Charli XCX Taps Vincent Cassel for Cinematic ‘Camera’ Music Video

The great French actor Vincent Cassel grumbles through a brutal day on set in the new music video for Charli XCX’s “Camera.” 

Directed by Charli’s frequent visual collaborator Aidan Zamiri, the clip follows Cassel as he tries to film a climactic desert shootout scene on a set where things keep going horribly wrong. During the first take, his squib fails to go off, and while it explodes in a gush of fake blood on the second, the take is ruined by the sparks of an overheated light. 

While Cassel is the “Camera” video’s primary focus, Charli does appear a few times, ostensibly as the movie’s director, riding the camera as it moves across a dolly track. Adding to the cinematic nature of the clip, the whole thing is, as they say in the biz, a “one-er” — a single, continuous shot with no cuts. 

“Camera” is the latest offering from Charli XCX’s upcoming album, Music, Fashion, Film, which is slated to arrive this Friday, July 24. It follows previously released tracks “Rock Music,” “SS26,” and “Wink Wink.” Charli made Music, Fashion, Film with her longtime producer A.G. Cook, as well as another frequent collaborator, Finn Keane. 

In a recent Rolling Stone cover story, Charli pushed back against the notion that Music, Fashion, Film was supposed to be a “rock album,” a perception spurred largely by the lead single. “Obviously, I know that there’s been a lot of conversation around me making a rock album, which is something that I never said,” she said. “But to be honest, I’ve never thought about genre in a binary way. I find that to be a very old-school notion. I don’t even know what the genre is. It’s just me and A. G. Cook and Finn Keane, doing our thing.” 

Following the release of Music, Fashion, Film, Charli will play a handful of festivals, including Lollapalooza and Outside Lands. She’ll kick off a North American tour in support of the record on Sept. 11 in Philadelphia, with the run wrapping Oct. 23 in Las Vegas.