Andy, dis-moi oui is a music video in which the in-camera editing, the choreography, and the post-synchronised music contribute to bringing the rhythm consistently to the fore in this song by Les Rita Mitsouko. The video starts in a narrative mode and continues with work on the image of rock choreographies, some of which are reminiscent of American musicals from the 1930s, and a dancing parade. During the shoot produced with the rock band, the initial script was set aside, in favour of stagings and synergy “in the moment”.

Philippe Gautier evokes this production: “Les Rita Mitsouko are a band who participate in developing the images. Andy is the story of a girl who must be about thirteen or fourteen years old and who is in love with an adult, so she doesn't dare to speak to him, but eventually goes to see him. [...] She features in the clip. At the start, she wears big shoes, like Minnie Mouse. [...] The bucket of water and the cream pie in the face that she receives represent teenage fear of love stories. [...] After that, we broke away from the young woman's story and went off in lots of directions. At one point, there are people with a black circle and square on their faces, in reference to Czech animation. There was an African dancer doing some 'magna-magna', and others doing a combat dance.”1

The title and the chorus refer to the character from the cartoon Andy Capp, whose wife annoyed him all the time by repeating: “say yes”.The setting of this show is a white studio in which a structure, a kind of zigzagging wall, is placed in the background. It is transfigured by the framing and animated by plays of light (projections of pastel colours or thin geometric shapes).The costumes, musical instruments (particularly brass) and confetti add lively colour to the set and overall look.

Three movements and two sequential profiles can define this music video. The first and last sequences use heavy editing, short shots with little depth of field, alternating between frontal views, high- and low-angle shots, camera movements that follow the choreography, or, in the last sequences of the clip, high-angle shots with successive zoom ins and outs. In the middle, the musical film is constructed using wide shots and close ups that are centred and longer. In these scenes, the costumes and make-up occasionally have a black dominant, and the lighting is no longer used to enhance the show but to give it a dramatic touch. The slight mise en abyme in the images is followed by a return to heavy editing, reinforcing the scansion of the rhythm.The in-camera editing, in time with the post-synchronised music, increases the impact of the heavy editing on the television viewer, leading their gaze into a continuous movement.

Philippe Gautier made two music videos with Les Rita Mitsouko. Marcia Baila preceded Andy, dis-moi oui and was somewhat different, owing to its illustration of the lyrics of the song and the representation of rock energy, the cultural world and aesthetic related to the 1980s and associated with Catherine Ringer and Fred Chichin.

Thérèse Beyler

1 Interview with Philippe Gautier by Thérèse Beyler, unpublished, July 2000