C'est Comme Ça is a music video for one of the most well-known songs by French band Les Rita Mitsouko Jean-Baptiste Mondino presents a television viewer, in this case a channel-surfing monkey, in front of a television screening the video of the song. It is in this television, which the monkey is watching, that he stages the band in a mise en abyme of the video in the video, reworking a TV show 'genre': the filmed concert, which Pierre Sorlin [1] discusses.

The monkey is shown in his private interior, a comfortable apartment in warm colours. He bobs about excitedly in a big leather armchair as he watches TV, then gets up to set in motion the tail and head of a plastic nodding dog placed on top of the television, then quickly returns to his seat. The editing then alternates close-ups of the screen and the conert, as well as other, wider shots of the monkey-viewer. On screen, the energy of the rock music is shown with fast editing and short sequences. The singer, Catherine Ringer, is portrayed with accentuated gestures, shot in close-up, in a jerky dance, or with her mouth on the verge of screaming. The guitarist Fred Chichin manipulates his guitar energetically and with broad gestures.

The graphic world of the show is in grey and blue colours that have been reworked by computer.

The simple and striking lines of the clothing and make-up – more dramatic than usual for this band – establish stereotyped images that fall within a more general representation of rock music. Thus the to-and-fro from stage to audience, the atmosphere, and the framing, like a fragmentation of the show, are parodied and highlighted by the graphic design, in a play on the limits between two categories of productions broadcast on television: music videos and filmed concerts.

The emergence of music channels, emblematic of the 1980s, is also represented in this micro-fiction: a channel number corresponds to each of the performers (the singer, the guitarist, and the child who plays a tambourine). This figural coverage of the event on several channels, as well as the frenetic agitation and incessant zapping of the television viewer indicate television addiction in a parodic way.

It is worthy of note that the scenario presents a monkey as a television viewer facing a television screen that airs the music video. The camera is located behind the armchair where he is sitting. Thus, watching C'est Comme Ça equates to positioning oneself on this frontal axis, from the monkey's point of view.

This clip points to the paradox that exists between the representation of the rock dynamic on TV and the static state of individuals in front of their television screen. At the end of the clip, despite the fact that the performance is over, the spectator remains slumped for a long time in his seat while a blond, mute and outmoded continuity announcer appears on the screen.

Thérèse Beyler

[1] “The filmed concert conserves 'the atmosphere of the audience' and the television […] reveals the work that produces sounds. It displays the participation of bodies, the tension of lips, fingers, and faces, the efforts and passion that transform the score into a musical suite.” Pierre Sorlin, Esthétique de l'audiovisuel, Paris, Nathan Université, p. 169.