In between "The Master" and "Inherent Vice"

July 24, 2013 11:16 AM

While they were dating back in the 90's, Paul Thomas Anderson directed several of Fiona Apple's videos including "Across the Universe", "Paper Bag" and "Limp". Though they have long since broken up, he recently came back to direct the video for "Hot Knife" off of her most recent album. The result is hypnotic.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI (22 comments total)

That's exactly what my day was lacking. More Fiona Apple. Thank you!
posted by Thorzdad at 11:26 AM on July 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

Just when I got that song out of my head. So great.
posted by yellowbinder at 11:26 AM on July 24, 2013

When she is good, she is very, very good. Thanks!
posted by bearwife at 11:29 AM on July 24, 2013

Man, I was just thinking about how "Paper Bag" is one of my all-time favorite music videos.
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 11:30 AM on July 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

I really liked the fact that her sister is the other person in the split-screen.
posted by Omon Ra at 11:32 AM on July 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

Wow, I'd never seen the Paper Bag video. It looks just like you'd picture a Paul Thomas Anderson directed music video.
posted by DigDoug at 11:35 AM on July 24, 2013

Man, I was just thinking about how "Paper Bag" is one of my all-time favorite music videos.

Mine too. And watching all these again was a nice little palate cleanser after the psychosis of that Miley Cyrus video post yesterday.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 11:37 AM on July 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

Brilliant and beautiful. I love Fiona Apple so so so so much.
posted by Lutoslawski at 11:52 AM on July 24, 2013

also Mountain Goats and Fiona on the Front Page on the same day! Depressed music lovers rejoice!
posted by Lutoslawski at 11:54 AM on July 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

This is terrific, but it's no "Try"

Srsly you jerks. PTA directing the massively underrated Michael Penn in a single long tracking shot and featuring Phillip Seymour Hoffman. What is not to love? What do you awful people want? Blood!?
posted by Senor Cardgage at 12:06 PM on July 24, 2013 [3 favorites]

Fiona Apple has got so much talent that it makes me cry.
posted by Didymium at 12:54 PM on July 24, 2013

As something of a recluse, not to mention someone who never knows what to do with their hands, I fell in love with Fiona Apple the minute I saw semi-recent footage of her performing live. Appreciation among her fans seems to often manifest itself in expressions of LOVE, but, man, there are so few public figures I would say feel like kindred spirits to me, and she is definitely one of them. (Incidentally, PTA's depiction of what I see as Barry Egan's anxiety and depression in Punch-Drunk Love puts him right up there.) It's perhaps half-jokingly, but mostly with the utmost reverence, that I try to convince my friends and non-fans she is our Emily Dickinson.
posted by Lorin at 1:05 PM on July 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

May I take this opportunity to again recommend her cover of Elvis Costello's I Want You?
posted by Diablevert at 2:31 PM on July 24, 2013 [6 favorites]

May I take this opportunity to again recommend her cover of Elvis Costello's I Want You?

You most certainly may. And I'll match it with her cover of Cy Coleman's "Why Try To Change Me Now".
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 2:43 PM on July 24, 2013

a single long tracking shot and featuring Phillip Seymour Hoffman

I, too, love Phillip Seymour Hoffman, but that was not one long shot. For example there an obvious cut here right around 2:00, plus several other spots where it'd be easy to edit takes together. Sorry, but I just re-watched Goodfellas.
posted by exogenous at 4:01 PM on July 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

I don't know who this Fiona Apple chick is - but damn, that's a good song.
posted by hoodrich at 7:54 PM on July 24, 2013

Joining the rec chorus, with her cover of Bill Withers' Use Me.
posted by Iris Gambol at 8:22 PM on July 24, 2013

I don't know who this Fiona Apple chick is - but damn, that's a good song.

Insert "I feel old" cliche.

I got her first album when I was 13 and her second, my favorite, on my first solo trip after getting my driver's license.

It came out in 2012 but Idler Wheel is still the best album of 2013.
posted by girlmightlive at 8:33 PM on July 24, 2013

I'm impressive by the good defense given here of her coninued artistic development. Yet I still feel that she will always be a criminal in my mind. Some earworms never die.
posted by humanfont at 9:02 PM on July 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

> Insert "I feel old" cliche. I got her first album when I was 13 and her second, my favorite, on my first solo trip after getting my driver's license.

I got her first album just as I replaced my first car, I remember that it was among the first and most frequent albums played through my new-car stereo; it was the year after I graduated from college.
posted by desuetude at 11:45 PM on July 24, 2013

One of the tantalising things about "Hot Knife" is that, for all its genius, it is a song one feels could be fully replicated with the help of only a drum, a piano and a harmonising sibling. I like how the video captures that feeling.
posted by rongorongo at 1:17 AM on July 25, 2013

"Extraordinary Machine" is another great Fiona Apple song which seems to cry out for a creative official video (I only found this one of her doing it live)
posted by rongorongo at 12:51 PM on July 25, 2013