Narrative analysis of comfortably numb video

One of the strongest theories that links to this chosen music video 'Comfortably numb' by Pink floyd is Tim O'sullivan's (1998) theory that all media texts use some kind of story, this music video is taken from the movie 'Pink Floyd: The Wall'. The story behind the music video is about a rock stars slow spiral into depression and insanity; hence the flashbacks of him when he was a child and the outrage were he destroys everything in the apartment. This story can be related to real life stars who have suffered this, mainly Syd Barrett, who this film was dedicated to. 

Another strong theory by Kate Domaille (2001) that every story ever created can be fitted into one of eight narrative types, the music video for comfortably numb can be fitted into the story of Achilles, where the main protagonist is or seems invincible, but they have one flaw that corrupts them and eventually could kill them, this video shows a very wealthy, famous rock star who's flaw is drugs and depression and eventually comes to his downfall. Joseph Campbell's (1949) theory 'Universal Hero Monomyth' can also be linked to Comfortably numb, he states that there is an underlying structure of iconography, themes, concepts and narrative structure that is common to the religions, myths and legends of every culture in the world. One of his ideas was 'The Ordeal' this is the hero that must face his fear or mortal enemy who may seem more powerful. Mental or physical torture may occur, this is exactly what happens in this video, just that the main protagonist is battling with himself, another theory from Campbell is 'Return with the Elixir' where the hero/protagonist return to the ordinary world with some wisdom, knowledge or something else gained from the adventure, for example at the end of the video the protagonist is seen peeling away skin like a maggot and is finally reborn. 

Sven Carlsson's (1999) theory that music videos can be separated into two categories; Performance and conceptual, this video is strongly conceptual as there is no performance what so ever and is all conceptual and mainly focuses on the story rather than the performance of the music. Therefore this video is a strong narrative video. 

Bordwell and Thompson (1997) offer two distinctions between stories and plot which relate to the diegetic world of the narrative that the audience are positioned to accept and that which the audience actually see. Comfortably numb has a very strong link between the diegetic narrative and the videos, the song basically described what I happening within the video and is song from the first person view of the protagonist but is performed by Pink Floyd themselves, the lyrics express his feelings as a child and now as a man.