Cults is the Manhattan duo of Brian Oblivion and Madeline Follin. Their latest video, for their gorgeous track ‘Go Outside’ involves one of the most notorious -and ultimately tragic – cults ever: Jonestown.
Needless to say, there are those who have reacted negatively to the video. But the director Isaiah Seret has said: ‘For this music video we didn’t want to put a spin on the footage or the peoples lives—instead we wanted to re-tell and humanize their story. In order to achieve this we used a combination of stock footage, visual effects and other tricks to embed the band into the historical footage. This was achieved through my collaboration with my visual effects supervisor Bill Gillman and my cinematographer Matthew Lloyd. Lastly, I am moved to say when we completed the video we were able to preview it for some of the survivors of the Jonestown Massacre, who expressed their appreciation of our focus on the lives of the People’s Temple members as opposed to exploiting the graphic images of the final tragedy.’
Let the video and music speak for itself. And remember: those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.
Go Outside, by Cults from Boing Boing on Vimeo.
