The Metaphorical Representation of Depression in Music Documentaries

(1)

Student: Kevin Mulder Date: 28 June 2019

Student number: 10173668 Email: Kevinho-mulder@hotmail.com Supervisor: Charles Forceville Second Reader: Gerwin van der Pol MA Film Studies, University of Amsterdam Word count: 19.943

(2)

1

3.1 Amy Winehouse ... 30 3.2 Kurt Cobain ... 34 3.3 Jim Morrison ... 38 3.4 The Club 27 ... 42 3.5 Avicii ... 44 3.6 Conclusion ... 48 Chapter 4. Conclusion ... 51 Appendix I ... 54 Appendix II ... 55 Appendix III ... 56 Appendix IV ... 57 Appendix V ... 58 Bibliography ... 59 Media list ... 61 Articles Artists ... 61 Music Videos ... 62 Images ... 62

(3)

2

Abstract

The research in this thesis will focus on music documentaries and the depression that the musicians in it suffer from. Firstly I have analyzed the genre of the music documentary and examined its ability to discuss two distinct subjects at the same time: in my case this is the music of the artists in question and the mental affliction depression. Because depression is such an abstract but also a subject of taboo, I focused on metaphor. Metaphors can more clearly describe abstract mental illnesses, as depression is. Therefore I analyzed the metaphorical representation of depression in the music documentaries, mainly about the infamous ‘club 27,’ pop musicians who committed suicide when they were 27 years old. Keywords: depression, documentary, music documentary, metaphor, multimodal metaphor, CMT (conceptual metaphor theory).

(4)

3

Acknowledgements

For me it was unsurprising to write about music documentaries, because music was the initial reason I started doing Media Studies. For my Bachelor thesis I wrote about the music video and whether some of them could be seen as music films – in terms of story and length. Because of my affection for music I started watching more documentaries about music, and I realized that this was in fact a different subgenre of the documentary, but what I also

recognized by watching the documentary Roger Waters: The Wall (Sean Evans and Roger Waters, 2014) is that these documentaries do not only focus on music. In The Wall it was apparent that the focus was on capitalism and socialism, mainly because Pink Floyd’s music bears messages about society in them. For me, right then and there, I saw a connection. Depression and the ‘club 27’, then, became my subject after seeing the documentary Avicii: True Stories (Levan Tsikurishvili, 2017), and the fact that while writing this, I am 27 years old.

First I want to thank my parents, for proofreading and for hearing my explanations for examining such a heavy subject, my dad in particular. I also want to thank my sister Melanie for critically looking at the words I put on paper, and I want to thank my supervisor Charles Forceville who steered me in the right direction.

(5)

4

Introduction

In the last decade awareness campaigns concerning depression, which is identified as a mental illness, appear to be more common in contemporary society. Because discussing mental afflictions is mostly seen as taboo, and because it is an abstract problem to understand, I recognized that in discussing this topic, speech and other forms of communication, tend to use metaphors. I believe this is the case because depression is such a difficult concept to

understand. Therefore I will examine the representation of depression in all of the (music) documentaries that I have chosen. My focus will be on documentaries known as music documentaries, wherein artists are portrayed that are currently no longer among us. All of the artists discussed in this thesis died young, and the notion of pressure and depression is

connected with them in one way or another.

Documentary is a genre that has existed from the moment that the medium of film was created. It is also a genre that inclines to ask questions about problems that tend to be swept under the rug. In this thesis the focus will be on a documentary subgenre that has not been extensively researched, namely the music documentary. However, I am eager to take this a step further, as in this subgenre of the music documentary I will focus on the representation of depression. The main focus is on the documentaries concerning the ‘club 27’, a group of artists that died at the age of 27.

In the first chapter I will concentrate on the documentary genre and explain what the music documentary is, and how I define it specifically. I will do this through the readings of Bill Nichols, who has written extensively about the documentary. Another work that is important in my research is the book The Music Documentary: Acid Rock to Electropop edited by Benjamin Halligan, Robert Edgar and Kirsty Fairclough-Isaacs (2013). To this date, this book is the first and only one to be researching the music documentary. Therefore I will also analyze the notion of genre, for the music documentary is a subgenre within the

documentary genre.

The second chapter will focus on depression and how this mental illness could be represented. I will start with defining depression. This is needed because symptoms of this mental illness could be used to construe metaphors. Subsequently, this is what brings us to metaphor and multimodal metaphor in particular. Discussing depression cannot only be seen as taboo, but depression – not unlike other mental illnesses and even death – is a very abstract concept. To make mental illness in documentaries more understandable, metaphors are used. For this reason I will look at the works of El Refaie (2019) and Forceville and Paling (2018)

(6)

5 who have written about (multimodal) metaphor concerning depression.

In the third chapter I will analyze Amy (Asif Kapadia, 2015), Cobain: Montage of Heck (Brett Morgen, 2015), The Doors: When You’re Strange (Tom DiCillo, 2009), 27: Gone Too Soon (Simon Napier-Bell, 2018) and Avicii: True Stories (Levan Tsikurishvili, 2017). The first four films discuss artists that belong to the infamous ‘club 27’ and 27: Gone Too Soon focuses especially on that fact. Avicii: True Stories can be looked at differently in this respect, because Avicii died at the age of 28, and the documentary made about him – and the feelings of depression and anxiety that came along with the pressure of the music industry – was recorded before he passed away.

After analyzing each documentary individually, using the concepts identified in the former two chapters, I will in the fourth and final chapter compare the documentaries. How are they similar? How do they differ? The most important questions are: ‘Can these

documentaries be called a music documentary?’ and ‘How is depression represented or discussed?’ For this last question I argue that the concept of (multimodal) metaphor is vital.

(7)

6

Chapter 1. How Can We Define Music Documentaries?

In this thesis I will analyze music documentaries, and especially those that portray artists who are no longer with us. These include Avicii, Amy Whinehouse, Kurt Cobain and other artists that died young. Although it is clear that I want to look at a form of documentary that has been coined the ‘music documentary’, first I need to concentrate on documentary itself. This is necessary to analyze style and aesthetics. Music documentary is only a part of a vast scale of films listed under the genre documentary. Therein I want to consider that these music documentaries have two interconnected stories to tell; this will be my main focus throughout this chapter. I will argue that these so-called documentaries usually go beyond portraying particular artists to focus on a (secondary) story related to social and taboo issues.

1.1 The Basics: The Documentary and Genre

In the research that has been done in documentary studies, it is apparent that one name seems omnipresent, and that is Bill Nichols. He states in the chapter “How Can We Define

Documentary Film” in his book Introduction to Documentary that “documentary has become the flagship for a cinema of social engagement and distinctive vision” (2017: 1). He goes on by saying that sites like YouTube and Facebook have not only used but also changed the documentary form – for instance in mockumentary, which is a form of fiction that uses the documentary aesthetics – and he explains that this is the case because of “[their] next-to-nothing costs of dissemination, along with [their] unique forms of word-of-mouth enthusiasm” (Nichols 2017: 1). As a result, documentary has become an integral part of modern media, and similar to fiction film, documentary consists of a multitude of genres, of which the music documentary is but one. The fact that dissemination on YouTube/Facebook costs “next-to-nothing” does not mean that its production is similarly cheap, but it does indicate that amateur filmmakers have an accessible space to distribute their content.

