Nine Inch Nails | Closer

The video shows events in what appears to be a 19th century-style mad-scientist’s laboratory that deals with religion, sexuality, animal cruelty, politics, and terror. It’s somewhat controversial due to its imagery, which included a nude bald woman with a crucifix mask, a monkey tied to a cross, a pig’s head spinning on some type of machine, a diagram of a vulva, Reznor wearing an S&M mask while swinging in shackles, and of him wearing a ball gag. Several times, Reznor, wearing leather pants, floats and rotates through the air, suspended by invisible wires. There are also scenes of Reznor being blown back by a wind machine while wearing aviator goggles.

These images seem to be inspired by the art of Joel-Peter Witkin, as well as Francis Bacon (artist) and George Tooker. The video is also very heavily inspired by the Brothers Quay film Street of Crocodiles, with much of the video being a live-action recreation of the sets and scenes from that film. For the television version, certain removed scenes were replaced with a title card that read “Scene Missing,” and the instances of the word “fuck” being edited out were accompanied by a stop in the video motion, making it appear as if the stop was a result of defective film (this was done to make sure the flow of the song was not affected). The video has a stylized, old-film look due to Reznor purchasing an old canister of unexposed film from the early part of the 20th century to record it on. It is also one of two videos directed by Romanek that the Museum of Modern Art has added to its permanent collection. The other is Madonna’s “Bedtime Story”.