Kate Bush - The Whole Story [VHS]

My tape is worn out and I don't want to pay 'collectors' prices to replace it.

5 of 5 found the following review helpful:

Wanna see an Elf???  May 06, 2003
Kate Bush is one of those that you only hear about in fairy tales, or imagine. She "can't be real", with her low profile in the commercial world of music, once you open Kate's door to another side, it's like Alice's double mirror. You will be mesmorized by intense almost painful beauty of KB's art, her real,yet well cushioned with wonder land imagination sound and lyrics, you can only fall in love and "never get out again."

4 of 5 found the following review helpful:

THE FULL PICTURE  Jun 12, 2002
This is a collection of all her work from Wuthering Heights through Running Up That Hill to Babooshka. It's easy to see why she hasn't fallen into the commercial trap. An artist in every sense of the word, she cleverly uses her thought-provoking lyrics and surrealistic performances to charm and shock at the same time. A word of warning to the faint of heart: some of the tracks may leave you feeling a bit unsettled. Still, it's a great video collection, very original and moving.

24 of 24 found the following review helpful:

Kate sure made some interesting videos!  Dec 22, 2001
Question: What is better than listening to Kate Bush's The Whole Story? Answer: Watching the Whole Story-The Videos. Kate Bush is as imaginative in her videos as she is in her songs.

"Wuthering Heights" and "The Man With The Child In His Eyes" are mere performance clips. The former is the original vocal version from The Kick Inside, not the new vocal version on the Whole Story album. The latter makes great effect of Kate's lovely face, framed between her leonine brown hair. "Wow" has her singing over a mixture of concert footage taken from her Live At Hammersmith video.

"Cloudbusting" is a story video which has her the daughter of a scientist who has made a rainmaking machine. I could be mistaken but it looks like Donald Sutherland playing her father. Someone let me know. I don't know if Kate is supposed to be playing a little girl, her mannerisms are akin to a seven to nine year old. Memo to Kate: you look better with long hair.

"Breathing" is probably the best and most bizarre video in the collection. Kate, wrapped up in a mounds of transparent plastic, portrays an unborn baby, complete with umbilical cord, and sings the horrors of nuclear war. The song takes on a more disturbing meaning, when she sings of breathing in her mother's nicotine, especially when the part of the song with the authoritative voice on the effects of an atomic explosion comes in. Kate is shown violently thrown around her mother's womb.

"Running Up That Hill" features a ballet duo, Kate is the female, whose routines take on a wrestling and even sexual nature. The bizarre imagery in that one is the shot of many people walking towards us, wearing xeroxed faces first of the male, then of Kate.

"Army Dreamers", shot on video camera and in a studio setting, effectively captures the anti-war sentiment of the song. Her closing eyes are in rhythm click-clack sound. The two scenes of import are of Kate, who upon seeing a young boy in camouflage, drops her gun and rushes toward him, mother instinct in full throttle. The second is of Kate, charging with a "kowabunga" expression of her face, only to be thrown backwards into the bushes by an exploding shell.

"Experiment IV" is a story of the song, with the deadly sound personified by a ghoul resembling the vengeful spirit in Raiders Of The Lost Ark, who ends up killing everyone in the top secret bunker. There is a twist at the end. Who is seen getting into a van, giving us a conspiratory wink?

"The Big Sky" shows her fun side, as a gathering of characters, including British pilots, Superman, and Soviet soldiers come together on the rooftop where she is stargazing and transform it into a stage.

Bush's videos and the ideas that spring from her head may not always be comprehensible but like characters in Fellini's movies, leave an undelible impression, and is leagues better than today's MTV fodder.