The legendary director Joni Mitchell wanted to work with
As a multi-disciplinary creative, Joni Mitchell has transcended traditional boundaries, much like her contemporary Bob Dylan. Beyond her prowess as a notable singer-songwriter, the Canadian musician has ventured into various artistic mediums, setting a gold standard for those who consider her their most cherished influence.
One thing that makes Mitchell stand out in the pantheon of great artists is that her music has a profoundly visual feel. Fuelled by her incisive poetry – which she firmly claims is not “confessional” – her complex chord shapes, and a dedication to the avant-garde outer limits of music, she’s established a distinctive artistic aesthetic. Like the artist herself, it has continued to metamorphose with the times and keep her suspended in the collective consciousness.
Unsurprisingly, Mitchell is fascinated by the world of film. Given that all of her album covers have stoked vivid mental images for the listener that augment the essence of the music, it makes sense that the ‘River’ songwriter should be so indebted to cinema as aesthetics have always played a crucial part in her work. Furthermore, this facet of her art has been incredibly significant for subsequent artists who are inextricable from the visual, such as Prince, Tool and James Blake.
One auteur she is particularly in awe of is the late Swedish legend Ingmar Bergman. The man who delivered influential classics such as The Seventh Seal, Persona and Fanny and Alexander, from masters such as Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese to Richard Ayoade, like Mitchell, his work has been widely consequential on his environment.
When speaking to Interview Magazine in 2021, Mitchell outlined her love of cinema and moving pictures in all forms. She explained: “I’m completely intrigued by moving pictures. I’ll watch anything. If it moves, I’ll watch it. I get hypnotized by it like fire, image to image. I’m not that crazy about the dominance, the sadism [of MTV]. Sometimes it kind of makes me heartsick—all dazzle, no lift.”
Then, in a somewhat surprising twist, she revealed that she would have loved to have worked with Bergman, a man with whom she saw parallels: “I would really like to do a video with Bergman… I don’t take instruction very well. I’ve had the luxury of making my own decisions, you know? But there are some people whose judgment, I think, would be… I would gamble on their absolute simpatico enough to turn it over.”
Watch the trailer for Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal below.
