King of Leon are an internationally recognised multi-award winning Rock band from Mt. Juliet Tennessee. Formed in 1999 by the followill brothers and their cousin Cameron (whose second name is followill) they stayed relatively off the radar until their break through album “only by the night” became one of the biggest selling albums of the decade, along with numerous hit singles from the album “use somebody” and “sex on fire”. Their latest album “come around sundown” was released in late 2010 again to massive critical acclaim. The music video I am now about to analyse is from this album and is for the song called “Pyro”.
The video starts with a man walking into a tacky looking bar, the light is dim and there is a foreboding atmosphere that surrounds it. Immediately the mis en scene catches the viewer’s eye, as there is a close up of the typically American bar neon sign above the door, which adds to the tacky décor. Before entering the bar he helps a drunken man from the floor, the man is not well dressed and it is relatively safe to assume he is from a poor background.
This act by the main character shows he is at least a compassionate man, who is willing to help others; the music in the background is coming towards the end of the introduction and is still relatively quiet and calm in nature.
As the main character walks through the door the beat of the music and the volume of the music become more prevalent, when he walks through the camera pans for quite a while round the room without any cuts, we see most people in the bar are from similar backgrounds to the drunken man outside, they are all dressed in relatively similar dingy clothes, and the men look fairly tough and some old looking alcoholic types, there is also a stripper or erotic dancer in the corner adding a lecherous nature to the atmosphere. This panning shot basically helps the viewer form the opinion that you wouldn’t go into this bar if you didn’t have to.
The establishing panning shot cuts finally when the main character, goes to help a woman who is being abused by another man across the bar, he goes presumably to help her, but as soon as he intervenes is punched across the face by the man involved. The panning shot only stops when the punch is thrown, and cuts to the reverse angle showing the main character falling backwards towards the left of the camera after being punched, the slow motion continues throughout the chorus and the main character is punched again this time to the floor.
Throughout the second verse slow motion is also used, but faster cuts are used between medium shots and close ups of weird things that are happening round the bar, such as the old man with oxygen pipe up his nose, drinking whiskey with what looks like a daughter figure, then afterwards to another older fat man across the bar trying to get with a seemingly shy younger looking girl.
Whilst all this weird/ bad stuff is happening, the only man in the bar with a clear sense of morals is being beaten up by several men. The camera cuts to them throwing him into the mirror and kicking him whilst on the floor. Also the camera cuts away from this to see a woman crying, whom I assume is the woman who was with the abusive man in the first place,
And then again to the carefree stripper who seems oblivious to all the fighting going on in front of her.
The camera cuts back to the fight as the barmen chucks one of the men a baseball bat to further injure the main character. As he runs over one the main character starts levitating off the floor and is almost a Jesus figure in the scene amongst all the “sinners” in the bar. To conclude the music in the video is contrapuntal as the happy, calm riffs of the song and the jubilant chorus do not coincide with the unhappy and aggressive atmosphere and action that takes place in the bar. The slow motion is used to add a gracefulness to the fight which ultimately compliments the video overall.