Nichols suggests that although documentaries “[are] often structured as stories, they are stories with a difference: the stories from the world we all share” (2017: 1).

Documentaries thus are unlike fiction and also unlike news reports, for news and journalism have a neutral approach, where documentary tends to have a voice, and that the filmmakers seem to tell this story from the heart “like the great orators of the past” (Nichols 2017: 4). He continues by giving the example of independent documentary “that has brought a fresh eye to the events of the world and has told stories, with verve and imagination, that broaden horizons and awaken new possibilities” (1). Nichols goes on by saying that it is not easy to define

(8)

7 documentary, but argues that “neither a fictional invention nor a factual reproduction,

documentary draws on and refers to historical reality while representing it from a distinct perspective” (5). By representing this historical reality “documentaries strive to respect known facts and offer verifiable evidence. They do more than this, but a documentary that distorts facts, alters reality, or fabricates evidence, jeopardizes its own status as a

documentary” (6). Other (fiction) films can also jeopardize the reality proposed in

documentaries. The film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (Larry Charles, 2006) for instance, is shot in the hand-held style of documentary films, but is largely fiction. However, there are people that are interviewed as themselves, and voice their personal, and often shocking, opinions, which is a function of non-fiction. Grizzly Man (Werner Herzog, 2005) features the voice-over by the director Werner Herzog himself, and because his accent, at least for me, is reminiscent of Borat’s, one cannot help but wonder if this film is rather a mockumentary. To clarify, Grizzly Man is not a work of fiction, and the star of the film, Timothy Treadwell, was indeed attacked and killed by a grizzly bear.

“[Documentaries are] not a reproduction; [they are] a representation,” Nichols explains. “Therefore, they are not documents as much as expressive representations of what documents may contain. We judge a document by its authenticity and a reproduction by its fidelity to the original” (2017: 9, emphasis in original). According to Nichols, the main difference between a documentary and a film that was based on a true story is the role of the director, and “the degree to which the story fundamentally corresponds to actual situations, events and people” (8). In essence there is a fine line between documentary and fiction film; a line that seems to have become more and more blurred.

Like fantasy, science fiction and the western, documentary is a genre argues Nichols (2017: 15). He states that:

to belong to the documentary genre, a film has to exhibit conventions shared by films already regarded as documentaries. These conventions help distinguish one genre from another: the use of voice-of-God commentary, interviews, location sound recording, cutaways from a given scene to provide images that illustrate or complicate stated points (often referred to as B-roll footage), and a reliance on social actors in their everyday roles and activities, are among the conventions common to many documentaries (15).

With this list of conventions, Nichols considers documentary a genre. To fully understand the notion of genre, we must look at Rick Altman’s article “A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre.” When we turn our attention towards the semantics of the western, as Altman

(9)

8 does, we can identify the lone cowboy, the horse as a mode of transportation and the use of long shots, to portray vast distances of the prairie (1984: 10). These would be ‘semantic’ elements of the Western. For documentary this would be the voice-over, the use of hand-held camera – mostly purposefully shaking footage that reminds us of home videos – and people ‘playing’ themselves. The syntax of the western is the tension between the cowboy and ‘Indians’ that coincides with the frontier, and “takes place on the border between two lands, between two areas, and with a hero who remains divided between two value systems (for he combines the town’s morals with the outlaws’ skills)” (Altman 1984: 11). Looking at

documentary, this syntax can be seen as portraying something that is unknown or little known to the desired audience of documentaries, as well as letting ‘victims’ tell their own stories. But these examples in themselves are not enough to call documentary a genre. Documentary, then, is like fiction film in that it includes a multitude of subgenres within itself, one of which is the ‘music documentary.’

Nichols calls documentary subgenres ‘modes,’ which relates to stylistic aspects of the documentary. He explains that “most films incorporate more than one mode, even though some modes are more prominent at one time or place than another. These modes serve as a skeletal framework that individual filmmakers flesh out according to their own creative disposition” (Nichols 2010: 143). The modes that Nichols identifies are (1) expository (“provide an account of a subject through commentary and images of illustration (B-roll)”), (2) observational (“follow and observe social actors as they go about their lives”), (3)

participatory (“feature engagement between the filmmaker and the subjects to draw them out in revealing ways and to develop a story or perspective”), (4) reflexive (“draw attention to the conventions, assumptions, and expectations underlying documentary films”) (5) poetic

(“create an aesthetically pleasing experience in relation to some aspect of the historical world ”), (6) performative (“stress the filmmaker’s embodied, expressive engagement with an issue, situation, or event”) and (7) interactive (“structure a web-based, interactive experience to enhance our understanding of the historical world”) (Nichols 2017: 156). These modes, then, steer the viewer’s expectations.

Each mode possesses distinct qualities – qualities that are sometimes a matter of emphasis more than hard-and-fast distinctions. The qualities of each mode, along with the modes that filmmakers adopt, provide a rich toolbox of resources from which to fashion distinctive new documentaries (Nichols 2017: 158).

As understood by Altman “each genre must be understood as a separate entity, with its own literary rules and procedures” (1999: 3). These rules relate to the ‘grammar’ of films, as

(10)

9 explained by Altman through syntax and semantics. Considering genre and the modes that Nichols identifies, it is essential to understand that Altman continues by stating that “the notion of genre is now fully conscripted into the legion of techniques whereby writers are trained to respect current standards of cultural acceptability” (3). The same could be argued for documentaries in their use of particular modes. The specific use of certain modes relate to what an audience expects of certain documentaries. A documentary focusing on music, for instance, could be observational when it comes to a performance, and morphs to participatory when we see the interviewer or filmmaker interact with the artist. It is unnecessary to list and explain all of these genres, for I will focus specifically on the music documentary.

1.2 The Music Documentary

As the name suggests, music documentaries explore music in all its forms. Although music documentaries have been around for decades, research on documentaries concerning music has been limited. In the introduction of the book The Music Documentary: Acid Rock to Electropop, Benjamin Halligan, Robert Edgar and Kirsty Fairclough-Isaacs (2013a) mention that “the music documentary has risen in prominence – from a mere adjunct to music “proper” to a component fundamental to contemporary popular music, and a film genre in its own right – without ever being subject to substantial critical and academic perspectives” (2013b: xi, quotes in the original). This means that their work is important to my research, as the work of Nichols is to the documentary field as a whole. It is interesting to note, then, that Michael Saffle claims in his chapter “Retrospective Compilation: (Re)defining the Music

Documentary” that “no one subject, style, or era entirely defined “music documentary” thirty-five years ago. This is still the case today” (2013: 47, quotes in original). This is a fascinating notion, and it means that the music documentary can potentially be a wide range of things, within the even broader genre of the documentary itself. For my thesis it is important to look at the ‘second story’ that music documentaries tend to tell. Most relate to social issues, like the mental illness depression.

