With British auteur Jonathan Glazer’s fourth film The Zone of Interest receiving rave reviews on the festival circuit and set to be distributed by A24 later this year, now seems like a great moment to look at his earlier work in the realm of TV advertising.
Like so many, I grew up on Glazer’s 1990s music videos for Radiohead, Blur, etc. but it was his television commercials for the likes of Guinness and Nike that have stuck with me over the years. Of course, this was a different time in the world of advertising, when marketers didn’t have to cut through the noise of social media in order to reach their target audience. This is perhaps why each of Glazer’s adverts unravels so patiently, delivering a story, but also a message, so effectively.
Here are our Top 12 TV commercials directed by Jonathan Glazer:
12. FLIGHT (APPLE WATCH, 2019)
The built-in cellular capabilities of the Apple Watch Series 4 was a big deal back when it was released in 2019, and this short TV spot perfectly captures that newfound freedom. Glazer called on 29-year-old Finnish-American athlete, skydiver and air dancer, Inka Tiitto, in order to help bring these images to life. The spectacular flying choreographies were designed and executed by Tiitto herself, filmed in a wind tunnel, and the results are nothing short of breathtaking. The soundtrack is also the perfect complement, provided by American experimental band Son Lux. The song Breathe is from their 2016 album Stranger Forms.
11. PROTECTION (VOLKSWAGEN, 1997)
If nothing else, Jonathan Glazer loves a good black and white television advert, with so many of his classic sequences subscribing to the monochrome palette. In 2002, Volkswagen launched its very successful 'small but tough' campaign which would last for years, establishing the automobile brand as a maker of strong, reliable products. This particular ad arrived a few years before that in 1997, so can be seen as a forerunner to that eventual brand identity. This ad also establishes the idea of a car as an extension of the human anatomy, which similar brands have taken and run with ever since.
10. RIDE (WRANGLER, 2004)
Oddly enough, this wasn't the first jeans commercial that Glazer made - stay posted to see his TV spot for Levi's, which was made a couple of years before this one. Scored with sped-up music from The Wizard of Oz soundtrack, Glazer's piece for Wrangler is a Beats-inspired, cross-country trip across Americana, replete with startlingly surreal imagery such as a house on fire, a bouncing car, and stampeding buffalo with glowing eyes. It clearly positions Wrangler as the jeans brand for a younger, wilder generation, reaching out to young people everywhere who have ever felt the echoing beckon of wanderlust.
9. PAINT (SONY BRAVIA, 2006)
Sony's 'colour, like no other' campaign for its Bravia LCD TV line was one of the most successful campaigns of the noughties. It's perhaps most remembered for the bouncing balls advert, where 250,000 coloured balls were let loose on the streets of San Francisco and set to the strumming of José González's Heartbeats. Glazer's approach to the campaign was a lot less poetic but a lot more bombastic: they essentially wired an entire abandoned (presumably) Glasgow housing estate with paint bombs, then sat back and took it all in. The final shot, where multicoloured paint rains down on a children's playground, makes it all worth it.
8. DEVIL’S ISLAND (STELLA ARTOIS, 2003)
A list of this kind wouldn't be complete without at least a passing mention of Glazer's collaborations with Stella Artois, whose "reassuringly expensive" campaign ran from 1982 until 2007. Throughout this time, the campaign would position the Belgian beer as the drink of European sophistication, regularly drawing on French cinema for inspiration and moving through different genres in their adverts. Devil's Island united Glazer with star copywriter Vince Squibb and legendary actor Ron Perlman, and was loosely inspired by the French novel, written by Henri Charrière in 1969 and following two convicts sent to a penal colony.
7. DREAMER (GUINNESS, 2001)
Besides Stella Artois, perhaps Glazer's best collaborative period came with Guinness, which spanned several years and produced some of his best work. Dreamer, also known as Dream Club, was one of the final pieces in the "Good things come to those who wait" campaign, which was launched in 1996 and ran until 2007. Dreamer debuted on April 6th, 2001, complete with computer generated squirrel imagery and existential Ingmar Bergman horse references, but unfortunately didn't find as much success as Glazer's earlier spots had done. Ultimately, it was decided that the "good things" slogan was too difficult to translate outside of the UK.
