Radiohead’s Daydreaming

Paul Thomas Anderson’s movies are a rich source of inspiration for video essay makers. The music video he directed for Radiohead’s Daydreaming is treated with the same respect in this video.

 

Is this video essay guilty of overinterpretation? Probably. Does it read too much into numerological coincidences? Certainly. Does it get carried away in a Room 237-like excessiveness? Absolutely.

 

But there are enough astute observations here to offset the extravagance. There is enough truth to balance out the conjecture. In fact, some of the undeniable attraction of this piece is precisely its gung-ho dedication to its own search for meaning. It doesn’t pretend to offer a definitive or conclusive reading of this music video: the soft-spoken voice over is convincing because it is unassertive. Finally, the fact that this video essay was crowdsourced (it brings together the opinions of dozens of internet sources and was culled from a variety of fan theories) is a great modus operandi that counters the usual solitariness of the video essay maker.