The biker boys are wearing mirrored sunglasses, a nice variation on the “glowing eye” motif (and that also recalls the goggles that the swimsuit-clad boys were wearing). Tyler is instead wandering through the hallways of her own desire, recalling things that she’s seen during the day, but differently. These young men belong in the institution—they’re students—but (as mentioned), it’s improbable that they would be exercising at night. And despite the woman’s solitude and the relative sense of calm, the song’s structure suggest that she’s hiding or ignoring something. There’s nothing I can do His eyes are also emphasized, via makeup. Interestingly, as the child touches down, he seems to be staring at us—out at the camera—rather than at Tyler. When that light falls into shadow, all love—and all fantasy—is rendered impossible. Things are definitely coming to a head, and growing more confrontational. I'm glad the raunchy was turned down just a bit. Unless the private school has some kind of ninja club, these combatants aren’t her students, and as such seem out of place here. —perhaps rushing to join the single student who kicked all this fantasy off. But we can’t cross the threshold of the future with one foot still in the past—and moving forward can be a challenge for this sentimental sign. The helmer has admitted he went into most of these promos will little preparation and tended to just make them up as he went, which applies to "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" too. There is an interpretation of these lyrics that is ripe with religious symbolism, and it is that the persona of the lyrics could be that of Mary Magdalene speaking about or to Jesus. Añadir Letra de Glee. But there’s a reason why this black-clad trio strikes so many viewers as being so utterly random. Zane has truly outdone herself with "Total Eclipse of the Heart"! Once upon a time there was light in my life But now there's only love in the dark Nothing I can say A total eclipse of the heart (Turn around, bright eyes) (Turn around, bright eyes) Turn around, every now and then I know you'll never be the boy you always wanted to be The poor bird is struggling to fly, flapping about at the bottom of the screen. For one thing, the angel’s embrace echoes the shot of Emo Kid clutching the dove. —only to have them disperse, leaving her to run instead into her own reflection in a mirror (2:16): The meaning here seems pretty straightforward: all of these boys are but illusions, and any attempt to actually grab them will result only in Tyler grabbing herself. She runs with this flight of fancy, imagining that a handsome young man is in fact paying her a visit. Bonnie Tyler – Total Eclipse of the Heart Live … And what better way to … (Recall also that the song’s writer, Jim Steinman, planned the video, so the connections between words and image are very much intended.). NO commentary in the background! Each new school year brings new students, and the chance to start anew—and to lust after a new crop of boys, who are ignorant of Tyler’s deeper desires. When that light falls into shadow, all love—and all fantasy—is rendered impossible. But this recognition, far from embarrassing or paralyzing Tyler, enables her to reveal her desire openly, a shift that motivates the remainder of the video. A total eclipse of the heart A total eclipse of the heart Turn around, bright eyes. If you wanna be technical/scientific ...imagine a solar eclipse with the sun's light being blocked from reaching earth/heart by the moon/toxic lover. By this point, Tyler has finally lost touch with reality, having lost herself in her pent-up desires. 4,67. She’s alone. Slightly overweight waitress Brooke Alexander is in a unfulfilled relationship with wealthy lawyer Patrick Sterling. Her illusions, to put it succinctly, have been dashed. 00:00. The "total eclipse of the heart" lines refer to the lover overshadowing one's life so much that the sun's light is blocked out, plunging the person's heart in darkness. Is she embarrassed? (OED). Accordingly, the song grows subdued, as Tyler mournfully summarizes her situation: Once upon a time I was falling in love But something has changed. Well, perhaps we don’t want to go down that path. Steinman also planned out the video, which was then directed by Russell Mulcahy, a man responsible for numerous ’70s and ’80s music videos,  as well as the films Highlander, Highlander II: The Quickening, and Blue Ice. Even she herself doubts it—we see her blinking in a pair of reaction shots (5:14, 5:21). It was written and produced by Jim Steinman, and released on Tyler's fifth studio album, Faster Than the Speed of Night (1983). The fencers are properly dressed head-to-toe, but the gymnasts are bare-chested. Tyler runs from the school (2:53). If so, we’re left with a relatively tamer reading. An angel appears behind her and embraces her (4:32): Several of the video’s elements—the dove, the angelic/demonic boy, the choirboys, the wild teens—merge here. About Total Eclipse Of The Heart "Total Eclipse of the Heart" is a song recorded by Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler. So there you have it: 4000+ words on a remarkable song and music video—to my mind, a true ’80s classic. Regardless of whether the encounter is real or imagined, in the end, we’re left with Tyler standing, shaken, alone on the stairs: Obviously, after this long dark night of the soul, she will Never Be the Same. What’s more, his singing continues as the kids move past Tyler and up the stairs and into the school (5:27–5:33), suggesting that whatever she’s