Green Day - Basket Case (Music Video Analysis)

Link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUTGr5t3MoY

The video essentially follows the story of the song's lyrics. The name of the song itself is referenced in the video ("Basket Case" is a colloquial term for someone with a mental illness). The video begins by setting the scene in what appears to be a mental hospital of some sort given the heavy security doors and people dressed in white outfits. One such man enters a room carrying a guitar, a close-up is seen of the guitar being plugged in to an amp and as the shot progresses we see the room set up for a performance (mics, drums, amps etc) the lead singer is already standing there in front of the microphone. He is handed the guitar, and looks around the room and at the ceiling, seemingly bewildered and confused. He's also not wearing white clothes like the staff at the hospital. These things combined tell the audience that he is a patient.

The claim that the band are patients at the hospital is backed up immediately afterwards. As soon as the singer starts playing his guitar and the song starts, a gurney is wheeled in by nurses carrying the band's bassist, who gets off and starts playing, followed by a wheelchair holding the drummer, who is wheeled up to the drums and he too starts playing.

The prevailing theme in this video is surrealism, used to give the audience an experience more from the point of view of the patients inside the asylum in the video. Several things are used to convey this surreal atmosphere. In several shots, extras are seen wearing strange masks. On it's own this adds an element of un-reality, but those who remember the cult film "Brazil" (1985) will realise they're the same mask as the one worn by the "Torturer" character in the film. This adds an extra element of 'weirdness' to these individuals by bringing potentially frightening memories to the surface. The very fact that Green Day used this reference in the "Basket Case" video tells us that they're fans of the film, and therefore the fans watching the video are more likely to be, and therefore are more likely to 'get' the reference and the surreality within it. Short scenes depicting individual band members surrounded by floating (presumably imaginary) multi-coloured fish and eyes adds to the surreal effect. Research also reveals that the video was filmed in black & white and the bright, almost neon colours added afterwards to contribute to this surreal atmosphere.

The video contains numerous references to the novel "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" (1975 film), which was clearly an inspiration to the band. The nurse handing out the pills is similar aesthetically and in character to the villain in the film (also a nurse). The sequence depicting a patient's successful escape attempt by throwing a large object though a window and climbing through is an almost exact re-enactment of the scene from the book/film.