David Fincher Start to Finish: “Shame” and “Shock”

Lead singer and creative force Martha Davis said that The Motels’ most famous song, the melancholy “Only the Lonely” almost wrote itself. Its noir-tinged video, directed by Highlander’s Russell Mulcahy, features Davis in retro glam:

(Note that this video, years before YouTube, has its own ready-to-use preview image. Truly ahead of its time.)

Davis had the sultry voice of a 40s crooner and the face to pull off fashions from the mid-century through the 80s; in other words, she was born for the early days of MTV. She’s front and center in the video for “Only the Lonely” and the Motels’ other major success, “Suddenly Last Summer.” By the time they released “Shame” in 1985, the 35-year-old Davis had survived both an abusive marriage and breast cancer, outlived both her parents, and had given birth to two children and adopted a third from her older sister. Navigating these serious personal and professional challenges seems to have left Davis with a strong sense of what she wanted out of her music and her life. 

She originally wanted Michael Mann to direct the video for “Shame,” the kickoff single of The Motels’ fifth album, Shock. She couldn’t get Mann, but her agent suggested David Fincher. She liked The Beat of the Live Drum, and she liked Fincher when they met.

“Good directors can’t talk in any way except pictures, and he couldn’t talk except in images. He came in with all these ideas, and it was all beautiful and I said we’ll do it.”

According to Davis, “Shame” was the product of Fincher’s ‘fixation with billboards,’ contrasting a seedy reality in a cheap hotel room with the slick commercial fantasy of an advertising billboard.

When we first see Davis, it’s behind blinds, a barrier between her and the life she might otherwise have.

Davis took inspiration for “Shame” from the soap operas she’d been watching, and Fincher picked up where the lyrics left off, showing a woman living in the wreckage of her own life and yearning to break free. Davis sure as hell can sell a song, and the high glam outfits her billboard counterpart shows off are a dramatic contrast to the rumpled bathrobe the “real” Davis wears. At the end of the video, she steps away from infidelity and into what she laughingly called “billboard land.” It’s a bit jarring to see a giant advertisement as a method of liberation…but hey, she’s liberated, at least.

The effects in “Shame” are unremarkable now, but this was 1985, and The Motels’ label, Columbia, didn’t like spending money on music videos. Executive Jeanne Mattiussi remembered the budgets running around $75,000. (They saved money in other ways: Davis’ eldest daughter Maria was in charge of wardrobe. She also dated Fincher briefly.) You could probably shoot and edit this video on an iPhone now, but I’m not sure many current directors would be able to keep the budget that low.

“Shock,” the second single, features Davis confronting an empty house that might be haunted; it’s hard to tell if Davis is haunted by something supernatural or her own conscience, and in this case the lyrics aren’t much help. We watch Davis physically and emotionally deteriorating as the video continues (the makeup work here is particularly good, even as Davis is pushed to the limit of her acting abilities). The set has plenty of space for creepy shadows and unsettling angles, even before she confronts what seems to be a doppelganger. The moment at 1:38 or so when Davis appears, hand curling around the corner before she fully emerges, is delightfully tense.

“Shock” doesn’t have the hopeful ending of “Shame,” it’s darker and crueler. 

Both of these videos contain a lot of motifs we’ll see as Fincher’s directorial career continues: loving attention to the play of light and shadow, doubles and shadow selves, and a level of professionalism and control that was rare for the early era of music videos. “I never saw anybody rehearse camera moves as much as he did,” Mick Kleber, who ran the video department at Capitol Records, says in I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution. The level of control and preparation he exhibited even this early in his career would continue to pay off.

“Shame” and “Shock” weren’t huge hits for The Motels: “Shame” was the bigger single, topping out at #21 on the Hot 100. Davis would end up firing her band and embarking on a solo career the following year. She showed up briefly in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and worked on some movie soundtracks before reforming The Motels at the end of the twentieth century. She’s worked off and on with The Motels and as a solo performer ever since; her last album, The Last Few Beautiful Days, grapples with her daughter Maria’s addiction and death.

Davis’ outfits alone make these videos clearly of their era, but they’re lovely, haunting time capsules. These videos and next month’s “Charm the Snake” continue Fincher’s work with artists who have already had their biggest hits; but don’t worry, that’ll change soon.