Mark Pellington makes unease felt through sound, music and fractured images. We rate his ability to unsettle us, though his music-video habits can get in the way of the story.
Fi1m perspective
Pellington likes to let music and cutting tell us how a scene feels. The sound matters as much as the image, and a straight sequence of events is not always his first concern. We find him an effective director of unease, but sometimes wish he would stop working so hard to produce it. That habit goes back to conceptual work at MTV and music videos such as Pearl Jam’s Jeremy (1992). His feature debut, Going All the Way (1997), also exposed the weakness of the approach: the music-video flourishes could make it harder to settle into the story.
Homicide: Life on the Street (1993), which he worked on as a director, supplies a useful test of those habits. It is a richly acted programme we recommend warmly, with detectives as absorbing as their cases. We were gripped by Andre Braugher and occasionally frustrated when the restless editing pulled our attention away from the performances. That is a criticism of the series, not something we can pin on Pellington’s episodes alone. His appearance as Bill Dooler in Cameron Crowe’s Jerry Maguire (1996) gives us less to assess; our enthusiasm there rests chiefly on Tom Cruise, Renée Zellweger and Cuba Gooding Jr.
Arlington Road (1999) and The Mothman Prophecies (2002) took that approach into thrillers. The latter’s supernatural mystery suits his interest in subjective perception, where sound and visual atmosphere can make uncertainty uncomfortable. Eric Schmidt has been his cinematographer on three films, while his work with Pearl Jam and U2 reflects the continuing importance of music to his directing.
Henry Poole Is Here (2008) brings his interest in grief into a more intimate drama, while I Melt with You (2011) takes a less conventional approach to ensemble storytelling. The move towards more personal films makes sense for a director so concerned with how distress feels. His willingness to address loss directly is a strength; we would welcome fewer flourishes around it. Start with The Mothman Prophecies and give the sound your attention.
Biography
Mark Pellington is an American film and television director, producer and writer. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, he graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in rhetoric in 1984. He began his career at MTV, where he created promotional content and directed music videos, including Pearl Jam's award-winning 'Jeremy'.
Pellington made his feature directorial debut with Going All the Way (1997). He is known for the thrillers Arlington Road (1999) and The Mothman Prophecies (2002), as well as later films including Henry Poole Is Here (2008), I Melt with You (2011) and The Last Word (2017). He has also directed episodes of television series such as Blindspot, Cold Case and Homicide: Life on the Street, and made a cameo appearance as Bill Dooler in Jerry Maguire (1996).