“Music has been radically altered by its incorporation of screen media over the last half century, and screen media has been deprived of its old assumptions about documentary form and techniques of documentary-making through its encounters with music” (Halligan et al; 2013b: xvi). In other words, we can recognize the music documentary as a genre in itself, but in turn, music videos and music documentaries challenged the documentary genre. John Corner argues in his article “Sounds Real: Music and Documentary” that by looking at music in documentary, we have to keep in mind the style and genre, of both documentary and of the

(11)

10 music that is used (2002: 357-358). He contrasts the use of music in fiction film and

documentary by stating:

Musical soundtrack in scenes of acted narrative and dramatised setting, perhaps underneath dialogue, guides us in our imaginative response to a fictional world, a world that is the rhetorical project of the film or programme to encourage us to be drawn within. The music works to position us in terms of this diegetic containment. However, documentary’s images, interviews and commentaries work largely within the terms of display and exposition. Our involvement here is different from the way in which we are spectators to a ‘visible fiction’. We may be the addressees of direct, spoken address, images may be offered to us as an illustration of explicit

compositions, we may be cued to watch sequences as witnesses to the implicit revelation of more general truths. In this context, musical relations are likely to become more self-conscious, and less intimate, than when watching fiction (358, quotes in the original).

For the genre of music documentary it is apparent that music is the most important aspect, closely followed by the portrayal of the artists themselves. That does not mean, however, that music documentaries will only use the music of the artist they want to discus. Corner looks at Michael Rabiger’s Directing the Documentary, who says in discussing music in

documentaries that: “music should not inject false emotion; choice of music should give access to the inner life of a character or the subject; music can signal the emotional level at which the audience should investigate what is shown” (Rabiger 1998: 310, cited by Corner 2002: 358). What is made clear by this is that the use of music in documentary will steer the audience in a certain direction when it comes to emotion; as is the case in fiction film. This could be done by using the music of the band or artists themselves – as happens for instance with Avicii’s “Hey Brother” in the documentary Avicii: True Stories (Levan Tsikurishvili, 2017). Mostly, however, it is done by using ‘drones’, which are continuous tones that indicate a feeling of joy or sadness, for instance. It therefore is apparent how much influence music can have for storytelling, as told by social actors playing themselves, as well as told by the director. Silence has a part to play in this music documentary as well, according to Corner. He says that “the codes for watching silent depictions are relatively undeveloped in Western culture” (360). When we are watching real life events in silence, this does not matter, but if there is silence in a documentary, it should be functional, such as giving the audience the feeling of awkwardness. It goes without saying that the use of sounds and music in music documentaries will steer the audience towards the feeling, or emotional state, of the artist or (members of a) band in question. It is, however, also possible that the director wants to steer the audience’s emotions or attitude in a direction that does not mirror that of the artist.

(12)

11 can be the case when the documentary discusses music of a particular artist, or when artists or bands are used for their popularity to bring to light different problems that indirectly relate to the artists in question. These problems are important to the documentary, but especially for the audience, they are secondary to the music and the lives of the artists the music

documentary is portraying.

1.3 How Events Shape the Music Documentary

In “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly ‘60s” by Julie Lobalzo Wright, it is stated that the documentaries about the legendary Woodstock and Altamont concerts were something else altogether than the (music) documentaries that had been made before.

These events, in themselves, have come to represent the highpoint of the 1960s America counterculture movement and its symbolic end, respectively. The

documentaries drawn from the events – Woodstock (Michael Wadleigh, 1970) and Gimme Shelter (Albert and David Maysles, 1970) – helped shape both the “Direct Cinema” movement and the “rockumentary” genre (Lobalzo Wright 2013: 71).

This, however, was not the only thing that made these documentaries special. Lobalzo Wright continues by saying that:

The narratives, structures, and moods of Woodstock and Gimme Shelter are clearly informed by the reception of the Woodstock and Altamont concerts. Both films are concerned with representing an experience, but while the Woodstock experience was deemed positive, the undercurrent negativity associated with Altamont and Hunter’s murder causes Gimme Shelter to come to function like a murder mystery – more than just a concert film. The impending film was mentioned in many reports about the concert, raising expectations that the Maysles brothers may have captured the murder on film. Thus, before Gimme Shelter was even completed, the film was already expected to explain what happened at the one-day concert. Woodstock, on the other hand, was a film that sought to demonstrate what made the event so special and unique (72-73).

Although both films were initially aimed to represent and register events that took place during a music festival, it could be argued that circumstances lie at the heart of these films, especially when it comes to Gimme Shelter. The Maysles brothers wanted to make a concert registration of the important artists on this festival, but by (allegedly) filming the killing, the film becomes something else. Music documentaries can use circumstance to their advantage. This film, in my opinion, signifies what the music documentary is: not simply a representation of an artist playing and explaining their music, but rather a critique on taboo issues, although it must be stated that Gimme Shelter did not critique any taboo issues. The same could be said

(13)

12 for Woodstock. They did, however, help transform the music documentary from being mere registrations to a film that could focus on taboo and social issues.

1.4 The Music Video and its Relation to the Music Documentary

Nicola Dibben argues that “music videos, and many music documentaries, function as a marketing device, as well as artistic products in their own right” (2009: 134). To argue that music videos are an artistic way of promoting music is unsurprising; especially in

contemporary society, where everything tends to need a visual counterpart. Music videos are, however, not necessarily a representation of reality, although one could argue that earlier music videos were. These were typically registrations of live music, unlike the music videos we know today. By contrast, documentaries are expected to be the (filmmaker’s)

representation of reality in one way or another, so it seems farfetched to claim that music documentaries are also a marketing – as well as an artistic – device. However, this does appear to be the case.

Although strictly speaking not belonging to the genre of music documentaries, music videos played an important role regarding the visualization of music, and therefore influenced the aesthetics of music documentaries. In Rewind, Play, Fast Forward: The Past, Present and Future of the Music Video, Saul Austerlitz argues that “[music] videos are advertisements for music, their stated intent to move widgets with maximum efficiency. This is the music video’s limitation and its strength” (2010: 39). However, there was some fear that the aural aspect of music would become secondary to the music video; that is why the Buggles wrote the song “Video Killed the Radio Star.” Halligan et al state that:

MTV began broadcasting in August 1981. The transistor radio, in this paradigm shift, would be unable to deliver the full payload, commercial or cultural, of music, and so this radio culture would wither away. And, it was commonly feared, musicianship, musicality, and even live performance would be rendered redundant. The shaman of yesteryear would be replaced by a succession of asexual, robotic models (2013c: 3). Music videos not only focus on the aural aspect, but also favor the visual mode, whereas music before music videos was the most important aspect. Because of the visual components, contemporary music is something that has to be visualized as well. For example, nowadays there are artists that by all standards are not real, like Hatsune Miku, a holographic pop star. Although she is not real – or at least she is not a physical person like the rest of us – she does perform on stage, with live music. In this performance the instruments are played live, but Hatsune Miku’s voice cannot be, for it is computer generated. The opposite can be said for

(14)

13 alleged live performances of DJ’s, whose main material is studio produced, but the DJ himself is there, turning the tables. A different example of the visual attraction being important is the British band Gorillaz, which is a collaboration between Damon Albarn – the singer known for being the front man of the British band Blur – and the visual artist Jamie Hewlett. They are seen as a visual artist, and the visual aspect is important, for the band members are visualized. The musicians (the people that actually play the instruments) are mainly in the background, although everything they play is live, and the visual representation of the band is seen on stage, instead of the ‘real’ musicians. It is apparent that “even classical music has been marketed through film, and many pop-music documentaries are manufactured in order to market the artists they foreground” (Saffle 2013: 43).

