Jonas Åkerlund"Swedish filmmaker Jonas Åkerlund is known for his hard-hitting, frenetic and often violent takes on the darker side of humanity. The world's most controversial music video director, he has worked with the biggest names in the industry.
He started out as a drummer in seminal Swedish heavy metal band Bathory but switched to film editing in the mid '80s. He says, "I realized that cutting images together with music and sound effects was much more creative than banging the drums in a band, so I quit right away."
He moved into directing and has since worked with artists including U2 ("Beautiful Day", shot at Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris), Metallica, the Smashing Pumpkins and Moby.
Perhaps best known for his work with Madonna, on "Ray of Light", "American Life" and the documentary "I'm going to tell you a secret", Åkerlund hit the headlines when the out-of-control "Smack My Bitch Up" video for the Prodigy was banned by MTV." "
As stated above Jonas Åkerlund is famous for his controversial videos and through having seen many of his videos you can see why.
The video for Christina Aguilera's song "Beautiful" which was released in 2002 contains images and short clips throughout of controversial images which would not usually be seen as socially acceptable for television. The video contains visuals of an extremely anorexic girl, a socially rejected alternative dresser, a transvestite getting dressed, a gay couple kissing and extreme bullying.
His most recent video for Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" single contains visuals of her being thrown of a balcony, poisening her boyfriend, engaging in a lesbian 3 way kiss and visuals of dead models.
However, his most controversial video of all time is considered to be his video for The Prodigy's 1997 single "Smack my bitch up" which was banned by MTV and the BBC for containing strong scenes/visuals of drug taking and violence.
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