seen and heard, it’s all in her head. This section culminates in the entrance of a choreographed pack of “bad boys,” done up in black leather. (More on this in a bit. The magical glamor has dissipated (another common fantasy motif). I guess it sort of has to do with the boys and the various skills they’ve learned at boarding school, but that reading doesn’t exactly include any of the other boys in there—probably just over-analysis. NO annoying cam quality!As you know I did NOT make this. body is obscured by or into darkness? Recall once again that the song’s composer and lyricist, Jim Steinman, planned the video, and chose to match those lyrics with these images of choirboys. The angel’s embrace prompts a quick cut to daytime—although note that our location (the school’s front steps) remains the same. This child who torments her, then, is both a symbol of her guilt as well as her continuing desire. The lyrics clearly show just how torn the singer is. Anyway, great essay. Five of these were by David A. Scott (dascottjr), a commercial producer in upstate New York. … And neither will we! The "total eclipse of the heart" lines refer to the lover overshadowing one's life so much that the sun's light is blocked out, plunging the person's heart in darkness. This was written by Jim Steinman, who wrote all of Meat Loaf's hits. Now I’m only falling apart A male voice keeps singing, “Turn around”—indeed, those are the first words we hear. A reverse shot reveals what she’s seeing (5:11): Obviously this is the kid Tyler first imagined visiting her at night—he’s even singing the line that played when he first appeared: “Turn around, bright eyes.” (We also hear the sound of the car passing.) “Total Eclipse of the Heart” Almost Never Happened. Following this, there’s a sudden push-in on the creepy young boy we saw earlier—the winged Emo Kid who threw Slo-Mo Dove at our face. Her outfit marks her as virginal and repressed—not unlike pop culture’s then-reigning queen, Princess Leia. And he actually intended it to be, according to his own words, “a vampire love song”. http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6zcpv-NUltg/TasgA7vFTvI/AAAAAAAAAHM/MiMvEkGqQi8/s1600/teoth1.jpg, Huh. Tyler continues mooning about. So far, we seem to be in an anonymous Gothic fantasy-land common to music videos, especially ones from the early 1980s. What’s more, if the students are new, that would match the way the video began—with invasion from the outside. Well… that was brilliant. ‘Cause we’ll never be wrong together First, this child is directly associated with the choirboys. And then the footballers are similarly bare-chested (and doing something something more akin to modern dance than football). n. An eclipse in which the entire surface of … The speed of the crosscutting increases until Tyler, finally overcome, collapses (4:24–4:30)—very Rite of Spring! As her imagination keeps running further and further afield, grow […]. Glowing eyes are a common enough motif in mythology and folklore, where they usually indicate an especially penetrating glare, some kind of magical “sight beyond sight.” This motif is common, too, in popular culture: the villain Sauron in the Lord of the Rings is characterized as a giant fiery eye that sees all, and the mutant telepathic children in the 1960 feature Village of the Damned (an obvious inspiration for this video) are distinguished by their disturbing glowing eyes: The horrific subjects of Children of the Damned, just like the male students in this music video, dress impeccably nearly and behave with a disturbing cold politeness. Could there be another teacher like her at the school, similarly tormented? It is now the following day, and the fantasies of the previous night have been tucked away, once again repressed. Certainly the lyrics suggest that the love in question is somehow wrong or dangerous: And we’ll only be making it right We can take it to the end of the line A total eclipse of the heart. From here, the action crosscuts between the wild dancing boys and shots of Tyler surrounded by choir boys, who form a ring around Tyler, their eyes aglow (3:47–4:30). Since these young men, too, have “the sight,” they are able to turn and see Tyler. I’d be remiss if I didn’t include a link to the literal version of the video, from which I took the image at the top of this post. (Her students’ shirts billow open, for instance.). Next we see some of the teenage students (all partially undressed) running and jumping toward the front entrance of the school (3:47)—. I watched the video and started thinking, “Is this portraying what I think it’s portraying?”. Either way, it seems as though the song, the video, and the fantasy are coming to an end. And so Tyler’s attempt at escape is defeated, and she is plunged back into fantasy. Tyler is a teacher there (in the chemistry department, perhaps? He’s also in the details, so let’s delve deeper …. The young man’s eerie gaze is immediately identified with Tyler’s: we cross-dissolve from him to her, and for a moment (0:46) his glowing eyes are overlaid over her left eye: This connection is emphasized by the lyrics at that point (“Turn around, bright eyes”). He throws the one he’s holding toward Tyler (1:04–1:10): This might be how the first dove ended up going through the door, struggling to stay aloft. I believe I’ve only scratched the surface. Define total eclipse. ), The video itself is pretty broad, and rather easy to read—broadly. 