Narrative - Marry the night is a non linear narrative mainly following the story of lady gagas life before she became famous. the beggining is confusing and has many fans in discussion on what it could possibly alluding to but the main things fans tend to aim towards is either abortion or sex change or possibly an overdose/suicide attempt. We begin with lady gaga being wheeled through a corridor with on a hospital bed by two nurse She is reading a narrative over the top of the beggining until she is later conscious once she is in the ''ward''. The narrative she reads is often confusing seeming to be part of the music video itself but also seeming to be a commentary over the top because she briefly talks about her shoes and the nurses gauze caps as though analysing and commentating over her own video. Conspiracy theorists have jumped on this part of the film (as they tend to do with pop music and videos) stating that she is percieving her own version of reality because she has been subject to trauma based mind control forcing her brains natural reaction to shy away from a harsh cold world to take her to a perfect world as she sees fit. after she is wheeled into the ward she is moved into a different bed and a nurse breifly talks to her about her birth and checks her vital signs before gaga begins to cry and say that she is going to be a star and that she will make it because she has nothing left to lose. after this the camera zooms out from gaga and then cuts to gaga alone performing ballet to a piano piece, this is juxtaposed with the scene where the Real Story of marry the night kicks in where gaga is taken to her very first studio appartment that she lived in at the age of 19 where she would often do drugs and dress up like david bowie and sing along to his songs in the mirror. The story behind this part of the video is that she was dropped from her very first record label before she was given a chance to create anything and feeling devastated after working her entire life to have her dreams snatched away in an instant she fell apart and went crazy. the juxtaposition and cuts between this scene and the ballet dancers Show her in two different realities, the real world and the one in her head. in interviews gaga has stated that this part of the video was filmed continuously for about 30 minutes and obviously had to be cut down for time reasons, she has said that she tried to recreate everything exactly as she remembered it. after her panic and freak out is over we cut to gaga in the bath bleaching her brown hair blonde ready to pick herself up and throw herself back out into the world. we then cut to gaga leaning in a trans am car before she plays her song marry the night on the tape player. the trans am is symbolic of one of her first boyfriends and love who was obsessed with power cars such as trans ams. Gaga then proceeds to a dance studio where she performs some choreography symbolising her learning her way into the pop world and then cutting back and forth between multiple different shots of her in the rain with the burning cars and her naked leaning out of the bath still in the appartment. these could be used to symbolize gaga percieveing multiple different realities at once. the end of the video has very fast cuts between several shots showing the many ups and downs of her preperations for entering the pop world and the final shot shows her entering a car with a reminder for an interview on her hand with a record label. Marrying the night has been Symbolised as devoting yourself to the dark shadows hidden in plain sight who control and pull the strings of the entertainment industry (often called the Illuminati) or as in devoting yourself truly to every part of you even your dark side and throwing yourself into your work and re inventing your life instead of giving up and just throwing your life away.
Camera shots - The video starts with an extreme closeup of Gagas face while she is narrating over the top. This could represent that this narration could be an inner monologue and all in her head while she is unconcsious. The camera tracks after the camera zooms out from her face and follows the bed and nurses through the corridor into the ''ward''. when gaga is conscious in the bed it mainly focuses on closeups to show the expressions on gagas face and the anguish when she begins to cry. there is also a long shot here to help establish the scene and the other character ''the nurse''. when the nurses plays the music for gaga and she puts her gauze cap on and lies back the camera zooms out from lady gaga showing the rest of the ''psycho ward'' showing the rest of the ''lobotomized girls'' and the general scene in itself. the Scene where gaga answers the phone and is told that she has been dropped from her label there are a few extreme closeups and from then on frequent closeups of her freaking out but in the ballerina scene that is often cut back and forth from there is a lot of mid to long shots showing gaga on the floor having fallen down looking up at the other ballerinas who still stand, this is very symbolic of the way that she has been knocked down in an instant while the others continue to stay tall, the camera is often aimed low at these points to further emphasize the point of belittling her position. During the choreographed Scenes gaga is often placed to the right of the centre de emphasizing the point of her being the main focus, but there are cuts to closeups of gaga alone to show that she is still a main focus point and the camera is often angled in ways to make it look as though gaga is directly in the middle of the group and middle of shot. the ending of the video would require you to pause quickly to analyse each shot as it is edited so fast with the time of the music that it is really annoying to analyse but each shot is synonymous with the previous ones in the video, gaga is placed in the center for the most part and they are usually mid to close up shots.
