“No Time, Make, or Reason”: The Affective Forms of Portishead’s “Only You” Music Video

Sigmund Freud famously distinguished normal mourning and pathological melancholy by the affects’ duration persistence. This temporal perspective paves way for reading affect beyond its expressivity considering it a question of form. In article, this radical formalist approach is used to examine depressive manifests itself in structure music video Portishead’s Only You (dir. Chris Cunningham, 1998), particular concerning tempo rhythm. Eugenie Brinkema’s remarks on grief as an affective form marked heaviness inertia serve basis analysing tempo. The exploration rhythm rooted Peter Kivy’s assertion that musical expression mediated understanding properties human voice. makes applying Julia Kristeva’s concept discourse, understood set speech patterns qualities indicative depression/melancholy.