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Watching The Music
By Lisa Hood-Anklewicz

Video: “Lazy Line Painter Jane
Artist: Belle & Sebastian, with guest vocalist Monica Queen
Album: Lazy Line Painter Jane (EP)
Director: Karn David
Released: 1997

Available on Fans Only from Jeepster Records

Most people know Belle & Sebastian for the success they experienced with their third full-length album, The Boy With The Arab Strap.  As an independent eight-piece Scottish band formed one night in a cafe in Glasgow and whose first album came about as a government funded school project, they have managed to maintain the image and expression of the casualness of their roots through the video format.  The viewers get a sense of what it’s like to be a part of the band—the camaraderie and the casual fun of it all. In fact, their videos tend to express more of a visual comprehension of the band themselves than the actual song.

Belle & Sebastian’s first music video, “Dylan In The Movies,” much like their first album, was completed as a university project by band member Isobel Campbell in 1996.  As one could expect from a university film project, the quality was shaky at times and the production value was much more casual then a typical MTV-aired music video.  Over the course of their career, Belle & Sebastian’s videos have remained close to this style - hand held, grainy 8mm film, with a casual home movie feeling.

Overall, Belle & Sebastian have a very relaxed, laid back, let’s-wait-and-see-what-happens attitude.  This comes across very clearly in their videos.  It’s as though there was never a real plan or a storyboard to follow; just a bunch of random ideas only executed because they had the items on hand to do so.  “Lazy Line Painter Jane” was a song released as part of an EP just prior to the release of Boy with the Arab Strap.  Of all the videos that Belle & Sebastian have created, “Lazy Line Painter Jane,” directed by Karn David (wife of bassist Stuart David), is the first video which interweaves the visual theme of a song with visuals from the band.

In the liner notes of the EP, singer-songwriter and guitarist Stuart Murdoch included a story about Painter Jane to go along with the song, painting a more in-depth look at the character and the music for the listener.  In the video Karn David uses these impressions as the blueprint; to envision Painter Jane and bring her to life.  As the viewer meets Painter Jane, so do the members of the band.

 

These interactions between Jane and the band members are playful for Jane, but the band nearly becomes the victims of her joyfulness.   As the video begins, the song starts softly almost in the background.  Immediately, the viewer is introduced to Jane and as the lyrics of the song begin, bringing the music more into the foreground of the video, the viewer witnesses Jane’s first interaction with the band, specifically guitarist Stevie Jackson.  Jane watches Stevie working, painting lane marking lines on the road by hand.  As Stevie takes his lunch break, Jane sneaks up to where he was working, and tears the yellow line off of the pavement before running away from the scene, trailing the line behind her.

As Jane continues on, she encounters more of the band members and “victimizes” them in some way involving various sorts of lines.  Second on her list is keyboard player Chris Geddes, who loses the stripe off his t-shirt to Jane, but quickly pursues her in a chase down the street.  When Jane encounters Stuart Murdoch, instead of taking a line from him, she creates one; on him, no less.  Before Stuart is introduced, Jane is seen spray-painting a blue line across a wall as she walks.  She approaches an archway in the wall, at which time Stuart is seen emerging, only to stop so as not to run into Jane.  However, Jane does not stop spray-painting.  She casually continues her line as though there were no gap, or no person there.  Stuart reacts stunned at first, allowing Jane time to complete her line; then he also starts chasing her.

More of the same interactions continue to unfold, with the song gradually increasing in volume and substance, as more layers of sound are introduced.  This change in the music shows in the video with the increased number of edit cuts in each “act” that is played out, visually speeding up the action.  As well, shots of the band’s recording session of the song begin to appear between acts and increasingly more often.  At the same time, the song is musically layering itself with the addition of more instrumental sounds and volume, as the song crashes into its crescendo. 

The visuals of Jane and the band also begin to reach their conclusion at this point.  All of Jane’s victims have met up and are now chasing her as a group.  Jane still remains gleeful in her attempt to out-run them, which she eventually does by hiding around a corner.  However, as the band is shown together chasing Jane down the laneway, the viewer is given that glimpse of the band as just the band—having fun, like they are making a home movie, instead of the characters of Jane’s victims that they played earlier.  Stevie is eating a sandwich as he runs by, Isobel Campbell is laughing in delight, and trailing behind, Stuart Murdoch and Chris have tied themselves together for a two legged race.  None are purposefully avoiding looking into the camera, and the laughing faces give the impression that this shot was not meant for the video, but was either a rehearsal gone awry or perhaps a joke played on Karn.  Either way, not intended, but a happy accident.

For these moments that the band is shown together as a group, the viewer sees that laid-back and relaxed attitude that is not only typical of the band, but of the home movie feeling and presentation that their videos carry up until the release of “Legal Man,” after the success of The Boy With the Arab Strap.

As it began, Karn’s visuals end with Jane, only now she is alone assembling a scrapbook of her “crimes.”  Tokens of lines she has stolen, representations of lines she has painted and Polaroid photos of all, pasted together in a memory book.  With the last notes of the song, the book is closed, revealing its title: Lazy Line Painter Jane.

 

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