Cry Me A River 2022 Bon Soir Music Video By Matt Amato

Streisand Music Videos

“Cry Me A River” (2022)

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To promote Barbra's 2022 album, Live at the Bon Soir, originally recorded in 1962, her official YouTube put out an amazing video on October 7, 2022 that recreated her performance at the small New York nightclub. 


The video’s director, Matt Amato, has generously contributed his essay about working on the project:


This is the third music video I created for Barbra. We are expanding on the initial concepts established from the start; there is a shared stylistic through-line from one video to the next. Each music video places the viewer in Barbra’s headspace for a pivotal moment in her artistic life. We share her subjective view by our reliance on truthful, specific details. In the first video, I Think It’s Going To Rain, we inhabit four minutes inside the recording at Columbia’s 30th Street, Studio C on September 23, 1972. The next video, I’d Want It To Be You featuring Willie Nelson, places us in the Los Angeles editing room of A Star Is Born as the maverick filmmaker looks through a strip of 35mm film. For our new video, Cry Me A River, we are in Greenwich Village November 5, 1962. This experience is about the beginning of her life in front of the spotlight. At the start of the song I Had Myself A True Love, also on the new record, Barbra quietly muses, “Am I out of the spotlight? I’ll never be out of the spotlight…”


We based every element on extensive research and interviews. It all starts with Barbra’s longstanding music producer, Jay Landers. His initial email about the proposed music video was so vivid and descriptive it became a touchstone; the completed video contains many of those images as he imagined. It’s all about those aforementioned details and I had a blast researching this particularly stunning time in our culture. To imagine that world now and the sense of play and discovery that started after midnight is so dreamy. The musicians and poets; Broadway shows; Jazz; President Kennedy in the White House; folksinger Bob Dylan just playing Carnegie Hall ... and this 20-year-old girl singer from Brooklyn was blowing people’s minds in subterranean nightclubs. 


Barbra Streisand - Live At The Bon Soir is amazing! The remastering makes the experience shockingly fresh. To reflect that immediacy in the filming of it, we utilized some beautiful vintage lenses and studied Bob Fosse’s movie, Lenny. The photographs of the evening by photographer Don Hunstein set the tone for the lighting. The singing and musicianship on the record are thrilling. We recruited real jazz musicians who resembled the original musicians and magically they all fell into place. 


I had a hunch my friend Kristin could represent the 20-year-old Barbra. Kristin is an artist who finds beauty in objects from the past; she’s a renowned mudlarker! I felt there was something in her artistic temperament that would connect with the young Barbra who scoured thrift stores, forging her own style. Kristin didn’t know much about Barbra; she’s never seen one of her movies. I think that was good. She only studied the teen-aged Barbra who was a nightclub regular and just starting out in theater. After listening to and watching Barbra's early recordings and TV appearances, Kristin rightly intuited, “her whole body is an instrument.” Bill Eppridge’s book of photos, Becoming Barbra, was a good reference for us. Also a book called, The Enigma Of The Owl. Kristin studied pictures of owls, the gestures of their wingspan, to inspire her movement. 


I reached out to the original engineer, the legendary Roy Halee, to make sure all the recording equipment we filmed was exactly right. A phone call with an eyewitness, Eliot Hubbard, made things all the more real for me. He attended the Bon Soir to see Barbra fifteen nights in a row! He remembers everything; he kept a diary. Eliot’s life is worthy of a documentary. A few years after the Bon Soir, he founded the infamous NYC cabaret, Reno Sweeney. And, Matt Howe’s encyclopedic website Barbra Archives proved an invaluable visual guide for every department of this production.


I loved everything about this experience. It's an honor to work with music of such historical and musical value. Barbra continues to give the world so much joy. I hope this music video brings some joy back to her.

 

— Matt Amato, October 2022



NOTE: In 2023, The Bon Soir video won a Telly Award [Gold Winner: Craft — Non-Broadcast]

Recreation of Streisand's invitation to the taping of these live shows.

“Cry Me A River” Video Credits:

 

Director + Editor: Matt Amato 

Producer: Dan Gartner 

Cinematographer: Tyler Hawthorne 

1st AC: Aaron Landgraf 

Visual Effects Artist: Norris Houk 

Graphic Designer: Natalie Erdelt 

Art Director: Sean Gartner 

Art Assist: Bill Parmentier 

Art PA: Anthony Jones 

Wardrobe: Olivia Jondle + Jen Otto 

Hair: Jacob Harmon + Gwen Meyer 

Makeup: Brandi Iverson 

Production Assist: Sydney Tischler 

Sound Mix: Jochem Van Der Saag 

Songwriter: Arthur Hamilton 

Archival: Getty Images 

Performance Photos: Dan Hunstein 

Product Manager: Chris Poppe 


Featuring: 


Kristin Cassidy, Teddy Brookins, Vince Martin, Albert Patino, Pete Ruthenburg, Al + Bea Amato, Rachel Bailey, Adam Flores, Frances Garren, Alison Moser, Aaron + Brianna Owens, Darian Wigfall, John Wolbers 


Special Thanks: 


Jay Landers

Kim Skalecki 

Matt Howe 

Roy Halee 

Eliot Hubbard 

Katie Panicali 

Jessica Guard 

Sarah Sieminski 

Stan Jones 

David Black 

William Roth 

Amy Paige

David Beeman 

Steve Higdon 

Jackson Pianos 

The Gaslight Theater

 +

 Marty Erlichman


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Kristin Cassidy as Barbra Streisand in the music video for Cry Me A River
Telly Awards thumbnail, 2023

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