With R.E.M. calling it quits after releasing their final album on Nov. 15, Michael Stipe and co-director Dominic DeJoseph have created two new videos for "We All Go Back to Where We Belong," -- one of the three new tracks on R.E.M.'s upcoming final album -- a best of retrospective titled Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage, 1982 – 2011. Kirsten Dunst and John Giorno are the solo subjects of the moody, black and white films and SheKnows has both videos here.
"To be able to work with John and Kirsten was a dream I carried since we recorded the song, and their participation completes the song for me," raved Stipe, who employed a strong key light and a stationary camera to catch subjects Dunst and Giornio in stark relief, creating an effect he felt lent "gravity and beauty" to the proceedings.
Neither subject does anything more than sit in front of the camera, but as anyone who's tried to do that knows -- that's hard to do without becoming self-conscious.
Dunst, who recently made news for gaining German citizenship and also showed up in the Beastie Boys Fight for Your Right Revisited 30-minute movie, at times seems to be listening intently to the lyrics or instructions, or perhaps she's considering something somber, but she also gives into sweet, awkward smiles, fiddles with her hair and even covers her face with her blonde mane. At the end, Dunst peeks out of her hair, looking rather serious, gives a look right to the camera and then offers one final smile.
Giornio, an iconic and legendary Dial-A-Poem artist/poet/activist -- who has collaborated with the likes of William S. Burroughs, Patti Smith, Laurie Anderson, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol and Glenn Branca -- also shares a smile or two, but in both videos, the subjects seem relieved to hear it's over:
When someone off camera tells them something -- presumably that it's over -- they respond with a few silenced words of thanks and flash relieved smiles.