Thom Yorke goes visual

It’s a compelling piece of art that’s well worth your time.

Thom Yorke of Radiohead. Picture: AFP

Accompanying the recent release of the third solo album by British singer-songwriter Thom Yorke — best known as the frontman of rock band Radiohead — was an unusual companion piece: a short film starring Yorke that was available to watch on Netflix on the same day Anima was released. The 15-minute work is directed by American filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson and functions as an extended music video, featuring three tracks from Anima — which was reviewed favourably on this page last week by Doug Wallen — set to some unique choreography and bizarre, dreamlike scenes filmed in the Czech Republic and France.

Other than noting that the film also features the singer’s partner, actress Dajana Roncione, I’ll avoid any further description of the work here. Regardless of your knowledge of Yorke’s discography, it’s a compelling piece of art that’s well worth your time. But given the lavish production and unconventional method of delivery, I’ve been curious to learn more about how the pieces came together. Although Netflix has invested in recent music documentaries such as

Beyonce’s Homecoming, Lady Gaga’s Five Foot Two, Keith Richards’s Under the Influence and Quincy, starring legendary record producer Quincy Jones, this might be the first such music video partnership between a well-known film director, a big-name indie artist and the streaming media company. Most artists simply upload their music videos to YouTube; this, though, was a rather different approach more rooted in Anderson’s filmic work. It even premiered in about 40 IMAX cinemas worldwide.

The Anima director and Radiohead have history: Yorke’s bandmate Jonny Greenwood has scored Anderson’s four most recent films, including There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread. But the heavy emphasis on moving bodies appears to have come from Yorke’s work with choreographer Damien Jalet, with whom he collaborated on Suspiria, a supernatural horror film from last year that provided Yorke with his first feature score.

It will be fascinating to watch whether the Anderson-Yorke-Netflix nexus is a one-off or whether other artists will see Anima and consider this method as a complementary promotional vehicle for the visual side of their art, as YouTube can be a crowded channel for music videos. For his part, Anderson has downplayed has own involvement, telling Variety last week: “Ultimately, any kind of music video is to guide you toward the record, and not something that you can hold in your hand and take with you,” he said. “But it’s all Thom. So much of this stuff is directly from Thom’s brain.”

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