Intertextual Reference - Edgar Allan Poe

                     


   This scene of my music video was inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe, especially 'The Tell-Tale Heart', one of Poe's short stories  first published in 1843 told by an unnamed narrator who endeavours to convince the reader of his sanity, while describing a murder he committed. The murder is carefully calculated, and the murderer disposes of the body by dismembering it and hiding it under the floorboards. Ultimately the narrator's guilt manifests itself in the form of the sounds - possibly hallucinatory—of the old man's heart still beating under the floorboards. I tried to make this evident in  my production by having the images of what Luna - the girl in my narrative - sees in her head, represented as a large, haunting house and it's cellar, this location possibly invoking a sense of unease with the audience due to the many cases publicized about child deprivation, such as the famous case of Genie, who was the victim of extraordinarily severe abuse, neglect and social isolation. To strengthen this intertextual reference to Poe -although it is not particularly easy to see due to the use of non-ambient lighting in this sequence- the piece of paper has the quote from Poe: “I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity" being written on it, once again linking the ideas of insanity seen in Poe's work and the issue of Dissociative Identity Disorder that I decided to explore in my music video. 


      The work of Edgar Allan Poe has been a massive influence on many artists in alternative genres of music such as rock and metal music, with artists such as The Cure, HIM, Thirty Seconds To Mars and Alesana. The Emptiness is the first concept album, and overall third full-length album by the American metalcore band Alesana. It was recorded in the fall of 2009 and was released on January 26, 2010 through Fearless Records. The album is considered that of a rock opera because of its in-depth story, heavily influenced by the works of Edgar Allan Poe - even including a song titled 'Annabel' in reference to Poe's famous 'Annabel Lee'. As seen in the band's video for the track 'The Thespian' from this album, There are clear references to Poe's work, his dark and haunting themes a clear influence in this video in particular.