Metallica： I Disappear - Metallica： I Disappear

2000

Metallica： I Disappear - Metallica： I Disappear (2000) Director: Wayne Isham Era: Post-Grunge / Nu-Metal Crossover Era (2000) - Metallica bridging arena metal into blockbuster film synergy at the dawn of the digital music crisis Extremely high. This video is a documentary artifact of a singular convergence: a definitive heavy metal band at their commercial apex, a Hollywood blockbuster franchise, the dawn of the digital music piracy crisis, and the twilight of the classic MTV music video era. Shot on location at one of America's most iconic landscapes with production conditions that yielded genuinely unrepeatable footage (the wind-blown drum kit), directed by the genre's most acclaimed director, and attached to one of the most consequential legal events in music industry history, this video demands preservation as both cultural record and technical benchmark. Context: Released May 9, 2000, as the lead single from the Mission: Impossible 2 soundtrack on Hollywood Records, 'I Disappear' exists at a precise cultural inflection point. It represents Metallica's deepest foray into commercial Hollywood synergy after a decade of mainstream crossover following The Black Album. Simultaneously, the pre-release leak of an unfinished version of the song on Napster made 'I Disappear' the catalyst for Metallica v. Napster, Inc. the landmark legal action that became the defining public battle over digital music piracy, accelerating the collapse of Napster and reshaping the entire music industry's relationship with the internet. The video itself, shot in Monument Valley and across major American cities, functions as both a high-concept film tie-in and a grand-scale heavy metal artifact, the last to feature bassist Jason Newsted. Director notes: Isham directed 'I Disappear,' which premiered on May 4, 2000. The primary performance footage was shot on April 13, 2000, atop a sandstone butte in Monument Valley on the Navajo Nation Reservation, accessible only by helicopter. The band and their instruments were isolated on the plateau for over twelve hours while helicopters and handheld cameras captured continuous run-throughs of the song. By the end of the shoot, severe winds blew over Lars Ulrich's drum kit, footage of this event appears in the final video. Isham structured the video around four parallel mini-movies, each following an individual band member through a cinematic action vignette referencing a classic film. Additional footage was shot in downtown San Francisco and downtown Los Angeles. The video also incorporated footage of Tom Cruise connecting it to the Mission: Impossible II film. Editor: Nathan Karma Cox (per IMVDb). The 1967 Chevrolet Camaro used in the video was gifted to James Hetfield upon completion of filming.