Michael Bay
Since its release last December and in the lead up to this weekend’s Academy Awards, Steven Spielberg’s WEST SIDE STORY is currently being praised and analysed for the use of bold colours for its compositions and its ability to capture a vibrant energy on screen. Of course, the 1961 original provided the archetype for this style of filmmaking. So it’s no wonder that another filmmaker (and sometime Spielberg-collaborator), Michael Bay cites the same film as his epicentre of influence. Jeanine Basinger, his film professor at Wesleyan University, confirmed this: “(that film made him) realise you’re not bound by reality if you don’t want to be. And his work is about colour and movement and a kind of abstraction and unreality found in musicals.”
Obviously, musicals are not the first genre you think of with Michael Bay. The term “Bayhem” is often used as a shorthand to describe the director’s use of big guns, bigger explosions, and the biggest car chases. However, musicals and action movies are related in many ways—kinetic, bright images being cut to a certain rhythm. Bay has never made a musical feature, but the grass roots of his filmmaking lie in music videos.
Young MC — “That’s The Way Love Goes” (1991)
Young MC narrates the unfortunate failings of his love life. This is cut with images of long-legged models in high heels randomly wearing motorbike helmets and standing behind phoropters. The track builds to a story about Young MC going back to a girl’s home from a club to find himself waking up the next morning and knocking over a breakfast tray. Maybe this explains Bay’s reasoning for a model showering in milk?
Tina Turner — “Love Things” (1992)
The video consists of showing a beefcake photographer (and his trusty, perpetually shirtless assistant who helps with the lighting) shooting Turner in various studios. Weirdly, one of the sequences takes place on a catwalk next to an old fighter plane and an early appearance by Tyra Banks. Popular British film critic Mark Kermode has often mentioned Bay’s ‘pornographic sensibilities’. Though nothing explicit happens here, the big muscles under thin tank tops and soft lighting telegraphs what will be Bay’s signature aesthetics.
Meat Loaf — “Objects In The Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are” (1994)
Bay targets something more wholesome in this video, more akin to THIS BOY’S LIFE. It tells the story of a young boy watching his brother die in an accident which leads to domestic problems at home. But Michael Bay has gotta ‘Michael Bay’! Therefore, there’s lots of shots under a sunset. Lots of shots of planes. And, of course, there’s a slow-motion sex sequence in the back of a Cadillac! Still a touching video that perfectly encapsulates Meat Loaf’s emotional song.
Aerosmith — “Falling In Love (Is Hard On The Knees)” (1997)
The first post-BAD BOYS video he made and it’s where Bay gets FREAK-AY! The men in the video are strung up in various S&M setups while the female models strut around them in domineering ways.
Meat Loaf — “I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)” (1993)
What many call the magnum opus of Bay’s music videos. A 7-plus minute epic that’s one third Beauty and the Beast, one third Phantom of the Opera, and one third Dracula. Meat Loaf plays a character who’s running (well, riding on one of Bay’s ubiquitous motrcycles, to be exact) from the law, crashes into a manor house, and somehow his appearance changes to something that resembles Pazuzu from THE EXORCIST. Again, the video features soft-lighting and scantily clad women. Interestingly, the co-singer on the track, Lorraine Crosby is absent from the video. Instead, the model who plays Meat Loaf’s love interest, Dana Patrick, mimes the words.
This was the huge breakout song for Meat Loaf’s ‘90s comeback and you can’t deny the music video played a large part in its success. Jim Steinman and Meat Loaf’s over-the-top rock opera stylings fit Bay’s grandiose images so well. It’s melodramatic, it’s sexy, and it has an undeniable sumptuous power both in the music and visuals.