00:00. These successive images become increasingly improbable: Tyler is mentally undressing her charges. The way the younger children are juxtaposed with the older teens further suggests a pedophiliac reading, since the cutting directly associates the two pairs of youngsters (see in particular the cuts at 4:06, 4:15, 4:20, and 4:24). The stakes are clearly getting higher. Seen in the light of day, the kid is animated and cheerful—innocent and cherubic: But see what happens next. Obviously, the preferable situation is for love to be like a light—provided that that light can be withstood. She presumably spends a fair portion of each school day gazing furtively at her subjects, secretly desiring them. In fact Jim Steinman originally wrote it for a musical entitled Nosferatu, which is in fact about a vampire. (I will refer to her character as “Tyler” throughout, for convenience’ sake.) But that doesn’t mean that all of the wording necessarily makes sense. From that we cut to other students, their proper outfits disheveled, who (like Emo Kid) suddenly raise their heads to address the camera (3:49): After this, Tyler is ringed by the incoming pack of boys. What’s happening here? Rewind 10 Seconds. The song/video require many more hours of study…, […] their desks). Trying to flee the source of her unrequited passion? What should be a romantic image, then—soaring and dreamy—is in fact a frustrated one. First, Tyler passes through a door (a recurring sign that matters are escalating) as a white light shines behind her (1:53): This light is the continuation and magnification of the original headlights/eyesight that penetrated her private chamber and motivated her (and that showed up in the earlier shot, glowing behind the students seated at their desks). She’s being introduced to a group of boys who are standing at attention. But pay close attention to how this actually happens. If so, that’s a clear reference back to the passing headlights that prompted all this phantasmagoria. According to an October 26, 2006 article in the Australian newspaper The Herald Sun, Steinman offered this to Meat Loaf along with "Total Eclipse Of The Heart," but they were not able to reach an agreement over finances and this song went to Air Supply while "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" was recorded by Bonnie Tyler. At 0:37, a car passes by the school, its twin headlights shining through the door: Only after this does the student actually enter, his glowing eyes matching the headlights (0:44–0:46): What’s happening here, I’d argue, is that Tyler has become so lost in her wanting that she’s mistaken a passing car for a student—that obscure object of her desire. Would it be gauche to call it a symbol of Tyler’s own frustrated desire? Total Eclipse. Open voyeurism might not prove enough, and some kind of physical contact between Tyler and all these menfolk might be possible. Following this, we get a series of “athletic” shots—groups of young men fencing, doing gymnastics, and dancing in football gear. Tyler has come under siege. We have two possible readings here. However, the song rallies here, embarking on a long bridge that grows increasingly wild. Extremely sexually repressed, Tyler endures a long night of the soul fantasizing about her young charges; this constitutes the bulk of the video. We’re living in a powder keg and giving off sparks. Having succumbed to her fantasies, she will now live lost in them at every hour of the day. About “Total Eclipse of the Heart” “Total Eclipse of the Heart” was written by Jim Steinman and released by Bonnie Tyler in 1983. Total eclipse of the heart means these seven emotional aspects of the heart is obscured and true positive emotions of the heart are not allowed to surface Let us look at the poem line I hope not, because that’s totally what it is. They dance orgiastically around their teacher, as though enacting some pagan ritual (not unlike the sacrificial dance in the The Rite of Spring). And on another side note: Tyler’s vocal performance in this song is nothing short of magnificent!). These images, I’d argue, accomplish everything the ninjas did, and more: Tyler, then, is gradually exploring her heretofore repressed desires. Right after the ninjas we encounter some young men in formal dress, busy toasting one another around a dinner table (1:22–1:32): All of this student activity is incongruous—it’s late at night, the kids should be in bed—but this one carries with it the idea of some kind of secret society that meets at midnight when the moon is full. is defined as ?the total surface of a celestial or ?heavenly? And the more that voice repeats, growing increasingly insistent, the stronger our impression that Tyler is refusing to confront something. Either Tyler is new to the school, or these boys are new. a muscular swimmer rising to stare at the camera (3:07); students in suits wrecking a banquet table (3:09, 3:13, 3:19—and note the escalating violence); a student lifting his fencing mask (3:14); another shot of the fencer lifting his mask, this time casing gold to pour down over his face (3:23); and, most remarkably, emerging from the billowing output of a smoke machine, a choir of boys with glowing eyes (3:27)—an image that could be straight out of. In this section, the video grows much more fantastical (not to mention erotic). The dove at this point is fully restrained (in the child’s clutches). In JourneyCare’s bereavement department, we understand and appreciate the symbolic nature of a total eclipse. It captured my attention enough to google its meaning which led me here. The latter reading makes more sense: Tyler’s frustration seems a product of her already being a teacher at the school.