"Anton Corbijn" the prodigy

By: Nazia Adnin

​"I know everything's about comfort these days - that's why there's digital instead of analog. Analog is more beautiful than digital, really, but we go for comfort."
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- Anton Corbijn

As a big big fan of U2, I was exposed to magnificent works of Anton Corbijn long before I thought of being a film maker. His amazing music videos were an indispensible part of my childhood and during harsh time of teen age. As rebel teen age in mid 2000s I would indulge myself into the music of U2, Nirvana, Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams and the list goes on. And most of those songs were perfectly articulated in the music videos directed by Anton Corbijn. He is a great mind and has great influence in my short career.

Anton shook both the movie and music world through his collaboration with handful of great bands of all time.  He has made music videos for bands like Nirvana, U2, Metallica, Depeche Mode, Joy Divison, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nick Cave and Bad Seed, Cold Play, Arcade Fire etc. He also collaborated with artists like Johnny Cash, Bryan Adams, Naomi Campbell and many more.

​Anton Corbijn is a Dutch photographer, music video director and film maker. He was born on May 20th, 1955 in Strrijen, Netherlands. Corbijn began his career as music photographer in 1975. His photography subjects include iconic figures and bands like Joy Division, David Bowie, Robert De Niro, Bob Dylan, Stephen Hawking, Client East Wood, U2, Simple Minds, The Cramps, Miles Davis, Marc Almond, The Rolling Stones, Bon Jovi, R.E.M, The Killers, among others.

​His has made music videos on numbers of popular songs including “One” “Pride” “Please” “Electric Storm” (U2).”A Question of time”,”Never let me down again”, “Personal Jesus,” “World in my eyes” ,”Walking in my shoes”, Suffer Well”(Depeche Mode), Reflektor (Arcade Fire), “Heart –Shaped Box”(Nirvana) ,”Hero of the day”(Metallica), “Delia’s gone” (Johnny Cash),”Do I have to say the words?(Bryan Adams),”All things that I have done”(The Killers) and many more.  Music world has been blessed with his enormous contribution. Anton has demonstrated the profound connection between music and art of film making through his videos. His passion and love for both medium have produced some of the greatest time less music videos of the century.

​Acclaimed photographer and music video director is a successful film director as well. His first color video for US single “Pride” came out in 1984. In 2007 he made his first feature film called “Control”. It is a film about the life of Joy Division’s front man Ian Curtis. The movie has bagged several recognitions at different international film festivals across the Europe and premiered at Cannes Film Festival in 2007. 

​In 2010 he came back as director with the movie “The American” starring George Clooney. Next year he directed a webcast by Coldplay from Madrid, Spain. He continued being a successful director onwards. In 2015 he released “Life” ,a film about James Dean and photographer Dennis Stock. Corbijn himself is the subject of Josh Whiteman's 2009 documentary film Shadow Play – The making of Anton Corbijn.

​Anton Corbijn is a prodigy of our time with a brilliant mind and vision.