6. ODYSSEY (LEVI’S, 2002)
As mentioned, this is the second jeans TV commercial to make the list, after the Wrangler one featured above. Odyssey features French actor Nicolas Duvauchelle and actress Antoinette Sugier as they both literally and metaphorically break down barriers, eventually ending up in the treetops before leaping into space. Like the Wrangler ad, this one is clearly targeted at the younger generation, capturing the toughness but also freedom of the brand. The music is an updated version of Handel's Sarabande from the Suite in D Minor.
5. SWIMBLACK (GUINNESS, 1998)
Swimblack was the first piece of the "Good things..." campaign to hit our screens, on May 16th, 1998, to be precise. The campaign was developed in a bid to reverse the negative consumer opinion regarding the length of time to correctly pour a pint of Guinness from the tap, usually quoted as 119.5 seconds, and to encourage bartenders to take their time in doing so. Swimblack was shot in the remote Italian coastal village of Monopoli, close to Bari, and features an aging Olympic icon in his bid to race the perfect pint. The ad was particularly successful in boosting Guinness sales across the UK, especially among the older male demographic.
4. PARKLIFE (NIKE, 1997)
On May 12th, 1997, 220 football players from all walks of life gathered on the 120 pitches of Hackney Marshes, the spiritual home of Sunday league football, to record a Nike ad that would resonate with an entire generation. Up until this point, Nike was the industry leader when it came to ads for running and basketball, but just didn't have the credentials when it came to the world's game. Enter Blur's Britpop standard, Parklife, and a group of Premier League stars that included Eric Cantona and Robbie Fowler (also, oddly, Steve Stone) and all of a sudden Nike was the name on everyone's lips heading into the 1998 World Cup in France.
3. WHIP ROUND (STELLA ARTOIS, 1998)
Another excellent Stella Artois ad, this one was shot in Poland and set to Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No.2. The main character is played by Polish actor Zbigniew Zamachowski, famous for his role in the middle installment of Krzysztof Kieślowski's Three Colours trilogy. As with all of Glazer's work for the Belgian beer brand, this one is a masterpiece of storytelling, glances and expressions, with the imagery and lack of dialogue evoking the silent movie era, which is something that Stella Artois had done very effectively in the past. The ad won Best Crafted Commercial of the Year at the British Television Advertising Awards.
2. SURFER (GUINNESS, 1999)
By far the biggest commercial success and undoubtedly the most iconic part of the aforementioned "Good things..." campaign by Guinness is Surfer, which debuted on March 17th, 1999. The black and white commercial, inspired by Walter Crane's 1892 painting Neptune's Horses, was filmed in Hawaii and focuses on a Polynesian surfer's patient wait for the perfect wave to arrive. Glazer has made a career out of seamlessly weaving CGI with true images, and Surfer is a testament to this. The piece won "Best Ad of All Time" in a poll conducted by The Sunday Times and Channel 4 in 2002, and it's easy to see why.
1. LAST ORDERS (STELLA ARTOIS, 1998)
If I were to associate Jonathan Glazer with just one actor, it would be Denis Lavant. The French performer, renowned for his very physical screen presence and circus background, worked on several projects with Glazer, including the music video for UNKLE's Rabbit in Your Headlights and a racy, ultimately banned commercial for Cadbury's Flake that was filmed in Italy. Before that though, they collaborated on this ad for Stella Artois, which is the perfect example of how such a spot should be crafted. Lavant's face is so expressive, and his deadpan delivery at the end makes for what is our favourite in all of Glazer's advertising oeuvre.
Jonathan Glazer’s fourth film, The Zone of Interest, is set to hit cinemas in the United States on December 8, 2023, and will be distributed by A24.
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