Deconstructing “High Hopes” music video — What Pink Floyd wanted us to see

High Hopes is one of my favourite songs. It features on the album The Division Bell, which came out in 1994. The music video of High Hopes is one of the best music videos I’ve ever seen. Just like the lyrics of the song, the video is very meaningful, or you can say philosophical. Every shot has layers of meaning. Today, I am going to break it down for you so that you understand it better.

The philosophy, idea behind the video

High Hopes is essentially about the early days of Pink Floyd’s members and their memories — made evident with the shot of Syd Barrett’s bust being carried on the shoulders by some people and the old Pink Floyd logo on these balloons. However, there is more meaning to this video than people realize. There is a bigger picture.

The video opens with a man reminiscing about the early years of his life — the optimism, the promises, the innocence, the possibilities.

The video reminds us how everything is better when we are young — we are surrounded by friends, carefree, and, most importantly, we have dreams. It is paradise. When we are young, we think we are special, meant for great things. We have high hopes from life, but as we grow old, these hopes get buried underneath the weight of reality. Life keeps us tied down with societal pressure, insatiable desires, and our own expectations, time and again reminding us that reality is often unforgiving. We watch ourselves rather helplessly as we grow lonelier with age. We keep running all our lives without ever realizing that time is slowly slipping by. Well, not until it’s too late, anyway.

Towards the end of the video, there is a shot where the man opens the car boot and lets the balloons out. Those balloons symbolise his memories of the past. He finally lets go of his past and makes peace with it.

Symbolism

Notice how the director uses circular shapes in the video. They represent time, the endless cycle of life and death, and the loop we are all stuck in. We are all living in a grand illusion.

There is a shot in the video where we see apples rolling on the street. This is a biblical reference. The apple was the fruit that grew on the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden, and it all started when Eve picked an apple from that tree and ate it. How does it fit in here?

The objective/argument

The answer lies in the books of philosophy. There is a school of thought called pessimism, which essentially argues that success, money, or, for that matter, technology can’t give us the happiness we are looking for. If we look at the bigger picture we realize that life has no real purpose or meaning. Pessimism teaches us that life is all pain and suffering, and no matter where we go or what we do, disappointment and loneliness will follow. Life is a wheel that keeps on spinning. What we don’t realize is we are all but slaves of time. We are clockwork. We constantly try to give meaning to our lives but fail each and every time because life is meaningless. This is called absurdism.

Conclusion

Including historical or religious references helps elevate the story one is telling. Why is it important, you might ask? The answer is — Cinema, like the other six arts, is much more than just entertainment. Telling superficial stories is only going to get one so far. It’s true we don’t think about or notice such details every time, but an artist’s job is to raise questions and not necessarily answer them.

Aristotle once wrote that the aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.