Taylor Swift 'Shake It Off' Video: Director Mark Romanek Influenced By 'The Shining'?

Taylor Swift's music video for "Shake It Off" didn't waste much time shooting to the forefront of music news yesterday.

But MTV points out that its director, Mark Romanek, has an impressive film history that's been notably influenced by the legendary Stanley Kubrick (The Shining, 2001: A Space Odyssey).

From 1985's Static to 2002's One Hour Photo (starring the late Robin Williams) to 2011's Locke and Key, Romanek has crafted a film resume that helps him stand out from other music video directors.

And yes, the list of music videos he's created is very impressive. Here are some notables:

• En Vogue - "Free Your Mind" (1992)
• Lenny Kravitz - "Are You Gonna Go My Way" (1993)
• Nine Inch Nails - "Closer" (1994)
• Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson - "Scream" (1995)
• Weezer - "El Scorcho" (1996)
• Beck - "Devil's Haircut" (1996)
• Macy Gray - "I Try" (1999)
• No Doubt - "Hella Good" (2002)
• Audioslave - "Cochise" (2002)
• Johnny Cash - "Hurt" (2003)
• Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Can't Stop" (2003)
• Jay-Z - "99 Problems" (2004)
• Coldplay - "Speed of Sound" (2005)
• U2 - "Invisible" (2014)

Romanek spoke with his alma mater (Ithaca College) in 2011 about the influence Kubrick has had on his work:

My father is a photography buff, and he bought me a camera when I was nine years old, a Kodak Instamatic. 
I think he saw that I had a knack for photography. He bought me a better camera when I was 12 years old and built me a darkroom, and I learned how to print photographs 
and develop film. My father also took me 
to see [Stanley] Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey when I was nine years old. I saw it again when I was 12, and I was really struck by that film; it really overwhelmed me. One day it occurred to me that maybe if I borrowed my uncle's Super 8 camera I could make a story movie rather than just a home movie. When I was about 15 years old, I knew that I would be a film director.

People think of [Kubrick] 
as having been such a cerebral perfectionist, but everyone who has worked with him will tell you that he was actually very logical in the way he approached the technical side of the craft, and maybe the logistics of production. But when it came to actual creation, he recognized how metaphysical and intangible and intuitive it needed to be. I mean, ultimately, all you're trying to do, whether you're Stanley Kubrick or John Cassavetes or J.J. Abrams, or whoever you are, you're trying to move people and engage them emotionally. If you want to engage them intellectually, you make a polemic, or a documentary, or a dissertation, or some sort of instructional piece. What we look for from art is for it to be engaging emotionally so that it widens our perspective of our sense 
of ourselves as living beings in the world. You have to block out all the noise and opinions and suggestions and arguments and distractions and just get in touch with the simple, intuitive gut feeling about things. And, you know, it's almost always right. Sometimes you can't articulate why you're doing what you're doing, but you know that it's the thing you need to do.

Tags

Taylor Swift, Stanley Kubrick