“Valley View” is the latest video from Mad Dukez & Fresh Kils and directed Dominic Luongo. The video was actually removed from YouTube over its violent imagery. Here’s what the director had to say:
“Recently, producer Harvey Weinstein has vowed not to back excessively violent movies, a statement timed almost perfectly with Valley View being flagged for violent content.
Movies like Pulp Fiction, which was criticized at the time for its violent imagery, had mostly implied violence that happened off screen or out of frame (see: The Gold Watch). The real culprit here is Persistence of Vision. Rob Legato has a great TED Talk about The Art of Creating Awe, which touches upon what we see and what we remember. He states that, “…when we’re sort of infused with either enthusiasm or awe or fondness or whatever, it changes and alters our perception of things.
I’m not going to back down from what we were trying to do with the video, we wanted it to be violent – the song is about the “Valley of Ashes,” which is supposed to represent the social and moral decay of the American landscape. Therefore, I will admit, there was specific real-life imagery that we were trying to invoke with the hoodies, and the ski masks, and the men being on their knees, and them dropping dead (not to mention all the blood).
Despite Valley View being pulled from YouTube, we have uploaded it to Vimeo, so you can check for yourself to see exactly how violent the video truly was.
And by the way, despite the climate of our society being a bunch of softies, I’m really looking forward to the hyper-violent sequel to The Raid”