R.E.M. – “Blue” Video (Feat. Lindsay Lohan)

It’s hard to say why this is just surfacing now, but the movie star and conceptual joker James Franco directed a video for “Blue,” a Patti Smith collaboration from R.E.M.’s 2011 album Collapse Into Now, that band’s final LP before breaking up. The video is full of blurry, double-exposed shots of Los Angeles, and it devotes a decent chunk of time to Terry Richardson photographing Lindsay Lohan, as well as to shots of Franco himself, filming footage of L.A. from a helicopter — presumably shot by someone in another helicopter. I can’t tell whether the video is supposed to give an impression of glamor, or whether it’s supposed to function as a critique of the idea of glamor. Probably both, I guess? In any case, you can watch.