“The Golden Age is the last single and video for my first album.
Throughout the process of directing videos for this story, I slowly removed all digital and post-production layers of my work to finally create this piece. It is somehow a postcard from my childhood, with memories and emotions from the countryside assembled together in a long, free, mellow piece. It's about the child trapped inside, the haunting memories, the beautiful and the dark ones.
I wanted the camera work and acting direction to be very organic and carnal, in opposition to the digital, rigid and super-composed aspects of the previous videos. That's why we decided to shoot everything handheld, without any mechanical movement and with no post-production. In that way, I would say this video is very different from the other ones.
It all started when I bought an original print by my favorite photographer, William Gedney, friend and contemporary of Lee and Maria Friedlander, who shot families in rural America in the sixties. I decided that this piece would pay tribute to the beauty of his work and the way he shoots boys and men in their environment, to the sensuality of his eye, which describes so well what I felt for other boys when I was younger.
In order to extend the song and create the right mood for this piece, I collaborated with composer Max Richter. He extended and re-recorded his piece ‘Embers’ to adapt it to the pace and tonality of ‘The Golden Age.’ Together, we created this very free ‘hybrid’ edit of the track, which tells so much about the pace of never ending childhood summers.
In a way, this piece is a final goodbye to four years of work and tour for this album.“
This is so beautiful! This interview may help to understand the concept of the video.
Quote:
The name Woodkid is not really me, to tell the truth. It’s more the story of a kid who grows up and actually transforms from the state of wood to the state of marble—petrified. The character becomes more hard and tough. As the kid grows up, he becomes more invincible. "There are two sides of the blade. As he grows up, he also gets more fragile. That’s what the story is about. There’s this moment in the book where the kid says to his mum, “It’s very windy outside, there’s this massive storm,” and these are actually fragments of lyrics you find in The Golden Age. He says, “Look at the trees, they’re bending and almost touching the ground.” Because the wind is so strong, he says to his mother, “Look, they’re going to break.” And the mother says, “No they’re not going to break because they’re super tender.” But if they get old, dry, and more hard, then in the case of heavy wind, they’re going to break. That’s the story of the kid; as he grows up and becomes more hard and more solid, he’s just going to end up breaking.
The kid is sleeping inside the grown up man, like we all have this tender part that needs to stay there and never leave so we can survive the adulthood (I don't even know if that word exists lol). At the end you can see that the child (the man's innocence) is afraid of dying and hold his hand as if he was saying "please don't leave me or you'll break".
This is so beautiful! This interview may help to understand the concept of the video.
The kid is sleeping inside the grown up man, like we all have this tender part that needs to stay there and never leave so we can survive the adulthood (I don't even know if that word exists lol). At the end you can see that the child (the man's innocence) is afraid of dying and hold his hand as if he was saying "please don't leave me or you'll break".
Amazing. After the Iron, Run Boy Run and Woodkid videos this was so interesting to watch because of the reminiscing motives and pictures. Also, it can be interpreted in a lot of ways. I didn't read that interview so I kinda put it in my perspective which is slightly different than his idea behind it. But that's so exciting, when you can fit what you hear and what you see in your state of life.
Amazing. After the Iron, Run Boy Run and Woodkid videos this was so interesting to watch because of the reminiscing motives and pictures. Also, it can be interpreted in a lot of ways. I didn't read that interview so I kinda put it in my perspective which is slightly different than his idea behind it. But that's so exciting, when you can fit what you hear and what you see in your state of life.
