Taylor Swift’s first music video The Department of Tortured Poets was released a day after the album’s double drop, which included both the announced version with sixteen tracks and The anthology, which included fifteen other titles. To quote HamiltonSwift really writes like she’s running out of time.
The first music video is “Fortnight”, the album’s lead single and opening song, a collaboration with Post Malone. Shot in black and white and directed by Swift herself, the clip delivers in-depth cinematic storytelling filled with the signature symbolism we’ve come to expect from the Easter Egg Queen. The black dog walking around the frame, the typewriter reminiscent of the title track from the album “The Tortured Poets Department”, the Victorian mourning dress and even the little cats on the corners of the credit card at the end of the era of silent cinema. This all makes sense!
Swift wrote in her Instagram post announcing the release of the music video that “almost everything in it is a metaphor or reference to one corner or another of the album. For me, this video turned out to be the perfect visual representation of this record and the stories I tell on it.
But the brightest Easter egg of all might be the unexpected meeting of a Circle of Dead Poets duet – something I didn’t expect at all but which filled me with joy, because I love this film so much that she even has a tattoo dedicated to it.
In the scene where Swift is connected to some sort of electric shock machine, she is surrounded by scientists. Two of those scientists are none other than actors Ethan Hawke and Josh Charles, who both starred in the iconic 1989 coming-of-age drama.
In Circle of Dead Poets, Ethan Hawke played the shy protagonist, Todd Anderson, who in 1959 began his freshman year at Welton Academy, a prestigious all-male boarding school in Vermont. Through his roommate, he meets his new friends, including Josh Charles’ Knox Overstreet. They all attend the English class of their new teacher, the unorthodox Professor Keating, played by Robin Williams. Keating encourages all of his students to Carpe Diemthat is, “seize the day.”
The title of the film refers to the club that the protagonists create – or recreate since the club existed when Professor Keating was a student at Welton – where they gather in a cave in the woods to read poetry and continue their studies artistic.
When Taylor Swift announced that her next album would be named The Department of Tortured Poetsfans made the connection Circle of Dead Poets immediately. Naturally, she found a way to call back DPS in his music video. Hawke and Charles even display the name of their DPS characters on their lab coats to really drive that reference home.
And as if I wasn’t already crying, Hawke wrote “carpe diem” on his Instagram post sharing the video (in addition to a photo of him and Charles). Nothing to do but watch Circle of Dead Poets for the millionth time, I guess.
(Featured image: Taylor Swift Productions)