Textual Analysis - David Bowie: Life on Mars?

The music video for "Life on Mars?" by David Bowie was released on the same day the song itself was released which was during the year 1973. This music video consists of just the artist in a white room alone with no other people there, making him seem lonesome and going with the lyrics of the song as it states, "But her friend is nowhere to be seen" before showing Bowie on his own. This leaves an impact on the audience and shows how no other people are in the room or the people who played the instruments, representing himself as the female he is talking about. This follows a convention of Goodwin's where he said that there's a "relationship between lyrics and visuals".

There are many close ups of the artist's facial expressions throughout the music video as it focuses on the eyes of the artist and shows the difference in the pupil sizes as well as focusing on the face and the shoulders up. This is what is focused on for the most part of the music video as he though showing him in different ways could show different sides to him, especially when his full body is rarely shown on the video.

The cuts between each of the different angles are usually quite smooth but there's some quick paced and sharp cuts especially at the time when the notes of the song turn quite strong in a way near the start after the first verse. It suddenly changes to a shot of his face but mostly his eyes quite quickly as though the tone of the music video has changed completely.

There is a point in the music video where the video matches with the music at the end as the male is seen making actions as though he is playing the piano whilst the music includes snippets of sound where the piano is being played, this follows, once more, the conventions of Goodwin where there is a "relationship between music and visuals" as it is him trying to mimic the playing of a piano and pretending that there is one before him. This is different to what he did throughout the music video as during the music video, he would only stand there, folding his arms or even kicking the air a little, that's all that's seen throughout the music video of him so to see him act in such a manner shows the male in a different way, Almost as though in a different light.

This music video as focuses on the Goodwin convention of "notion of looking" where it's literally him and the camera and he's mostly looking straight at it, as though talking to the audience the lyrics that many find to be "surreal" and gives them quite "vivid imagery". This also creates a relationship between the artist and the viewer of the music video through the use of continuous eye contact.