Gondry is often cited, along with directors
Spike Jonze, David Fincher, and
Marcus Nispel, as representative of the influx of music video directors into feature film. Gondry made his feature film debut in
2001 with
Human Nature, garnering mixed reviews. His second film,
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (also his second collaboration with
screenwriter Charlie Kaufman), was released in
2004 and received many rave reviews.
Eternal Sunshine utilizes many of the image manipulation techniques that Gondry had experimented with in his music videos. Gondry won an
Academy Award alongside Kaufman and
Pierre Bismuth for the story of
Eternal Sunshine. The style of Gondry's music videos often relies on videography and camera tricks which play with frames of reference.
Gondry also directed the musical documentary
Dave Chappelle's Block Party (
2006) which followed comedian
Dave Chappelle as he attempted to hold a large, free concert in the
Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of
Brooklyn. His following film,
The Science of Sleep, hit theaters in September, 2006. This film stars Mexican actor
Gael García Bernal, and marked a return to the fantastical, surreal techniques he employed in
Eternal Sunshine.
According to the
2004 edition of the
Guinness Book of World Records, Michel Gondry's
Levi's 501 Jeans "Drugstore" spot holds the record for "Most awards won by a TV commercial".
In September 2006, Gondry made his debut as an installation artist at Deitch Projects in New York's SoHo gallery district. The show, called "The Science of Sleep: An Exhibition of Sculpture and Pathological Creepy Little Gifts" featured props from his film,
The Science of Sleep, as well as film clips and a selection of gifts that the artist had given to women he was interested in, many of them former or current collaborators, Karen Baird, Kishu Chand, Dorothy Barrick and Lauri Faggioni. (see
http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/reviews/davis/davis9-20-06.asp) A leitmotif of the film is a 'Disastrology' calendar, Gondry commissioned the painter Baptiste Ibar
http://www.baptisteibar.com to draw harrowing images of natural and human disasters.
His brother Olivier 'Twist' Gondry is also a television commercial and music video director creating videos for bands such as
The Stills, Hot Hot Heat and
The Vines (see
http://www.methodstudios.com/moy64).
Gondry was an Artist in Residence at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2005 and 2006. He most recently directed the music video for the Paul McCartney song "
Dance Tonight", in which Gondry makes a
cameo appearance.