Music television aesthetics, experimentation, and the evocation of chaos in Serbian film

Abstract The creation of the MTV channel in 1981 sparked new global trends, influencing a range of spheres from politics to fashion. Starting with a limited domestic audience in the US, the culture of MTV soon spread to young people across the globe, including those in Yugoslavia. By the late 1980s, music television aesthetics strongly influenced the works of young film directors in Belgrade, who experimented in both music and film production. I discuss how the omnibus film The Fall of Rock-and-Roll/Kako je propao rokenrol (dirs. Zoran Pezo, Vladimir Slavica and Goran Gajić, 1989) uses the aesthetics of music television and combines them with the alternative music scene. This style was replicated and built upon in the 1990s by Srđan Dragojević, in his films, We are not angels/Mi nismo andjeli (1991), Pretty Village, Pretty Flame/Lepa sela lepo gore (1996) and The Wounds/Rane (1998). By the early 1990s, however, the use of music television aesthetics had become political, as the Milošević regime tried to capitalise on this global trend by creating their own music television aesthetics.