PJ Harvey - Good Fortune

2000

PJ Harvey - Good Fortune (2000) Director: Sophie Muller Era: Post-Grunge Alt-Rock / Y2K Indie (2000) - Peak of PJ Harvey's commercial-critical crossover era, coinciding with the release of 'Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea', an album steeped in New York romanticism but filmed in nocturnal London. High. 'Good Fortune' is a distilled, technically precise document of both PJ Harvey at a career crossroads and Sophie Muller's atmospheric realist method at its most stripped-back. The video's combination of high saturation, warm nocturnal colour temperature, handheld immediacy, and a single uninterrupted urban location makes it an unusually pure specimen of early-2000s British alternative rock visual culture, with strong cross-applicability to research in gender, urbanism, and music video craft. Context: Released in November 2000, 'Good Fortune' arrived at a pivotal moment in PJ Harvey's career: the transition from the confrontational, critically admired art-rock of her early catalogue toward a more expansive, melodic sound shaped by time spent in New York. The video, however, is decisively British, shot on the nocturnal streets of London, it grounds the New York romanticism of the album's lyrical themes in the gritty familiarity of the UK urban experience. The single peaked at number 41 in the UK and received widespread critical acclaim, with reviewers drawing comparisons to Chrissie Hynde and Patti Smith. The video's raw, unmediated quality, a lone woman commanding public space at night with confidence and physicality, carries implicit cultural weight around female autonomy and rock iconography in a moment otherwise dominated by polished pop spectacle. Director notes: Muller directed the 'Good Fortune' video in 2000 for Island Records / Universal. The concept places PJ Harvey on a single continuous nocturnal route through the streets of London, with Harvey walking and running and ending by entering a kebab takeaway. The shoot lasted approximately six hours, with Harvey repeating the same route across multiple takes while improvising her movement and behaviour each time. The camera operator filmed while walking backwards, guided by assistants, and the lighting crew had to react dynamically to Harvey's unscripted movement. Muller later directed two further PJ Harvey videos: 'A Place Called Home' and 'This Is Love'. The BFI has catalogued this video as a Performance Music Video, © Universal-Island Records Ltd, 2000.