Linkin Park’s video for “Waiting for the End” is high quality because it accomplishes its goals; it is worthy and appropriate because its goal is to uplift. In order to accomplish the goal of uplifting the audience, this video moves from meaninglessness-through-distortion to meaningfulness-in-humanity.
The first portion of the video – particularly the first few seconds – cycles through a series of morphing, distorted images: skulls, fangs, screaming faces, and a dark angel, particularly. Not only are these images disturbing on their own, but they cycle through so quickly that viewers only get a vague, perhaps ominous sense of what the images actually are. More generally, the video includes very little light. The only light source illuminates the band members and featured objects with a cold, empty blue. In fact, it’s reminiscent of space.
As for the sound, the video opens with metallic, buzzing guitar chords -- evidence of further distortion and meaninglessness. The lyrics, taken at face value, not encouraging; the most telling examples are included here:
“Though the words sound steady, something's empty within them.”
“We're living at the mercy of the pain and the fear.”
“I thought it felt right, but that right was wrong.”
“This is not what I had planned. It's out of my control.”
These lines are even sung in a lazy, slurring way that distorts them into a meaningless puddle. Furthermore, the background vocals, while not jarring, harmonize in a minor chord.
Together, the audio and video elements set a tone of unnatural, inexorable darkness for the video. If this tone had carried through the entire video, I would not argue for the virtue and loveliness of this work, let alone watch it with as much interest as I do. However, the video has an essential turn in it that brings an essential message to the viewer: darkness, while an unfortunate reality, is not the default setting for life, and by facing it honestly, we can fight it and return to brighter days. This makes the video not only a success in editing and dark reality, but success in the human spirit and the ability to find meaning in struggles.
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