Young Hoon Song

Professor Gregory John McClure

Writing 39B
29 September 2015
Reznor vs. Cash
After watching both Reznors and Cashs version of the song Hurt, you can
clearly see some conflicting themes between the two videos. Both songs definitely feel
tragic, but there is a clear distinction in the kind of tragedy displayed in the two. While
one looks outwards from a persons perspective at what death may entail, another looks
inwards. Both possess the theme of the reality of death, but differ in the fact that they
take opposing perspectives. Reznors video displays types of death that can be felt
through sympathy while Cashs video forces a sense of empathy.
Reznors video takes on the form of very vague and distant displays of death that
many in the audience may recognize but not fully understand. For example, he shows
pictures of soldiers, children, plants, animals, and explosions, most of these examples
arent human, and the examples that are human arent really things that his audience
would understand either. It is evident that his live audience isnt full of soldiers or
children, but young adults and maybe teenagers, which are people in the prime of their
lives just like he is, so its clear that these arent people who would be able to connect
on a deep emotional level to the meaning of the video. His video really depicts how
death is a tragedy in that it is destructive and violent emotionally and physically by
showing pictures of injured veterans, decaying animals and plants, and distraught

children. He shows the damage that death causes, but it really lacks any human
emotional link, and leaves you feeling emotionally distant from him.
We know that there is a strong emphasis on the idea of death in Reznors version
of the song because of a long pause on a picture of a snake. Now in the book of
Genesis of the Bible, the snake, or Satan, convinces Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of
the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Also in Genesis, God states But of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die. The words surely die seem to entail the idea that, once
the fruit of knowledge was eaten, Adam and Eve were doomed to die, maybe not
immediately, but were at least destined to have to partake in death. We can then link
this idea back to the snake and say that the snake gave mankind the gift or curse of
death. This could lead to show that Reznor used the snake as a symbol of death and
focused on it because of its deep rooted history with death. He chose to focus on it
because it is one of the strongest basic symbols of the idea of mankind being a
temporary existence on Earth, and how the tragedy of death is really rooted to the
actions of the snake.
We also know that Reznors version of the song strongly pursues a feeling of
tragedy through the way the video was displayed. The video itself was in black and
white, which makes the video look almost hopeless, while the song, in comparison to
Cashs version, takes on many more minor chords. This leads to this feeling of sadness
with no real root, although Reznor is showing all these emotions, the video, with a lack
of personal context, creates an emotional distance. Theres also an emotional distance

created through the lack of any color visually or audibly, which is why emotions other
than despair and emptiness arent very accessible while watching the video.
Cashs video, on the other hand, focuses on the tragedy that is the end of life. In
Cashs video there are many scenes of himself when he was younger, snippets of his
own life. Theyre all happy moments and show that the life he lived was indeed fulfilling
with scenes from roles hes played on film and videos of him and his wife when they
were younger. His audience, simply by having lived life, will empathize with these
happier moments. This will lead them to better understand Cashs current state of mind,
which is the hard reality of how these moments must come to an end and that death is
the imminent shared destiny by all. The tragedy of this video comes into play when you
realize that all these happy moments are at an end when faced with death, and that no
more are to come.
Cashs video, in contrast to Reznors, has the same intense feeling of death
simply due to his age and how his age symbolizes how close death is to him. The video
depicts him sitting and not really moving, almost waiting to die while singing which
contrasts greatly to how Reznor was standing and moving so passionately in his own
performance of the song. The video also spends a lot of time looking backwards,
instead of looking forwards, which shows that theres not much life left in the future,
another reminder of death.
Cashs version of the song also uses major chords and lacks the stunning minor
chords as Reznors version of the song. He uses less minor chords, therefore his
version of the song is not nearly as depressing and emotionally distant as Reznors.

Furthermore, the video looks to be filmed within golden hour, or at the time that the
sun is setting, which basks him and the video in a golden light that almost gives you a
feeling of how real and tangible Cash is, making the feeling of death also more of a
reality instead of an abstract idea. The emotional distance that Reznor creates just isnt
present in Cashs version of the song.
Cashs version of the song makes me, as a viewer, feel much more as a
participant. While Reznors song was based in much more widely and may be easily
accessible portrayals of death, they simply didnt feel as strongly as Cashs did. It really
did feel as though Cash was sharing his experience of death while Reznor was simply
sharing his thoughts on death. Cashs reality of death just made his message so much
stronger to me as a viewer, which is why his video had a much stronger impact with the
sense of death and the tragedy it entails. Although the theme may be the same at the
core, in one word death, they are almost complete opposites in the perspective of it.
Cashs video takes on the theme of how death means the end of your own life while
Reznors seems to be more about how death means the ends of others lives.