Placebo - 'This Picture' - Goodwin Analysis

'This Picture' by Placebo was released in 2003 and its music video director was Howard Greenhalgh. Howard Greenhalgh has directed numerous videos from a variety of artists and genres, such as Iron Maiden, The Pet Shop Boys, The Sugababes, Puff Daddy and the Spice Girls, as well as Placebo. Placebo's genre is alternative rock/pop punk, their music is not particularly happy or upbeat and consequently their music videos tend to be quite dark and gloomy. Placebo have the image of being fiesty and provocative, especially the lead vocalist and guitarist Brain Molko who is known for his androgynous appearance.

The lyrics of the song is about a relationship involving sadomasochism but it is the female who is abusive and dominant. The "Ashtray Girl" is used to refer to a woman who uses men as "emotional ashtrays". The visuals amplify the lyrics as the audiences sees there is a story about the girl in the picture however it is not explicitly exactly what the narrative is.

The video is in timing with the beat of the music. For example this clip from the beginning of the video shows how the editing cuts on every beat of the drum cymbal:

The videos pace is relatively smooth throughout and doesn't fluctuate a lot throughout the video, however in the middle of the song the timing gets faster which means that the editing gets faster. This clip shows that the camera movement gets fast in the performance part to match the fast pace of the music:

Close ups of the artist creates intimacy between the video and the audience. It also verifies recognition of the star image. The audience is clearly shown Brian Molko's style when we see close ups of his eye makeup and this is recognisable to Placebo's fans as they are already aware of his bisexuality and interest in cross-dressing, and for those who do not know Placebo already, this will grab their attention as it is something different to what they might expect and they then on have this image of the band in their memories.

The camerawork and editing focuses a lot on the band itself, ensuring many close ups of them playing their instruments and performing as this presents them as a talented band. This clips displays this: 

Voyeurism is used to an extent in this video as we see the girl being portrayed as a sexualised object due to her almost being naked and connotations of bondage.

However this has a more sinister impact rather than 'sexy'. Placebo's music videos tend to be quite disturbing and dark and again this motif if shown in this video. Voyeurism is used in a more artistic and symbolic way rather than trying to establish a 'sexy' music video. Additionally, we only see short shots of the girl which doesn't allow the audience enough time to see the woman in full. This teases the audience in a sense and engages them with the video as they want to get another look at this mysterious character. We only eventually see a close up of her face at the very end of the video.

This video is a combination of performance and narrative based. The narrative is fragmented and there is no clear storyline however the audience does realise that the song is about this unhappy woman in the video. The use of performance promotes the band as talented musicians as we see they all can play their instruments.