Music Video Homework

From Wikipedia:

The music video for "Losing My Religion" was directed by Tarsem Singh. As opposed to previous R.E.M. videos, Michael Stipe agreed to lip sync the lyrics.[17] The video originated as a combination of ideas envisioned by Stipe and Singh. Stipe wanted the promo to be a straightforward performance video, akin to Sinéad O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U". Singh wanted to create a video in the style of a certain type of Indian filmmaking, where everything would be "melodramatic and very dreamlike", according to Stipe.[18] The video begins with a brief sequence inside a dark room where water drips from an open window. Buck, Berry, and Mills run across the room while Stipe remains seated. A pitcher of milk drops from the windowsill and shatters, and the song begins. Director Singh drew inspiration from the Italian painter Caravaggio and Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. The video is laden with religious imagery such as Saint Sebastian and Hindu deities, portrayed in a series of tableaux.[19] The music video was nominated in nine categories at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards. The video won six awards, including Video of the Year, Best Group Video, Breakthrough Video, Best Art Direction, Best Direction, and Best Editing.[20] "Losing My Religion" also ranked first in the music video category of the 1991 Pazz & Jop poll.[13]
 
From The Inspiration Room (http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2006/rem-losing-my-religion/):

Inspiration for the old man with the wings came from the Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ short story, “A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings”, in which a shabby old man with wings falls from the sky during a heavy rain fall in a South American village. The young boy with arrows attached to his body is a reference to Saint Sebastian, who is said to have died for his faith during the Diocletian persecutions of the 3rd century. In art over the years Saint Sebastian has been shown tied to a post and shot with arrows. Losing My Religion was declared Best Video of the Year at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards. In addition the music video won awards for best group of the year, best breakthrough video, best art direction in a video (Jose Montana), best director of a video (Tarsem Singh) and best editing of a video (Robert Duffy).
 
Paraphrased from my notes on the VH-1 Pop Up Video episode:

They shot for 9 hours on the whole set, but director Tarsem later changed his mind and decided to focus the band members in one specific corner of the set. He also decided that instead of preplanned poses he would have Michael improvise in front of the camera. The band was directed to just “hang out” in the background. The photographer was told to just follow Michael’s spontaneous movements. Some of the imagery is based on Soviet poster art. Most of the actors in the video are friends of the crew members. The old men were professional actors hired for the video. The winged-man imagery (which I always thought was based on the Icarus story) was actually inspired by a short story called “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” by Garcia Marquez. This video marks the first time the band lip-synched for a music video, everything previous was just a recorded live performance. The imagery of the video also draws inspiration from Belgian graphic art [need to research that] and from the Baroque painter Caravaggio. The starkness of the set was inspired by Michael Stipe’s own home in Athens, GA.