera because I can control perception and what people see. So even in this giant arena where everyone’s attention is on the field, I’m making people look at this girl alone in the bleachers; creating an audience through the camera is something I find incredibly empowering as a filmmaker. These people were trying to have a good time and watch what was happening on the field, and we got up in their faces. They were really confused by us.
CB: It’s very embarrassing to just walk into a stadium and start singing—everyone is just like, “What the fuck are you doing?” But that’s one of the things that’s really cool about it. We were just causing trouble while being at the whim of hundreds of people trying to watch this event. It’s super sincere because everyone was just drunk at a sporting event. Some people were super into us, and some were really angry.
Pitchfork: Who were those shirtless guys moshing at the end of the video?
EKB: Claire’s brother is into sports so he has a lot of really young, beefy friends who were very willing to mosh for us.
CB: [laughs] Yeah. We bought 10 pizzas for like $12 or some crazy deal like that. And we had a lot of beer.
Pitchfork: Did anybody get hurt in that scene?
CB: The shot where I get pushed towards the camera was so painful—just this huge guy smashing into me. It looks great, though. And people were slipping because we covered everybody in the cheapest oil we could find, which then got on the floor.
EKB: I tried to mop the floor pretty frequently—that was nerve-racking. But it was fun to have 15 guys just do whatever we’d want; I’d be like, “Drop and do push-ups!” and they would immediately do it. [laughs]Category:Interview
Category:2012