Look I’m a little monster, paws up I admit it!
However I am going to try and give a completely unbiased review on the ‘Marry the Night’ video by the (wait for it…..) saviour of music…..Lady Gaga!
As we all know Gaga has always been creative director along with her infamous ‘Haus’ over all her projects, but with this video it marks her first credited, directorship role.
Coming in at 13.48, her longest yet, one feels after watching this that any involvement from a third party would be unnecessary, this is an artist in touch with her audience who knows better than anyone else her own story and how to put it across.
The tale is autobiographical about her time spent training at the Sacred Heart and her personal struggle to get to the top with some of it even filmed at Hearts. It begins with her in a ward being wheeled on a stretcher, perhaps giving the critics what they’ve wanted all along, her to lose her marbles entirely ‘a la Spears circa head shaving era’. Or it could be about when she took an overdose back in her struggling artiste days, living a life of glamour, decadence and a devotion to her craft.
As always with art the video is open to your own interpretation, something Stefani herself would vouch for.
She monologues the start of the first section with brilliant pop art ‘Gagaisms’ and fashion references, as always walking that thin line between hilarious and serious that only she can pull off with such finesse.
Remember the line ‘you gotta kill a cow if you want to make a burger’ in the Telephone video? Well the new one has to be ‘I’d lost everything, but I still had my bedazzler’ in a scene where she is kicked out of the Tisch School of performing arts for doing drugs and generally being an incredible liability.
A friend of mine recently said ‘but she’s so self-indulgent’ well quite, but surely that’s the point, she’s the ultimate ‘try hard’ without ever being anything but the pinnacle of herself and with her sending herself up screaming ‘I’m a star’ in the video you know she gets it as well.
There is even a scene in the prelude that shows her receiving the call from Island Def Jam (her first label) telling her she’d been dropped with the set being a near replica of her old apartment.
You see her naked spitting out cereal everywhere and bleaching her hair blonde in a bathtub all whilst French subtitles roll across the screen, pretentious and bonkers obviously, but also completely brilliant! Calculated artistic madness at its best.
There is a ballet segue-way which is filmed using a special lens used for filming architecture, that the lady herself is currently obsessed with, which gives off a grotesque desperation inherent to our media obsessed culture.
The next notable scene after ‘G’ greets us with her derrière hanging out of a car surrounded by fire is when she is in dance class, this looks like a scene from Centre Stage filmed at Broadway Dance Centre. Monsters will recognise the ballerina in this scene as G’s first backing dancer in the LA promo club days, they even recreate the infamous elbow on stage! (Fan boy Fun!!!)
Gaga has referred to herself as the ‘broken duck amongst swans’ in dance class, now however, after 4 years in the spotlight, she more than holds her own against her peers. Whilst always a talented vocalist/musician/songwriter and artist, dance was never Stefanis forte, which she has readily admitted herself. However with perseverance, dedication and a natural talent she (after Beyonce) is a frontrunner in female pop artiste dance moves as standard (a feat Madonna, Kylie and Christina never acheived and one in which Britney based an entire career around and has subsequently lost.)
Case in point, the ballet scene which is reminiscent of Black Swan where she gives good back bend that even Darcy Bussell would be proud of. Cynics would say this is from her privileged upbringing of years of dance. They would be wrong, more time was spent researching Tchaikovsky in Gagas youth than dance and this latest level of talent is from sheer hard work with her days off spent being a devout Bikram Yogi a yoga practice so hardcore even Madge would choose to shun, and instead spend her time practicing her faux English accent in a corner marked ‘queen of pop no more’!
The video ends with a very poppy glorious dance routine NY finish ‘a la MJ’; with a Gaga twist that somehow recalls her Lovegame video.
Truly the video of 2011 from the artist of our generation.
That wasn’t biased right?
Reviewer: Darren James
