editor's note: this script is for the old version of motion picture soundtrack.
not the version on kid a.
if you haven't heard it, do make a note to track it down, as it is drastically different.

Motion Picture Soundtrack video proposal by Bryce Dumont

Now, Thom said that the title was just a way for MTV to play it, but I think it also has a very "Closing Credits" song feel to it, plus there are a lot of images that relate to movies. Well, in my opinion, the song deals with people passing on and how it's not quite the way we were told it was supposed to be. Well, at least I know that I have been told that death is a natural thing and it's not supposed to be necessarily a sad thing, but we all know that we can get very depressed after someone close to us dies, and that can cause other feelings. This is why I think that Thom has put into the song some images of death (White wine and sleeping pills), and not exactly happy things, but managed to still keep some hope in there (I will see you in the next life!) I feel that it sums up the fact that life can be a happy and sad thing all at once.

Now, moving on, here is my film concept.

Yesterday David and I were listening to the song. I said that I could imagine beginning the film with some one (a band member or not, it doesn't really matter) walking through the hallways of a hotel and then walking into an room, and closing the door. Then the music would start. David said that he felt he could imagine Thom walking out after a show and being bombarded by fans. even though he may not always want to put up with them, he knows he is going to have to (tonight and the next and the next). Now, my idea is to merge the two ideas and have a film something like this:

The band walks out of the concert hall, into the streets, where they are bombarded by fans as they try to make their way to the hotel. As soon as Thom is safe inside a door with a room number on it, the door closes and the music starts. The video will visit the various different personages in the hotel and would go something like this:

Entering room 254, the camera pans across the bedside table, showing various bottles and shot glasses/tumblers, then it will pan to the bed where there is a man in a woman's arms. The man is either passed out and sick or in a coma from the mix of pills and alcohol and the woman is weeping, shaking the man, and saying something towards the ceiling as if asking "why?" to a higher being (of course, we shouldn't be able to read her lips, because there are no subtitles and this would give us another fun question on the mailing list). This all happens during the line:

"White wine and sleeping pills/Help me get back to your arms"

Next, we enter room 163, where we find a man and a women in bed, neither one looking particularly satisfied, watching some old black and white movie on the television before them. This is during the line:

"Cheep sex and sad films/Help me get back where I belong"

Next, we go back to the room that the band had entered. The band is lurking around, doing various things (Colin and Jonny watching the Television, Phil's on the telephone reading everyone's favorite hotel room literature (a condensed bible and a phone book), Ed is at the refrigerator, looking for food, and Thom is looking out the window as he sings:)

"I think you're crazy/Maybe/I think you're crazy/Maybe"

Thom looks up out of the window and we follow his glance towards room 783. This is a corner penthouse suite just a bit above them. There is no really lighting in the room except that coming from the fire place next to a table, where sits an aging man looking through folded papers that came out of a yellowing envelope. When he is done reading, he places the letter back into it's envelope (not the correct way, but at a 90 degree angle) and tosses it into the fire, where the lyrics say:

"Stop sending letters/Letters always get burned"

Next, we pan back down the hotel wall where we come to a window on the same floor that the band's room is in. Here we find a man and a woman arguing, with up-raised arms and powerful movements. Then the man violently opens the door and walks out, at which point the woman sits down against the just recently closed door, weeping and approaching a fetal position, when the words go:

"It's not like the movies/They fed us some little white lies"

Now we pan back to the same window that Thom was looking out of, but now Thom is sitting on the window ledge, outside of the room (so that his back remains in the window frame, but his feet are planted on the ledge) as he sings:

"I think you're crazy/Maybe/I think your crazy/Maybe."

Then he looks up, as he did before (but not towards the suite, more towards the sky, similar to the way the woman holding the man's body was looking up), he stands up, walks a little along the ledge and he sings:

"I will see you in the next life."

Then he looking into the window of the apartment next-door and opens the window. Inside the room, it is filled with light, as if it would be a cheery setting, but it appears that no one is in the room, until Thom comes upon a frightened and beaten little girl, cowering in the corner as he sings:

"Beautiful angel/Pulled apart at birth/Limbless and helpless/I can't even recognize you"

Then, speaking more towards the ceiling again, but with more passion:

"I think you're crazy/Maybe/I think you're crazy/Maybe/I think you're crazy/Maybe/I think you're crazy/Maybe"

Then he walks back to the window that he had entered from, singing:

"I will see you in the next life"

and then walks out, back onto the ledge he was on, and the scene fades out.

David suggested that Thom jump off the ledge at the end of the film. At first I thought I thought that was a little bit too drastic, but now that I think of it, it would follow the lines of Radiohead's humor is Thom did jump off the ledge, but the ledge was only 5 inches off the ground, or something along those lines. Anyway, it's just an idea, but it's such a visual song, I can really see this worked out.