Music videos in their early stages were merely registrations of performances, just as the music documentary was. They influenced each other in what was possible; like the use of animation in music documentaries, for instance. Some music videos have interview aspects in them, like Thirty Seconds To Mars’ “City of Angels,”

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ntlt2tKi4do) and likewise, music documentaries can use filmic footage, or even animation. One of the differences between a music video and a music documentary is the duration. Music videos tend to be short – ranging from five minutes, to half an hour – whereas music documentaries are feature length. More importantly, music videos are created to promote one song in particular – while music documentaries focus on the artist – and can therefore feature more songs, and can even include songs that are made by their competitors. Where they differ as well is the way in which they can voice opinions about social issues. Music videos can also do this, but the audience of a documentary would engage more with the issues proposed than those simply watching a music video.

1.5 The Impact of Reality and Social Media in the Music Documentary

According to Halligan et al (2013c), as discussed in the chapter “Introduction: Music Seen,” the documentary Madonna: Truth or Dare (Alek Keshishian, 1991) “very visibly shifted the landscape of the music documentary.” This documentary is seen as trashy, scandalous and entertaining and it did so by “[looking] behind the scenes of Madonna’s 1990 Blonde Ambition tour, cementing the image of a notoriously outrageous persona that was further exacerbated by the singer’s monstrous behavior towards her crew and fellow celebrities” (17). As a result, we question the documentary’s authenticity, which has the form of staged

(15)

14 human’ for the media put them on a pedestal. It is clear that by behaving in such a way, Madonna wanted to challenge that notion. Halligan et al explain by suggesting:

This notion of reclaiming the public image from the public has since become a key trope within the music documentary. Indeed the music documentary as a vehicle for the mainstream pop star has increased exponentially alongside the global digital convergence of media, and has created a multiplicity of outlets for the distribution of the celebrity/star image. It would appear that the music documentary is no longer reserved for “serious” musicians, as evidenced by the popularity of pop

documentaries, often afforded for a full theatrical release (2013c: 17-18).

It is made clear that all musicians are documenting and promoting a certain view of their lives in one way or another. With the use of social media it becomes easier to document certain aspects of the life of a star. Halligan et al go further by saying that “the echoes of this documentary [Madonna: Truth or Dare] can be seen throughout contemporary celebrity culture, particularly in reality TV” (18). Especially in reality TV, we have to think that we see everything, and in particular the things that should better be kept behind closed doors. Bill Nichols claims in his chapter “How Can We Define Documentary Film” that:

friendliness invites a friendly presentation of self, but the introduction of a sarcastic remark may prompt guardedness. Embarrassment or determination may blossom in front of the camera, and in a documentary, we assume this quality stems from the social actor’s own persona rather than a role they’ve been asked to play (2017: 6-7). In this regard we consider Madonna a stage persona, as she brings a monstrous personality to the fore. According to Halligan et al. Madonna is a social actor in the documentary,

considering that she is playing herself. Although this documentary has transformed the way in which celebrities present themselves – both in documentaries and on social media – there is always the question of how this performance relates to reality; although it must be stated that ‘reality’ is an elusive and problematic concept.

In relation to reality TV, Nichols argues that “we may assign more realism to certain forms of fiction than they deserve, although some reality TV shows consciously create a blurry boundary between the actual people depicted and the role they seem to adopt at the bequest of the show’s creators” (2017: 7). The same holds true for music documentary, especially when you look at Madonna: Truth or Dare. An example of an artist with two distinct personalities is Alice Cooper. On stage he is a ‘bad guy’ who ‘dies’ multiple times. In his ‘real life’ he is a devout Christian, and almost the direct opposite of his stage persona. Thomas Cohen argues in “The Emergence of the Rock Star” that:

(16)

15 Once we resist reducing meaning to the emotional revelations of an authentic, ‘true’ self – a ‘ghost in the machine’ as it were – the gestures and actions that performers make on-stage can appear significant. One could even argue that, off-stage, subjects have the presence of mind to construct self-conscious presentations of their ‘true’ selves, whereas, on-stage, a performer is less likely to adjust his or her behavior for the camera. A more defensible theory, however, would examine both situations as

performances (2012: 54-55).

It is valuable to look at both performances, for it is apparent that both are performances. However, as Nichols stated: “a person does not present [him/herself] in exactly the same way to a companion on a date, a doctor in a hospital, his or her children at home, and a filmmaker in an interview. Nor do people continue to present the same way as an interaction develops; they modify their behavior as the situation evolves” (2017: 6). In other words, we all play roles in different situations, and the presence of a camera might make us more aware of the things we do or say. This means the onscreen persona would inevitably be different if the same situation occurred without the presence of the camera or film crew.

With social media, artists no longer just document their shows, or announce a tour or a new studio album, but they also invite people to view their regular activities and therefore making them more mundane and human; for instance they are seen visiting the same places as us. Because of this music documentaries can either be viewed as boring and generic – as they can give the audience the feeling that they already know everything – or they do what a documentary is supposed to do, which is to reveal what is hidden and purposefully swept under the rug in the service of the public image of an artist. Therefore music documentaries have an important part to play to reveal the social issues and taboos.

1.6 Taboos and the Rise of the Modern Music Documentary

Erich Hertz states that “the spate of feature and documentary films focused on Joy Division in the last decade [..] share [a] particular attention to the decrepit state of England” (2013: 132). They can call themselves music films or documentaries because they focus on the band Joy Division. But this is not their only focus, which make music documentaries a double-edged sword. “The effect, again, is to link not only the band with their geographical place, but also to make implicit the authenticity of the musician’s pain or anger: only out of wretched circumstances can genuine music come” (132). Herein it is made clear that location plays an important role, which means that in making the music documentary, the city – in the case of Joy Division that is Manchester – cannot simply be a background. This was also the case with Ian Curtis’ suicide. Since he was the lead singer, this fact simply cannot be ignored. It means that taking away Manchester, and the music scene that came with it, as well as Curtis’ suicide,

(17)

16 we would have a different documentary altogether, and by withholding information that was vital to the band’s story this could harm the documentary as a result.

