The music video for Duran Duran’s The Chauffeur, directed by Ian Emes and released in 1982, is one of the band’s most iconic and sophisticated visual works, a far cry from the standard pop music videos of the time. Entirely in black and white, the video is openly inspired by the erotic and decadent aesthetic of Liliana Cavani’s film Il portiere di notte (The Night Porter), particularly in its atmosphere charged with sexual tension, references to fetishism, and allusions to the eroticism of power. The most famous scene is the topless performance by Perri Lister, a dancer and then-partner of Billy Idol, who performs a slow, sensual dance with another woman, both dressed in fetish style. This scene caused a stir for its audacity and was actually censored in some versions broadcast on TV, where the topless scene was cut or obscured. The video remains an example of how 1980s pop culture could flirt with visual art and arthouse cinema, blending music, eroticism, and cinematic references in a provocative and stylized way.
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