Death Valley '69 is a video for the Sonic Youth song of the same name. The song origionally appeared on the "Bad Moon Rising" album from way back in 1985, at about the same time as Kern was making those Super 8 gross-out masterpieces starring the lovely "Lung Leg" - I swear I'm not making this up - who later graced the cover of the SY album "EVOL." There is a great gorey sequence in the DV '69 music video that looks like pieces of liver or stomach (or something...) plopted down in front of a very crudly "killed" Steve Shelley (SY's drummer at the time the video was shot). Kern's very distinctive Super 8 style (gittery, high contrast, EXTREMELY low budget, and super gross-out) that was - and I know this is hard to believe - really, really popular in the New York art scene in the eighties is captured here in it's full glory. Check out "Hardcore," a collection of Kern's mid-eighties Super 8 porno(?) movies. Anyway, it's a Sonic Youth music video that is collected on the "Screaming Fields of Sonic Love" music video compilation thingy. There you have it....
3 Reviews
Quite a mess really
Horst_In_Translation13 December 2014
Warning: Spoilers
The music video for Sonic Youth' "Death Valley 69" was directed by Richard Kern back in 1986. He made short films for two years at this point, so he was relatively new to the movie industry, although those were 2 pretty prolific years. If you have seen some of his other works, you may recognize his touch in here. There is some obscenity, some violence, some blood, some knife action and also some concert footage.
The song did not appeal to me at all and the video quality was pretty horrible too. It doesn't look 1986 at all. It's obviously on purpose to make the piece look raw and artistic, but it doesn't do anything for me. Not recommended and I suggest you only take a look if you like Kern's other work.
The song did not appeal to me at all and the video quality was pretty horrible too. It doesn't look 1986 at all. It's obviously on purpose to make the piece look raw and artistic, but it doesn't do anything for me. Not recommended and I suggest you only take a look if you like Kern's other work.
When two forces collide
StevePulaski2 March 2015
Death Valley '69 serves as the music video for the metal band Sonic Youth's popular song, and there's probably no better force of nature to bring the song to visual life than underground, New York-based director and photographer Richard Kern. Kern specializes in the depraved and the sick-minded, and Death Valley '69, with its home-video aesthetic, unsteady camera-work, and scuzzy presentation, exude all of that quite fittingly. The music video, despite only being five minutes long, hits hard and remains relentless in its grittiness. It gets by almost entirely on the humid, sun-soaked atmosphere it presents, showing a group of young people vacationing in a grassy field, soaking up rays and engaging in bloody brutality. The video is gory and ruthless, but also quite artistic, mind you, with Kern's style seeping through like the mass amounts of fake blood he uses on set. Kern's strength is portraying the sick and the unkempt in a way that's artistic and beautiful, thanks to shots wildly experimental ideas, quirky camera angles, or a combination of all those plus downright unique and twisted ideas. Death Valley '69 is a beautiful introduction to his principles that only exceed as one continues to peruse his filmography.
Directed by: Richard Kern.
Directed by: Richard Kern.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