This brings us to a developing trend seen in music documentaries. Over the years, there seem to have been a growing number of artists who have died young. Most of them died from natural causes, but others, like Kurt Cobain, committed suicide, and some overdosed. Because of their deaths, (music) documentaries are made to tell their stories, and that of their bands. Some also focus on the myth of the ‘club 27’, and the growing number of artists that have become of part of this club. According to Hertz it is difficult “to excavate a past which is no longer with us, but contains remnants in our present. Ian Curtis and his historical moment are no longer available to us, but [Grant] Gee’s documentary is a document to unearth this past” (136). Archival footage can be helpful to make sense of the past that is no longer available to us; instead in the form of articles and sound or film recordings. But it is

problematic to portray someone who does not have the ability to comment on the end product. This, of course, happens with people that are alive as well. The filmmaker, in the end, decides on the end product to tell their story; or rather the way in which they see and want to tell this story.

Michael Saffle goes on by saying that “music documentaries may be entertaining, but with few exceptions they appeal primarily to “niche” audiences” (2013: 47, quotes in the original). The documentary Believer (Don Argott, 2018), for instance, could be perceived by the fans of the band ‘Imagine Dragons’ as a film about the band, and their third studio album, on which “Believer” is one of the singles. The recording of the music does indeed play a minor role in this film, but it mainly focuses on the creation of the Loveloud Festival that came into being because of the rejection of the LGBT+-community by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or simply the Mormon Church. The name of this film, Believer, therefore works in two ways: not only to attract Imagine Dragons fans to watch this

documentary, but also to signify that the creators of the festival, during which the band performs, genuinely believe in change. Music documentaries, therefore, tend to focus on a problem, by not only making it personal but by using music and artists to put taboo subjects in the foreground. In Believer it is the inequality that LGBT+-youths experience in relation to the Mormon Church. Another example that is given in this film is that for Tyler Glenn, the singer for Neon Trees, his homosexuality and his openness towards his sexuality resulted in excommunication from his church.

It is clear then that being ‘your real self’ as an artist is not always received positively, as we have seen with Tyler Glenn in relation to his church. That is why artists sometimes feel

(18)

17 the need to create a stage persona. Sunil Manghani and Keith McDonald (2013) discuss the similarity of Kylie Minogue and Madonna by arguing that

this dual representation [the way in which Kylie Minogue is represented both on and offstage in this documentary] relies on the notion of a binary opposition between the carefully choreographed on-stage persona and the back-stage authentic identity; a convention summed up by Michael Chanan as relying on the idea that “every habitus has an off stage doppelganger” (2013: 219, quotes in original).

In this documentary, then, we can see two versions of Kylie Minogue. Today, we can see this, for example, in contrast to how a singer behaves on stage versus how he or she behaves on social media.

Modern music documentaries, therefore, are more than a representation of music, as the early music videos were. They are no longer even documentaries to solely consider music, but also taboos like homosexuality, or depression. As Erich Hertz says:

Many claims about Joy Division’s authenticity rest on the tragedy of Ian Curtis’s suicide. That is, when you listen to that depressing and moody sound, those introverted and isolated lyrics, you know that Curtis must have meant those feelings because he acted on them; he was not faking (2013: 138).

This quote relates to the feelings of depression, which I will return to in the following chapter. Gimme Shelter was supposed to be a documentary about a music festival not unlike

Woodstock, but a murder during the Altamont concert transformed the meaning of this documentary. Documentaries concerning Joy Division have to take Ian Curtis’s suicide into account, and by listening to the lyrics written by him, we can see – or rather hear – his mood, or his depression. Music documentaries, therefore, have evolved from mere registrations of artists’ lives, to a tool that helps musicians – and filmmakers – to tackle important social issues, of which depression is just one.

1.7 Conclusion

We have seen thus far that music documentary is not easily defined, and that this type of documentary has a multitude of subgenres in itself, such as the rockumentary. What I have argued is that music documentaries, in contrast to what is often thought, are not simply the registration of live performances, accompanied by shots of the artists that comment on their show and everything that has to happen before a show starts.

With Madonna and her documentary we have seen that music documentaries cannot only be entertaining, but that they can be serious as well. Her documentary changed the way in which we saw reality, and with this type of documentary reality TV has been influenced.

(19)

18 The same can be said for how celebrities now represent themselves on social media. Joy Division has been the subject of multiple films – fiction and documentary alike – and it was made apparent that both the depiction of the environment and the lead singer’s depression played an important role in the documentaries.

It is therefore peculiar that the music documentary, which highly influenced reality TV and social media presence, has been largely ignored in documentary scholarship. The music documentary can be seen as a tool where the presence of famous artists can use their

popularity to create awareness of certain issues. For artists that have already died, the

messages that the music documentaries convey are seemingly more apparent. On the contrary, for artists that are still among us, the music documentaries will usually require a message that relates to their music. However this does not always have to be the case, as we have seen with the documentary Believer, which focuses mainly on LGBT+-youths and the discrimination they receive through the church.

In my next chapter I will discuss the representation of music documentaries further, and will take a closer look at how depression is represented in them in particular.

(20)

19

Chapter 2. How Can We Define Depression and its Representation?

In this day and age, more people seem to suffer from mental health issues like (severe) anxiety and depression than ever before. According to the World Health Organization depression affects 300 million people worldwide

(https://www.who.int/mental_health/management/depression/en/). For anxiety, which is a mental illness that could ultimately lead to depression, this is an astonishing one in five people, according to a recent campaign from the Dutch government

(https://www.heyhetisoke.nl/). In this chapter I will focus on how depression can be

represented in a (multimodal) metaphorical manner. For the purpose of this thesis, the notion of fame – or celebrity status – plays an important role in this. In terms of representation, the notion of metaphor is meaningful as depression is impossible to represent literally, because the concept is very abstract. Sometimes metaphors can illuminate the impact that mental illnesses have. The metaphors can be text-based, or be construed through visuals, music, or even lighting.

This chapter will not focus on textual analysis, for I think this will be better

worthwhile for the analyses in the third chapter. Textual analysis is important, but needs little introduction. The same cannot be said for metaphorical analysis, especially multimodal metaphor, which I will explain in this chapter.

2.1 Defining Depression

First and foremost, it must be stated that this is not an MA thesis in psychology. Therefore I will mainly focus on the visual representation of the mental disorder known as depression. This concept itself will therefore only be discussed briefly; especially in the case of anxiety. The reason why I will introduce and identify these disorders briefly is to recognize how they are being represented in our society. My motivation for explaining anxiety is because in the film Avicii: True Stories (Leven Tsikurishvili, 2017) Avicii is talking about this affliction. In the metaphors, however, it is clear that what actually is discussed is depression.

