Where was the ’Weapon of Choice’ music video filmed?
From the moment that The Buggles’ ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ appeared on MTV – the first music video to air on this brand new channel – the concept of artists creating promotional videos became a new sensation.
Music videos, of course, existed before MTV, but now, musicians were given the chance to make a visual accompaniment for their songs that could be frequently broadcast on TV. The whole idea of the music video changed.
Suddenly, music videos started to get more creative, and of course, with the desire to attract publicity came some pretty controversial ones. Who can forget Michael Jackson facing backlash for the ‘Thriller’ video? He was almost excommunicated by Jehovah’s Witnesses for using supposedly demonic imagery, but the John Landis-directed video remains a classic of the 1980s.
Music videos reached their peak in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and it wasn’t out of the ordinary for them to essentially become short films, with acclaimed directors like Martin Scorsese and David Lynch taking on the challenge of making music videos for various popular artists.
Every few years, there’d come a video just so unforgettable that, from the first watch, anyone with an ounce of sense could tell you that it would become iconic – coveted by fans, broadcast on a loop, and probably parodied, too. In 2001, this was Fatboy Slim’s ‘Weapon of Choice’, which saw legendary actor Christopher Walken dance through a hotel and even fly across the lobby.
The actor was trained as a dancer when he was younger, and he choreographed most of the routine himself, although it was Spike Jonze who directed the video. Explaining how Walken got roped into dancing in the video, Fatboy Slim told Higher Frequency, “He said to Spike, ‘I would love to get my dancing on film while I’m still young enough to do it.’ So Spike went outside and phoned me and said, ‘Mr Walken tap-dancing in the video, and I was like ‘Yes.’”
The DJ added, “I think it’s full of irony, and to see an actor that I really admire but who’s famous for playing psychopaths, to see him do that silly un-psychopathic dancing made me smile and made everyone else smile.”
So, Walken brought out his best moves for the video, and it’s simply captivating to watch him get up out of the chair and start dancing, only to return to it like he hasn’t just put on a great show in a hotel lobby. But which hotel was the video filmed in?
If you want to visit the very spot where Walken performed his indelible routine, then you’re out of luck, because the LA Grand Hotel Downtown, located in Los Angeles (although it was actually a Marriott Hotel when the video was filmed), is now closed to the public, and while it’s a shame that fans can’t go to the exact site of the video, that’s the thing with Los Angeles: it’s constantly changing.
So, you might not be able to go to the very location where Walken and Jonze made music video history, but at least it gave us a rare opportunity to watch the actor dance, and you can certainly tell that he’s having fun.
