What is more annoying, the staccato of the images of this video or reading anything said by James Hetfield? In the end, I do actually like the video. The narrative with the boy is okay, the Sandman, played by R. G. Armstrong, made me think of Malcolm McDowell and the parts with the band members playing & singing almost gets a rembrandtian quality because of the light and the colours, the thrown around hair and the disintegrating faces.
I am not very familiar with the sandman as a cultural figure. I haven’t read E. T. A. Hoffmann‘s story (yet), I haven’t read Neil Gaiman‘s graphic novel (yet?) and I didn’t grow up watching former East Germany’s Little Sandman. I think it’s interesting, that despite being a quite interesting figure with lots of potentially interesting imagery to get creative with, he hasn’t been depicted very often.
One contemporary artist I found, whose paintings seem to be induced by an eerie but not necessarily hostile sandman, is Nadja Jovanovic.
And of course there’s Mr. Sandman, a song performed, amongst others by The Chordettes and The Four Aces. The first one was featured on the soundtrack of Rick Rosenthal’s Halloween II {1981} and the second one in Robert Zemecki’s Back To The Future {1985}. But of course, my favorite Sandman will forever be that candy-colored clown invocated in David Lynch‘s Blue Velvet {1986}.
KINOXIKON 