The Directors Label

The Directors Label

Aidin Vaziri | Bjork serenading midtown Manhattan from the back of a flatbed truck. Fiona Apple frolicking around in her underwear with a bunch of deranged teenagers. A decaying Johnny Cash sitting in his Nashville home with wife June as scenes from his life flash by. These are just some of the unforgettable scenes that make up the latest batch of Directors Label DVDs highlighting the works of auteurs Mark Romanek, Jonathan Glazer, Anton Corbijn and Stephane Sednaoui. Here is a disc-by-disc guide to the clips you will want to play, rewind, pause and fast-forward.



MARK ROMANEK
Rewind:: Jay-Z's stark "99 Problems" and Apple's salacious "Criminal" haven't lost any of their bite with time. They still titillate and somehow make the songs seem richer. But Romanek's masterwork remains his promo for Cash's cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt," an unblinking document that says much more about the life of the Man in Black than all of "Walk the Line."

JONATHAN GLAZER
Fast Forward:: A disciple of Stanley Kubrick, Glazer has a default mode of creepiness. But watching French art-house icon Denis Lavant get mowed down by car after car in UNKLE's "Rabbit in Your Headlights" somehow loses its charm after the first viewing. Same goes for claustrophobic clips for Radiohead's "Karma Police" and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' "Into My Arms," which during the commentary section prompts the singer to spit, "It was the wrong idea for the song."

ANTON CORBIJN
Pause:: While every frame of every video here benefits from Corbijn's photographic background, his tribute to Ian Curtis in Joy Division's "Atmosphere," in which a group of hooded children carries 15-foot-high photos of the late singer across a Spanish beach, features scenes that could be hung on a gallery wall.

STEPHANE SEDNAOUI
Play:: Stephane Sednaoui, a former fashion photographer from Paris, has probably gotten the most MTV air time out of the lot, primarily for his work on the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give It Away" and Alanis Morissette's "Ironic." Curiously, some of his most popular videos -- Smashing Pumpkins' "Today," Madonna's "Fever" and Apple's "Never Is a Promise" -- have been left out.