This is the link to the music video, “The Scientist” by Coldplay”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB-RcX5DS5A 

This music video has always caught my attention as it has been the only one that I know of that has told an impactful narrative backwards. From the very beginning, even the usual music video shot you would expect to see in the first second is different. The video begins by panning out (rather than into) Chris Martin’s, the lead singer, face and him getting out of a mattress on the street. Everything is told backwards so it can actually be said that the video begins with the main singer laying onto the mattress and sleeping. Immediately with this first shot the viewers can tell that something is wrong in this story. We ask the questions: Why is he laying on a mattress? How long has he been there? Why is it all backwards? The music video then chronologically follows all the events that led to this moment, but in reverse. A scene in which a basketball game is shown being “undone” follows. Eventually Martin walks back to a forest where leaves are seen floating up, further representing a passing in time backwards. As the video turns into darkness a new day (the day before in real time) appears. Martin walks into a car and you can see how parts of the vehicle are slowly rebuilt, such as the tires, windshield, and other flying parts. This is particularly one of my favorite shots throughout the whole video as I view it as the scene in which all of the music video comes together. We can see a woman fly back into the car meaning that there was a car crash and Martin survived but not her. This made sense of the lyrics “Come up to meet you, tell you I’m sorry” as Martin walked back to the moment, so he could see this woman alive again. One last point I would like to make is that as the music video plays backwards, Martin continues to sing in real time so his words aren’t reversed. This adds further meaning to how the narrative ties in with the actual song relative to time.