Initially it can be stated that anxiety is an emotion we all experience. Most people experience this emotion when they start a new job, go on a work interview, or when they experience something more extreme like skydiving. In this sense the feeling of anxiety is not particularly negative, as it is not a constant feeling. “Common psychological symptoms of anxiety include irritability, intense fear, worry, difficulty concentrating, and a general “keyed up” feeling” (Swartz; 2007: 57). This general “keyed up” feeling is a certain excited or

(21)

20 nervous feeling and it is supposed to be constant, which without proper help could only intensify. When people have a feeling of constant anxiety – even during times they should be able to relax – a problem occurs. As a result of this, anxiety can restrict people from

experiencing new things, or they will have more problems focusing on new tasks; this can be problematic in the work place, for instance (2007: 56).

When it comes to performing tasks it is made clear that “a perception that others have perfectionistic expectations for oneself [is] related to increased severity of depression” (Flett et al; 1991: 65). This means that some people focus (often an excessive amount of time) to perfect something according to what they think others expect of them. That notion is exactly my point of discussion, as people with a celebrity status are expected to be better than the rest of society. This puts celebrities, artists in particular, under an enormous amount of pressure. Many of us remember the mental breakdown that Britney Spears suffered in 2007 when she shaved her head, allegedly because she wanted to be in control of her own life. Britney Spears has been a celebrity from the moment she was only a child, meaning that the pressure for her to perform has always been present (https://www.hellomagazine.com/healthandbeauty/health-and-fitness/2017062740179/britney-spears-anxiety-caused-breakdown/). Miley Cyrus seemed to have a similar breakdown, for she, too, shaved her head and was seen naked, swinging on a wrecking ball, in a music video with the same name

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My2FRPA3Gf8). That it was part of an alleged breakdown seems to be proven by Miley Cyrus herself, who has stated that she has regrets doing the video, because people will always remember her for her naked performance rather than for the song itself (https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/entertainment/2018/03/miley-cyrus-says-she-regrets-wrecking-ball.html).

Charles Forceville and Sissy Paling mention in the article “the metaphorical representation of DEPRESSION in short, wordless animation films” that “depression is a complex affliction, defined here as ‘an illness characterized by persistent sadness and a loss of interest in activities that you normally enjoy, accompanied by an inability to carry out daily activities for at least two weeks’ (World Health Organization, 2016-2017)” (2018: 2-3). This signifies the severity of the affliction and the impact it has on a person on a day to day basis. For a celebrity the activities that would give them joy would be their jobs, supposedly. But when it comes to celebrities, feelings of anxiety and depression seem to be largely ignored. The celebrities are expected to perform in their field, and their job should be something fun, instead of a job that pressurizes the celebrity to a certain extent. With the presence of social media celebrities are, in a sense, always in a public place where opinions are voiced by

(22)

21 anyone who wants their opinion to be heard. For example, after winning a Grammy, rapper Cardi B shared her success on Instagram. She then was criticized, because some people thought her album was not the best amongst the nominees. As a result, Cardi B deleted her Instagram-account (https://www.thefader.com/2019/02/12/cardi-b-instagram-grammys). She is not the first celebrity that has suffered a backlash after a post on social media. Ed Sheeran, for instance, deleted his Twitter-account after receiving criticism for his performance in an episode of the TV-show Game of Thrones, as people found the singer’s part useless (https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/7873105/ed-sheeran-twitter-game-of-thrones-rumors). Sheeran commented on this, saying he had wanted to delete his Twitter-account for some time. Even though these artists deleted their accounts, the criticism does not simply go away along with it, unfortunately. What it does result into is that people have less space to vent their problems with the celebrity; or at least they would have lost a direct way to voice their problems with the celebrities in question.

In the article “A journal in Celebrity Studies” Su Holmes and Sean Redmond state that “fame does not reside in the individual: it is constituted discursively, ‘by the way in which the individual is represented’” (2010: 4, quotes in the original). They go on by arguing that “the film, sports or rock star have primary texts or performance arenas through which [they are] to be identified and promoted” (5). These representations can be stage personas, like Madonna has shown us in her 1991 documentary, but because of the presence of paparazzi and the impending power of social media platforms, this can be something else as well. With the presence of these entities celebrities feel like they have little or no privacy, which could cause an increased feeling of anxiety and/or insecurity. Depression could be a result of a permanent sense of anxiety, and left untreated this could result in severe consequences, like a breakdown, and could even lead to death – likely suicide.

Holmes and Redmond argue that “the star was used to refer to a representational interaction between the on/off-screen persona” (2010: 4). By using the words

‘representational interaction,’ Holmes and Redmond identify significant differences between the on- and the off-screen persona. They go on by saying that the difference exists because of the distinction between public and private; however, they state that this boundary should be redefined. This has to do with social media presence being virtually anywhere. It also needs to be stated that celebrities who are famous through visual means have a greater likelihood of being recognized in public than artists who are mostly known for their writing or painting. For example, Daft Punk is known for their electronic music, but the duo wears helmets in their video clips and on stage. They are famous, and yet no one would recognize them if they

(23)

22 would pass them on the street.

In the lives of artists there can be different factors that can result in a heightened feeling of anxiety or depression. “Alcohol and certain illegal drugs can cause depression, as can withdrawal from alcohol, cocaine, or amphetamines. Drugs can cause other mental changes as well” (Swartz; 2007: 4). Especially among rock artists, substance abuse is very common. We can even find it in the phrase, ‘sex and drugs, and rock-‘n-roll’, which seems to be the mantra for their lifestyle. It appears to be a part of the artist environment, and by using a certain amount of drugs the feeling of pressure to perform is numbed. This can cause serious problems in the long term, like major (mental) health issues. Giving up their lifestyle seems to be a step in the right direction, but some effects that drugs have can be permanent. As we will understand with Avicii, getting out of the artist environment does not always mean that feelings of anxiety will simply disappear.

Besides the fact that patients no longer enjoy certain activities that normally gave them pleasure or relief of stress, Swartz states that individuals suffering from a depression can also have “overwhelming feelings of sadness and grief” (2007: 5). Being less energetic can also be a result of depression, as well as “feelings of guilt, worthlessness, and helplessness. Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide” (2007: 5). For these feelings we can merely guess if an artist is feeling them or felt them if they do not talk openly about it. This can be the case because, according to Holmes and Redmond, celebrities “have a profound effect on knowledge, power and representation” (2010: 7), meaning that celebrities are seen as role models. Apart from this, through the network that celebrities have, millions, and potentially billions of people, can be reached. If they would discuss issues like depression, they and their stories would become a symbol for that mental illness. This is not always ideal for certain celebrities; which is something that has mainly to do with the artist’s image. This is especially true for celebrities that do not seem to be suffering from depression, but then again, we cannot look inside the heads of celebrities. It also has to do with the “[celebrity’s] significance for media ‘users’, audiences and viewers. [..] celebrity exists at the core of many of the spaces, experiences and economy of everyday life” (2010: 7, quotes in the original). It signifies how much influence celebrities have on the rest of society, and how their stories and their influence can help the public to at least think about difficult, or taboo, issues.

