Karen O & Barnaby Clay Reveal Their First-Date Movie in Criterion’s Closet

Karen O and Barnaby Clay Turn Closet Picks Into Date-Night Lore

The creative gruesome twosome, Karen O and hubby, director Barnaby Clay, have entered the zone of Criterion’s “Closet Picks.” And naturally, a simple trip through more than a thousand films turns into part movie-school confession, part relationship archaeology and part preview of the cinematic world they’ve been building together.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman and Clay — the filmmaker behind the band’s new concert short YEAH YEAH YEAHS: HIDDEN IN PIECES — pull titles tied to music, memory and the movies that helped shape them. It’s not just “here are some films we like.” They spill on Miles Davis’s score for Louis Malle’s Elevator to the Gallows, the movie they saw on their first date and their eye-eye adoration of David Lynch.

The first-date reveal is especially perfect for these two: Hiroshi Teshigahara’s 1964 Woman in the Dunes, the surreal existential drama adapted from Kōbō Abe’s novel. Criterion itself highlights the story in its introduction to their Closet Picks, and Barnaby’s love for the film goes back years — he previously placed it at the very top of his Criterion favorites.

Then there’s Elevator to the Gallows. Miles Davis improvised its famously nocturnal score while watching scenes from Louis Malle’s 1958 film, and Karen and Barnaby zero in on the marriage of image and sound — which makes complete sense coming from a singer whose career has always been intensely visual and a director who has spent years making music move on screen.

That conversation slides naturally toward David Lynch, because Lynch is not just another shared favorite here. His spirit hangs directly over Hidden in Pieces, Barnaby’s black-and-white Yeah Yeah Yeahs concert film now streaming on the Criterion Channel. Criterion describes the short as dedicated to Lynch and built around a spectral performance filmed at Los Angeles’s historic Orpheum Theatre, where the venue itself becomes part of the atmosphere.

Hidden in Pieces runs just over 21 minutes and catches Yeah Yeah Yeahs in a completely different register from the band’s usual art-punk detonation. The film folds dreamlike interludes into reworked live performances, culminating in an introspective “Maps.” Its companion release, Hidden in Pieces Live at the Royal Albert Hall, pulls from the band’s 25-year catalog with strings, piano and double bass reshaping songs from across their run.

So the Closet Picks stop lands at an oddly perfect moment. Karen and Barnaby aren’t simply listing influences after the fact; they’re showing the film language, scores and strange little personal memories that are still feeding the work they make now. First-date cinema becoming part of the creative family mythology? We dig it.

Images: The Criterion Collection / Closet Picks.

Now dig out Karen O and Barnaby Clay as they enter the Criterion Closet and start pulling at the threads between their favorite films, their first date and Hidden in Pieces.

Karen O & Barnaby Clay Share Their Criterion Closet Picks

Criterion’s Closet Picks episode finds the singer-songwriter and director talking Elevator to the Gallows, Woman in the Dunes, David Lynch and their new Yeah Yeah Yeahs concert film.

Source: The Criterion Collection; The Criterion Channel; Yeah Yeah Yeahs.