Anton Johannes Gerrit Corbijn van Willenswaard (1955) is a Dutch photographer, music video director, and film director. He is the creative director behind the visual output of Depeche Mode and U2, having handled the principal promotion and sleeve photography for both bands over three decades. Some of his works include music videos for Depeche Mode's "Enjoy the Silence" (1990), U2's "One" (version 1) (1991), Bryan Adams' "Do I Have to Say the Words?", Nirvana's "Heart-Shaped Box" (1993) and Coldplay’s "Talk" (2005) and "Viva la Vida" (2008), as well as the Ian Curtis biographical film Control (2007), The American (2010), and A Most Wanted Man (2014), based on John le Carré's 2008 novel of the same name.
Corbijn began his career as a music photographer when he saw the Dutch musician Herman Brood playing in a café in Groningen around 1975. He took a lot of photographs of the band Herman Brood & His Wild Romance and these led to a rise in fame for Brood and in exposure for Corbijn.
From the late 1970s the London-based New Musical Express (NME), a weekly music paper, featured his work on a regular basis and would often have a photograph by him on the front page. One such occasion was a portrait of David Bowie wearing a loincloth backstage in New York when starring in The Elephant Man. In the early years of London-based The Face, a glossy monthly post-punk life style / music magazine, Corbijn was a regular contributor. He made his name photographing in black-and-white but in May 1989 he began taking pictures in colour using filters. His first venture in this medium was for Siouxsie Sioux. Between 1998–2000, in collaboration with the painter Marlene Dumas, he worked on a project called "Stripping Girls", which took the strip clubs and peep shows of Amsterdam as their subject; while Corbijn later exhibited photographs, Dumas took Polaroids which she then used as sources for her paintings.
Corbijn has photographed Bob Dylan, Joy Division, Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, Prāta Vētra, Peter Hammill, Miles Davis, Björk, Captain Beefheart, Kim Wilde, Marc Almond, Robert De Niro, Stephen Hawking, Elvis Costello, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Morrissey, Peter Murphy, Simple Minds, Clint Eastwood, The Cramps, Roxette, Herbert Grönemeyer, Annie Lennox, and Eurythmics, amongst others. Perhaps his most famous and longest standing associations are with Depeche Mode and U2. Corbijn's work relationship with Depeche Mode began with the filming of a music video for their 1986 A Question of Time single. Corbijn says that he soon "started to realise that [his] visuals and their music went really well together. Then [he] did some live photos, and it eventually turned into designing the whole live set. That's what [he's] been doing for them since 1993." Corbijn has directed 20 of the bands music videos. He has also designed most of the covers for Depeche Mode's albums and singles from 1990's Violator album and onwards. Corbijn's work with U2 includes taking pictures of the band on their first US tour, taking pictures for their albums The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby albums (et al.), and directing a number of accompanying videos.
Other album covers featuring work by Corbijn include those for Springsteen, Nick Cave, Siouxsie's second band The Creatures, Bryan Adams, Metallica, Therapy?, The Rolling Stones, Bon Jovi, The Killers, Simple Minds, R.E.M., The Bee Gees, Saybia, Clannad and Moke.
Corbijn began his music video directing career when Palais Schaumburg asked him to direct a video. After seeing the resulting video for Hockey, the band Propaganda had Corbijn direct Dr. Mabuse. After that he directed videos for David Sylvian, Echo & the Bunnymen, Golden Earring, Front 242, Depeche Mode, Roxette and U2. His first video in colour was made for U2 in 1984 for their single "Pride".
In 1994 Corbijn directed a short film about Captain Beefheart/Don Van Vliet for the BBC called Some Yoyo Stuff. He made his feature film debut with Control, a film about the life of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis. It premiered to rave reviews at the Cannes Film Festival on 17 May 2007. The film is based on Deborah Curtis' book Touching from a Distance about her late husband and the biography Torn Apart by Lindsay Reade (Tony Wilson's ex-wife) and Mick Middles. Although shown outside the Palme d'Or competition, Control was the big winner of the Director's Fortnight winning the CICAE Art & Essai prize for best film, the "Regards Jeunes" Prize award for best first or second directed feature film and the Europa Cinemas Label prize for best European film in the sidebar.[20] It also won the Michael Powell award for best new British feature at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.[21]
In 2010, Corbijn returned as a director with the character-based thriller The American, starring George Clooney.
On 26 October 2011, Corbijn directed a webcast by Coldplay from the Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas in Madrid, Spain.
In February 2014, he started filming his next project Life about James Dean and photographer Dennis Stock.
© 2020. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Anton Corbijn or assignee. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only
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Nirvana
Seattle, 1993
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Tom Waits
from the book Waits, 1977
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Miles Davis
1985
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U2
Death Valley, 1986
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U2
Zabriskie Point, 1986
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R.E.M.
Athens, 1990
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David Byrne
Beverly Hills, 1991
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Dave Gahan
Frankfurt, 1993
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David Bowie
London, 1993
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Nirvana
Seattle, 1993
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Björk
Los Angeles, 1994
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Clint Eastwood
Cannes, 1994
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Jeff Buckley
Woodstock, 1994
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Johnny Cash
Memphis, 1994
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Keith Richards
Toronto, 1994
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The Rolling Stones
Toronto, 1994
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Courtney Love (Hole)
Orlando, FL, 1995
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R.E.M.
Rome, 1995
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Luciano Pavarotti
Turin, 1996
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Metallica
San Francisco, 1996
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Nick Cave
London, 1996
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Johnny Depp
Los Angeles, 1998
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Keith Richards
Connecticut, 1999
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Björk
Reykjavík, 1999
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Patti Smith
New York, 1999
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Prince
New York, 1999
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Marlene Dumas
Amsterdam, 2000
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Kurt Cobain
from the series a.somebody, 2002
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Tom Waits
Santa Rosa, 2004
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Arcade Fire
London, 2005
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Arcade Fire
Montreal, 2012
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David Bowie (mask)
Montreal, 2013
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Bruce Springsteen
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Gerard Depardieu
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Leonard Cohen
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Mick Jagger
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