When it comes to representing depression, there are a number of things that are possible. Forceville and Paling look at wordless animation films for metaphors of depression. They identified the metaphors DEPRESSION IS A DARK PLACE and DEPRESSION IS DOWN and DEPRESSION IS A MONSTER, among others (2018: 3). Depression, here, is

(24)

23 represented through metaphor, and mainly via images. Of course, there are other ways in which depression can be represented. (Music) documentaries are a representational genre in itself. If depression is discussed, this is automatically represented verbally. But because artists are put on a pedestal and sometimes considered to be ‘more than human’, talking about mental issues is taboo, especially if it does not fit the artist’s particular image. “It has been argued that mental illness is not really an illness at all, and that when we speak in these terms we are, unbeknownst to ourselves, talking in metaphors. Thus when mental illness is treated by doctors in hospitals with drugs, the metaphor is being taken literally” (Bowers; 2003: 2). Since artists often refuse to talk about depression, a documentary filmmaker will seek non-verbal manners to suggest that an artist is depressed. This leads us to the specific metaphors concerning depression for artists that died at a young age, and mostly expressed themselves through their music; either textually or by the mood and tempo of their music. A filmmaker can for instance play with the color of the footage, and therein we can construe a metaphor concerning depression. The contrast between black and white is very important in that respect. 2.2 Metaphors Concerning Depression

According to George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, “ordinary everyday English is largely metaphorical, dispelling once and for all the traditional view that metaphor is primarily in the realm of poetic or “figurative” language” (1980: 204, quotes in original). We cannot find this in only proverbs and expressions but in normal everyday language as well. Some subjects seem to be discussed in a preferred metaphorical manner, like death, for instance. This has to do with the abstract nature of concepts like death and depression are but two. As we are discussing depression, it seems fitting to identify metaphors concerning this mental affliction. In this respect it is important to distinguish ‘target’ and ‘source.’ Lakoff and Johnson explain their role by deconstructing the metaphor LOVE IS A JOURNEY – among others – by stating that LOVE is the target domain, and that the source domain is space (1980: 224). For

DEPRESSION IS DARK, then, DEPRESSION is the target domain, while the source domain is darkness, or the absence of light. Visual images, then, map darkness to the state of mind; ergo, depression.

In discussing depression, the metaphor of DEPRESSION IS DOWN/DESCENT is commonly identified in comics and graphic novels (El Refaie; 2019; 158). In the English language being sad is identified as feeling down and the descent signifies the metaphorical journey on a mountain; in this sense good, or succeeding is ascending, and bad is descending, and thus failing. The expression ‘rock bottom’ is frequently used in this respect, signifying

(25)

24 that you could not possibly fall any lower; though in depression it is occasionally stated that rock bottom has a basement, which means descending even more. In discussing a drawing that illustrates depression, El Refaie states that the metaphor DEPRESSION IS

DOWN/DESCENT is construed by showing that

Stacy [the depressed heroine in a graphic novel] is lying down (diegetic); the way the viewer is positioned so that he or she seems to be looking down at her from above, making her appear vulnerable and powerless (interactive); and the placement of the text blocks and the bed, which together suggest a reading path with an emphatic downward orientation (compositional) (2019: 158).

Via the drawing, the metaphor that is construed is not simply textual, but also visual. In this drawing, which is black and white, the notion of dark and light is very important. This leads us back to the initial identification of GOOD IS LIGHT and BAD/EVIL IS DARK. Forceville and Renckens (2013) argue that there are expressions “that cue HAPPY IS LIGHT (‘a radiant smile’, ‘to light up’, ‘beaming with joy’) and UNHAPPY IS DARK (‘my darkest hour’, ‘his eyes clouded over’)” (7). Here we can see that the contrast of darkness and light play a clear role in discussing one’s mood. Because depression is connected with the feeling of being sad, it makes sense to see depression as darkness. Coming back to Stacy, who is lying down in her bed, clutching a white pillow, in an otherwise dark room signifies that her situation is far from ideal. Focusing on the white pillow, you could argue that Stacy tries to hold on to something light, and thus something good. This light/dark contrast is also shown by identifying

depression as having, or being accompanied by, a black dog (Emmons 2010: 105). “Rather than having a proprietary relationship – implied by having a black dog – the progressive tense of living with implies daily engagement” (2010: 105, emphasis in original). Replacing ‘dog’ with ‘depression’ makes clear that by having it you can get rid of it, while if you live with it, this seems to be more challenging. It goes even further than this when Emmons deconstructs a drawing of a man sitting on a bench and “the shadow he casts takes the form of a black dog. The shape that the man takes in the world – the amount of sunlight his form obscures – is that of his figurative depression” (2010: 105). This may seem not very relevant when we take into account that this metaphor concerns a drawing, as in the real world it would be very strange if one’s shadow would turn into that of a black dog. However, Cobain: Montage of Heck (Brett Morgen, 2015) uses animation, wherein shadows and darkness play an important role.

Emmons also gives meaning to the drawing of a man on all fours, “and superimposed on him [..] is the shadow of the black dog” (2010: 105), which means the man now is the black dog. Sometimes people not only say that they are depressed, but mistake their depressed identity

(26)

25 for who they are.

Apart from the metaphors concerning ascent/descent and light/dark, there are other metaphors which focus on containment and restraint, and on weight and pressure (Charteris-Black 2012: 15). Containment could be identified with a confined space, like a prison, and could be made worse by being restrained, like locked chains that keep a person in place. Weight could be traced back to the metaphorical mountain climb, where one has to push a boulder up a mountain, which is therefore weighing you down. The pressure is commonly identified with Atlas, who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. As mentioned earlier, people experiencing depression could have the feeling that others only expect perfection from them, which means that depressed people who gave in to this pressure, did not overcome the weight they feel on their shoulder, but were rather immobilized by this. A question that frequently gets posed is ‘what is weighing you down?’ This weight could be best identified when it is visually and metaphorically represented, like the boulder.

Fahlenbrach’s article “Audiovisual Metaphors and Metonymies of Emotions and Depression in Moving Images” focuses on metaphors about complex concepts – of which depression is but one – and how these metaphors are construed in audiovisual media (2017: 99). She states that “if we take the manifestation of these basic emotion metaphors in different languages and cultures as a strong evidence also for their cognitive valence it seems obvious that they are not only used to articulate depressive states in languages, but also in audiovisual media” (100, emphasis in original). We mainly have seen metaphors which were construed primarily through textual means, although El Refaie’s, Forceville and Paling’s and

Fahlenbrach’s examples were visual as well. Textual and visuals are only two of the modes in which a metaphor can be construed, which leads us to the multimodal metaphor.

