The Work of Director Anton Corbijn

Starring: Depeche Mode, U2, Echo & the Bunnymen, Nirvana, Metallica

Director: Anton Corbijn

The videos: Even among the latest generation of video directors, all with their own prestige and idiosyncrasies, Anton Corbijn stands out. Spike Jonze might have made a successful leap from three-minute snippets to award-winning feature films, and Chris Cunningham might be challenging society's tolerance of the bizarre and grotesque with every new video, but neither could claim to have endowed a mystical aura and an easily identifiable identity on rock bands.

That will be Corbijn's legacy. For some of his most regular clients, he's a myth-maker more than a note-taker, as the Dutchman applies his grainy, sepia-tinged vision to transform synth-pop boffins and stadium rockers. That's what happened for Depeche Mode and U2, two of the major beneficiaries of Corbijn's vision and influential to the point that Bono described the director - who shot the photos in the California desert that graced the cover of The Joshua Tree (below) - as 'the fifth member of U2'.

Corbijn's accomplished work for both bands are showcased on this latest instalment from the Directors Label series, which celebrates the brains behind the visuals that defined classic moments in contemporary pop music. The video for Depeche Mode's Enjoy the Silence features singer David Gahan in robe and gown, with a deckchair in hand, walking across grassy hills and snow-capped ravines, enhancing the gothic gloom that permeates the band's icy electronica.

Corbijn's treatment of U2's One - using two cars, with a man and a woman painted on them, travelling around Berlin's desolate streets - brought out the multiple meanings Bono intended for the track: a relationship between a man and a woman, East and West Germany, or Bono and his father (who was cast in the video, and complained, half-seriously, that he wasn't paid for his part).