Born in May 1955 Corbijn started his career of music photographer when he saw the Dutch musician Herman Broodplaying at a cafe in Groningen (the Netherlands) around 1975. He took a lot of photos of the 'rising star' Herman Brood & His Wild Romance. Because of the pictures taken by Corbijn, Brood's fame rose quickly, and as a result Corbijn's own exposure increased. Till Brood’s death in 2001 he stayed the 'home-photographer' of Herman Brood. In 1998, he brought Bono and Herman together to start a working on a project which was never finished because of Brood‘s death.
He took photos of: David Bowie, Miles Davis, Björk, Captain Beefheart, Robert de Niro, Stephen Hawking, Elvis Costello, Clint Eastwood and Herbert Grönemeyer.
He also designed album covers for U2(e.g.The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby, but also for the single The Saints Are Coming together with Green Day.
Corbijn decided to move into directing music videos, and helped by his background in photography he made some brilliant music videos.Corbijn's videos are exxtremely cinematic corbijn felt it was extremely important to ensure the cinematography is his videos was his main focus his thoughts came from being a photographer before hand as cinematography is very closely related to the art of still photography. Palais Schaumburg asked him to direct a video, and Corbjin decided to accept the offer and after seeing the video other bands and artists wanted him to direct there music videos. Propaganda asked him to direct Dr. Mabuse. After that,he went on to direct pop promos for other artists such as: David Sylvian, Simple Minds, Echo & the Bunnymen and Golden Earring asked him to direct there music videos, in 1986 Corbijn directed his first music video for the Depeche Mode (A Question Of Time)and after the success of this video it started a good business partnership with the band and he went on to direct seventeen videos for them including “Barrel Of A Gun” and “Enjoy The Silence" .
“The Enjoy The Silence” (aired march 1990)video was one of his best music videos it included Depeche modes lead singer walking in a kings gown with a crown and blue deck chair , the mise-on-scene of this video is what made it particularly brilliant as he walked through magnificent back drops of breath taking countryside and just sat down on his deckchair at different locations and started singing, this video was simple but brilliant and launched Corbjins career .
In 1994, after directing various music videos, Corbijn directed a short film for the BBC based on CaptainBeefheart for the BBC named “Some Yoyo Stuff“ this recieved good reviews and was highly recommended for fans of Dada-blues as this quote shows: "If you're a fan of dada-blues icon captain beefheart some yoyo stufff will justify that price".-Darryl sturdan - winnipeg Sun
This quote from Anton Corbijn shows how he wanted to make his videos like ,very cinematic and real or "alive":
"There's a lot about records that you cannot feel from a CD. I know that's an era that's gone, but for a lot of people my age, it was a very important thing. How a record slips out. The crackle when it plays. It's lovely, very alive. CDs are not alive. I know everything's about comfort these days - that's why there's digital instead of analog. Analog is more beautiful than digital, really, but we go for comfort."
Corbijn’s work was so well recognised that in 2005, Palm Pictures released a DVD collection of Corbijn's music video’s as part of the Director's Label series. Corbijn’s work In the Music business got him recognised in the Film business and on 17 May 2007, Corbijn's first feature film Control about the life of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis premiered to rave reviews at the Cannes Film Festival it was nominated for several Baftas and he won "best director" at the British independent film awards for the film.Corbijn also went on to direct some U2 videos and directed the brilliantly cinematic experience music video Electrical storm by U2 which I analysed above. In 2008, Corbijn also directed the Coldplay music videos like , "Viva la Vida", and “Talk”.
This table of Corbijn's Music video's was from the website-http://www.mvdbase.com/tech.php?last=Corbijn&first=Anton
Quotes about Corbijn's work:
Amazon comments:
"This is a great representation of Anton Corbijn's work. The director's series has long been on my list of dvds to get round to buying and i'm glad I started with this. There is a wide selection of music videos here, though perhaps rather too many Depeche Mode promos for my liking [ not a fan!]. The commentaries are very interesting"
"But his best work is available elsewhere: Namely on U2 and Depeche Mode singles collections."
"How could this DVD not include the wonderfully inventive and moving Please by U2, and the rich and stylish In Your Room by dM??"
YouTube comments:
"One U2 's best songs/video EVER... "
"Man, i love it <3> "
"I'm blown away by it all. Totally."
These comments show how respected Anton Corbijn is as a director ,the comments also show how people appreciate his work as "Rich and Stylish" this these comments are true to his work as corbijn works hard to make his videos cinematic and stylish to look at.The same comment also explains how he is "Inventive"every successful music video director has to have good innovation and the fact that his work is described as inventive shows this.
Some of Corbijn's work:
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