Mise en Scene -Marry the night is a very deep and complex music video with a lot of symbolism and layers to each scene. While to most people seeming to be just a random mish mosh of crap just thrown together the video is very cleverly and carefully assembled to create the biggest social impact that it can. The truth is no one but gaga herself can really understand fully the depth of symbolism and allusion within the video, leaving a lot to be explained creates a great amount of controversy and allows the audience to create their own perceptions and readings of the song and video. I will explain my personal opinion on what i think the video and symbolism mean. The beggining of the video is has a very hospital style of colour scheme with whites and dull greens and greys. and very dark and plain colours in the corridors where she is being wheeled through. this is to reflect the hospital scene in the beginning which could possible be alluding to lots of things such as suicide or trauma based mind control. personally i believe that the deep running themes of illuminati and free masonic symbolism are purposefully used to create a stir and gain attention. The Scenes with the ballerinas could possibly be analysed to show the ''true art'' juxtaposed with with gagas freak out scene to show her personality Fracturing and changing. The Ballerina is in her head and the scene ends with her topless and crying showing that both of her worlds are tearing apart. The scene where gaga has been re invented as her blonde alter ego dressed in old denim with lots of patches looking up at those who stare down at her with cold emotionless faces could symbolize gagas uncaring attitude to those higher up than her as in a show of her impious feelings towards them as she shows almost no emotion as though she is not bothered that they stare down at her and judge. in the choreography scene a dancer is shown falling to the ground, this dancer is one of gagas oldest friends and the scene where she picks her up and hugs her is symbolic of the bonds she has made and respect and her very down to earth approach where she leaves no one behind at the cost of fame.
Target audience -Younger audience and fan base (13 - 20+) as is the usual with many pop videos. The symbolism and deep layers and meanings of the things in the mise en scene could have been placed intentionally to lure in conspiracy theorists or as they would say to brainwash the youth of today and create a race of zombie puppets easily tractable or malleable.
Editing -the editing in marry the night as at times very slow and as invisible as in film but in certain parts the editing becomes very fast to accentuate the video and song such as the part where She is going crazy in her appartment and then again at the end of the song in a climax of multiple scenes cut multiple times to all cumulate into a climax at the end. most of the time the editing is cut in time with the music. towards the end before the very fast cuts you can see the pace increase gradually until the climax. There is a small amount of french text placed over the scene where gaga is speaking on the phone in a subtitle way. This Confused me at first because the Speaking is so quiet and the text is so bold and brightly coloured and has been subtitled in an opposite way. Luckily i can speak french so i understood this but im guessing people will have to listen well to understand fully what she is saying. there are barely any effects used in the video, there are almost no special transitions, all scenes are just cut together apart from when the dome transforms into the moon in the night sky before the music starts and the only particular effect i can see is when gaga is performing as the lone ballerina there are little ''fairies flying around her at parts'' and in the very end scene it is tinted red with the flames added in with the creepy echoey music to create a creepy dark effect.
Music video style - narrative/concept based. i think the mixture of narrative concept based works extremely well for the video, the song itself is about gagas life and the video itself compliments this but it relies very little on the lyrics and is based more off of actual events that have happened in gagas life. this helps to create a video style that is narrative but in an interesting more artistic way straying away from lyrical to visual representation and allowing gaga to portray her story in the way that she intended.
No comments:
Post a Comment