videos

let down
director: Michael O'Connell

First we see a shot of Radiohead in an airplane. They land, and as they exit the plane they see a huge crowd of people screaming and cheering. They walk past, no one even noticing that they have left the plane. As they continue to walk through the terminal, they fall, face-first, onto the carpet. Thom is the last to fall, and the crowd, seeing that the "superstar" they came to greet is at a different gate, tramples the band in their efforts to reach him. The camera goes through the ground, and looks at Thom's face as it is smashed in the carpet, but through the carpet. As the camera pans away from Thoms face, we see the band at a bar, drinking, and looking comparatively sad with the rest of the audience there is a rumble, and each of the band grabs their drinks in unison, and the floor behind them collapses, taking all of the people with them. It is now as though their drinks are the only thing keeping them from falling. Each one of them holds steadfast, looking calm, until they one by one take a drink and fall from the bar into the pit of darkness that evolved behind them. All the while they are calm, aware of the fait that awaits them as they fall away from the bar. The camera follows Thoms face as he falls, then fading into a scene of Thom at the bank. In this scene it is clear he means to take out a sum of money, but the teller informs him of his inability to do so. He becomes enraged, grabbing the monitor she reads from and smashing it on the ground as people come up to him and attempt to stop his outrage. He is yelling and screaming and throwing a fit, and everyone just leaves him there and walks away, the screen blacks out as we follow Thoms view as he falls to the ground, collapsing from his struggle. At this point we see just a gas mask in front of Thom, who comes to from his nightmarish episode to realize he is on the plane. As everyone around him is in a mad panic, he and the other band members casually walk up to the door and push it open, falling one by one from the plane, the others on the plane still screaming and panicking. The final shot is the view from Thoms eyes as he watches his bandmates crash into the ground and die, until he himself does. The image of him dying is similar to that of a TV going off.

I didn't include the lyrics for each scene, but it is fairly clear which lyrics apply to which scenes.