Just a quick addendum to today’s discussion: Jason mentioned how only Memento’s opening sequence plays in reverse and that it would be annoying (perhaps unwatchable) for the entire film to be like that. If you’ve never seen Coldplay’s music video for “The Scientist,” check it out; the entire narrative is played in reverse. And it is annoying, even for four and a half minutes, but it’s also kind of cool.

It occurred to me that one could compile a research paper on narratives in music videos. While not all music videos necessarily have narratives, many do, and it could be interesting to explore how the music functions in the construction of the narrative. It reminds me of Teresa Bridgeman’s notion of layers of constraint on narrative. That is, just as a television narrative is inextricably tied to its scheduling block, so is the music video narrative constrained by the music it serves to express.

To be honest, I don’t know enough about music videos to make an informed judgement, so this wouldn’t necessarily be the right topic for me, but if any of you are interested, be my guest.