Billie Eilish Music Video Analysis
- Aisan
- 12 ene 2020
- 5 Min. de lectura
Here I will analyse a set of music videos by Billie Eilish
all the good girls go to hell
The video starts off with a clip that is taken from one of her previous music videos called “bury a friend”. This is a mid shot of Billie’s back where we see several arms swiftly stab Billie with some needles. This is followed by a close-up of her back where we see the needles are making her veins go black. Proceeded by quick cuts of what seems to be wings growing out of her back increasing the tension alongside suspenseful music and diegetic sound of her wings growing. Then we see a quick cut to a wide shot of a cloudy sky where we soon see Billie falling and landing in a pool of what looks like mud, which is revealed to be oil later on in the video. The fact that she falls in a pool of oil represents the meaning of the song which is about climate change. She is referencing how oil spills by companies such as BP have made an impact on the environment.
Billie then proceeds to pull herself out from the pool of oil and walking towards the camera. While she is doing this, the song starts playing. The camera continues going backwards, while Billie follows it throughout the majority of the video. As the song progresses, around Billie, there are fires starting while she continues walking and ignoring them. She also does this when her wings catch on fire, she just continues walking without trying to do anything to put out the fires. This is a representation of how global warming has been happening for a really long time but humanity has been ignoring it. This is especially referring to ignored wildfires, specifically in California as part of her lyrics say "hills burn in California".
Her music video links to her recent video she put up with Woody Harrelson titled "Our house is on Fire".
Xanny
This is a fairly recent video released by Billie Eilish. The video stats off with a wide shot of Billie sitting on a bench while lip syncing to the song. The lighting matches the scene which is mostly white except for Billie's hair.
The camera very gradually starts zooming in closer to her face as the song advances, leaving us with a mid close-up of her face by the time the first chorus starts. As the song's chorus starts, we see a man's arm approaching Billie's face while holding a lit cigarette. Then the man proceeds to use her face to turn off the cigarettes. This suggests that Billie doesn't like people who smoke since they are hurting themselves and therefore hurting Billie.
After this scene, the camera starts zooming out just as the first chorus comes to an end. We see a little amount of smoke entering the shot referencing her line in the song, "I'm in their second hand smoke". The zooming out stops leaving her in a wide shot similar to the beginning of the music video before abruptly zooming in to a close-up while the second chorus is commencing. This time, we see more arms approaching Billie suddenly and using her face to turn off the cigarettes. This shows how much she is truly hurt by people smoking, specially those close to her. The cigarettes getting turned off on her face sparks a reaction of discomfort among whoever is watching the video. This causes them to empathise with her since they feel the pain as it is shown physically as opposed to mentally.
Throughout all these scenes, she barely reacts to the pain, showing minimal facial expressions. However, towards the end of the second chorus and the beginning of the bridge, we see how she starts reacting and looking like she's sad while lip syncing the song. This may suggest that Billie hides her pain from the people who are hurting her by smoking, perhaps to not cause conflict, but the viewers see that it's something that really causes her pain.
everything i wanted
This is Billie's most recent music video for her latest song, "everything i wanted". The song is about how Billie had a dream where she jumped off a bridge but nobody seemed to get fazed by it and went on with their lives. The song also shows her strong bond with her brother, Finneas. She stated in many occasions, "My brother is my best friend". This is shown at the beginning of the music video, before the song starts, with a text saying "finneas is my brother and my best friend. no matter the circumstance, we always have and always will be there for each other".
In the lyrics she refers to him in the lines, "When I wake up I see, you with me. And you say, as long as I'm here, no-one can hurt you". She said that her brother is always there for her in the times she needs him the most.
The music video starts with a travelling shot showing a city at night, and later a black car. The shot continues on, until we see Billie as the driver and her brother in the passenger seat. The camera stays on the same spot while still moving at the same speed as the car, and it slowly starts zooming in as the song advances. This is the followed by a cut to a mid shot of Billie from the front showing her blank face. Then the camera cuts to a wide shot revealing that Finneas also has the same, blank expression. Succeeded by a series of cuts to mid shots of both of their faces holding the same expression while looking straight forward. This continues for a while until we see the car getting driven off the road onto a beach. This is where we see the first reaction come from Finneas as he looks out the window wondering what Billie is doing. After doing that, he lip syncs the chorus alongside Billie. Mid chorus, Billie is still driving towards the ocean with no signs of stopping. As the chorus comes to an end, the song stops and we get a close up of Billie's foot pressing on the gas pedal, followed by diegetic sound of the car RPM suddenly increasing and going full speed into the water with a splash. We get a long shot of the car floating in the water for a little as the second verse starts.
Then we see the car sinking. As we hear the lyrics, "I tried to scream, but my head was underwater", we get a close up of Billie's side profile as we see the windows showing only water, resembling how she felt in that dream. However, we see that she does not seem to be reacting to the fact that they are now slowly sinking deeper into the water, shown by a wide shot of the side of the car.
We start seeing the first reactions from Billie as she is shown touching the window, while looking out into the vast ocean. Finneas is also shown looking out the window however, he doesn't look worried, neither does Billie. Then with the start of the second chorus, with the lines of, "But when I wake up I see", Finneas stretches a hand out to Billie and she holds it. While the lyrics say, "you with me", Billie and Finneas look at each other and smile. The fact that they didn't seem to care much about the car going straight into water and both of them drowning together and then holding each others hand shows that it doesn't matter what they are going through, all that matters is that they are there for each other, hence why both of them were so calm about drowning.
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