2.3 The Multimodal Metaphor

While it is certainly interesting to look at metaphors pertaining to depression in speech in music documentaries, this is not my only intention. It is important to analyze the use of music, but this should not be limited to lyrics. The mood of the music itself – is it a love song; is it sad or upbeat, for instance – in combination with images are more essential to pay attention to. For this it is necessary to apply the multimodal metaphor. Forceville states that “non-verbal communication is more easily comprehensible and has greater emotional appeal than verbal communication” (2007: 27). This can relate to the phrase ‘a picture says more than a thousand words’, and it goes beyond this as the ‘pictures’ I will analyze are moving and have a soundtrack. Forceville does state, however, that in order to understand a metaphor, one

(27)

26 should have knowledge of the culture in which they, in my case the music documentaries, are made. This has to do with the fact that metaphors are not universal – although some can be – which means that people who speak a different language, could focus on different aspects to try and construe a metaphor. In other words “cultural national connotations adhering to a source domain are bound to affect interpretation” (2007: 27). Because I will focus mostly on English speaking artists, the English language is important in that respect – as are the cultural differences between England and the United States. It has to be taken into account, however, that Avicii is Swedish, although the music he made is English.

Forceville states that researchers in conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) “[restrict] their investigations to language and [pay] little attention to non-verbal manifestations of conceptual metaphor” (2007: 16). While it is true that language is important in an analysis of metaphor, I would rather focus on the visual means for my analysis of the chosen music documentaries. To do so, I have to consider the multimodal metaphor which, as the name already suggests, focuses on more than one mode through which metaphors are possible to construe.

“Multimodal metaphors are “metaphors whose target and source are each represented exclusively or predominantly in different modes”” (Coëgnarts and Kravanja 2012: 297, quoted from Forceville 2006).

Forceville further defines the multimodal metaphor by taking five modes into

consideration, namely “(i) written language; (ii) spoken language; (iii) visuals; (iv) music; (v) sound” (2007: 16). Because my objects of analysis are music documentaries, written language is something that will play a role of little importance – although written language can be used, in the form of intertitles. Subtitles do not fit this description, for they are a translation of the spoken word. Therefore, my focus will be on visuals, music and sound, respectively.

Metaphors in spoken language are also important, as talking about depression in the literal sense is impossible, for it is an abstract concept. Whilst speaking of such a subject, comments about the illness could be made mostly metaphorically.

We now have learned that metaphors are constructed in the written language. However, when it comes to visual media, metaphors need to be construed in a different manner. This does not mean that written or spoken metaphors are not used; on the contrary. But with visual and aural aspects, a metaphor is constructed in a different manner, which does not always seem apparent to the viewer or listener, respectively. Forceville argues “apart from their greater degree of comprehensibility, metaphors drawing on images, sounds, and music also, I submit, have a more intense, immediate emotional impact than verbal ones” (2007: 27).

(28)

27 How, then, can we use this multimodal metaphor for the analyses of the representation of depression in music documentaries?

2.4 Multimodal Metaphor as a Tool for Analysis

“Drawing on conceptual metaphors allows creators of audiovisual media products to communicate complex meanings in an embodied gestalt that their public understands in a reflexive manner” (Fahlenbrach; 2017: 95). In other words, by making a film there are more ways in which the audience of this media product could understand and identify a metaphor than in language. Fahlenbrach argues that this relates to “mentally based metaphoric

concepts,” which are easier to identify when there are multiple modes that together construe a certain metaphors (95).

Forceville and Paling look at how depression is represented in wordless animated films, and come up with a number of metaphors for depression. The Mental Health Awareness film they discuss, for example, construes the metaphor DEPRESSION IS A DARK CONFINING SPACE, but also point towards the fact that the woman in this animated film wears a mask (2018: 3). This mask might be literal in the animation film, but in the everyday world, this mask is not something that is visible – however, one could argue that the use of make-up will hide your ‘true self.’ As stated in the first chapter, people are never the same version at home as they are at a friend’s house, or at the doctor. Being aware of the fact that you feel like you have to wear this mask in order to be accepted – or in the case of depression, the fact that you have to smile, while you rather feel like crying – can strain a person. In a sense, the mask to hide behind is the stage persona – or online persona when using social media accounts, for instance. Mental disorders go far in this sense, because when you wear a mask for an extensive period of time, you might mistake that mask for your own face – or in the literal sense, your personality.

When we take music documentaries into account, masks are always worn –

figuratively – but it is not always apparent what appears to be the mask, and what is perceived as the ‘real’ person. Therefore I shall look for other metaphors as well. The ‘dark confining space’ for example, could be the studio, the dressing room before a show, or the hotel room, far away from friends and family. In this case, it is important to examine the lighting. Why is the background dark? Why is the footage dark or maybe darkened? Darkness symbolizes something negative. How, then, can that be contrasted between a light setting, and the use of white or vibrant colors? The same can be said for being lost. Forceville and Paling talk about this by discussing the Mental Health Awareness film (2018: 8-9). There, after removing her

(29)

28 mask, the girl is transformed into a bear that is lost in the forest. Besides that, we see the bear from a bird’s eye view – which means we are looking down on her/it. Of course we can take this literally, for people suffering from depression might think that people will look down on them – and thus in a sense reject them – when they are showing their true face; what is hidden behind the mask. Being lost and being free are in this respect very different things. What this means in terms of analysis is that the use of camera framing – loose framing, wide framing – and the use of color and lighting in certain shots of music documentaries are potentially very important for the representation of depression.

By discussing the stop-motion animation film Depression, which is more artistically based and less narratively based, we see a heart made of clay which is surrounded by

branches, and because it is black it is not made clear if they are ropes or snakes (Foreville and Paling 2018: 11). Forceville and Paling state that it is possible to have two types of metaphors present within the same image: DEPRESSION IS A DARK MONSTER and DEPRESSION IS A DARK PRISON (11). In the case for Depression, Forceville and Paling recognize that the metaphors DEPRESSION IS DARK ROPES/SNAKES and DEPRESSION IS A PRISON are connected through the same means. It is apparent that with animation there are more possibilities to create metaphors than in ‘real footage.’ Embedding images or sounds that are highly metaphorical is not impossible, however, and the influence of the filmmakers’

knowledge of the emotional state of the artists (ergo, (severe) anxiety or depression) will have a prominent role in the presence of these metaphors.

Coëgnarts and Kravanja state that “the mapping of one cluster of images onto another cluster of images constitutes a new conceptual metaphor. Because montage is vital to initiate the mappings between the two domains we can further speak of a filmic metaphor” (2012: 109). If it is only visual, this will mean that it is a monomodal metaphor, and therefore a metaphor that is construed only through one mode. Although this is not unheard of, usually those images will be accompanied by sounds and/or music, which will most likely strengthen the metaphor that needs to be construed. By examining all the modes of interpretation, I will look at how metaphors concerning depression are being construed in the music

documentaries. I will focus especially on darkness and feeling lost or alone, which are mostly identified with depression.

In the analyses in the next chapter the majority of the documentaries I have chosen have been made post mortem. Only the documentary focusing on Avicii was made before his passing, but relates to depression just as well as the other documentaries. The focus shall be on similar questions, namely how is black, or the metaphor which comes with this color used