Deconstruction 2 (Lana Del Rey - Born To Die)

Style:

“Born To Die” is a pop/sadcore song by Lana Del Rey. The music video for it is directed by Yoann Lemoine who is known for working with Katy Perry, Taylor Swift and other pop stars. I chose this video as it gave me a chance to analyse a music video that had a plot to it. The song has its own feel to it. In a way it’s a sad song that makes you feel good. The music video tells a story, like short movie, that’s the reason behind me ticking classical. The short story shows a Lana Del Rey’s unstable relationship with another man which leads to her death although it is dark, it still counts as romantic. During certain parts of the music video Lana Del Rey is shown sitting on a throne lip-syncing to the song, which is why I ticked performance.

Purpose:


The purpose of the video is to promote Lana Del Rey’s album “Born To Die” as well as to gain more popularity by breaking into mainstream music. “Born To Die” is Lana Del Rey’s second album, she wasn’t as popular when she released the first and her record label was unable to fund her first album. Lana Del Rey’s “Born To Die” album was her second album but her first major label debut studio album, as she had signed to a major label, she had become a lot more mainstream. “Born To Die” is the name of the album as well as this song, which means that it would be logical to release it as a single, doing so would help boost album sales. “Born To Die” is the second single from the album, the first being “Video Games”. “Video Games” was originally on her EP “Lana Del Rey”, after gaining positive reactions from both critics and the public, she decided to release it as a single from Lana Del Rey’s debut album.

Lyrics:

The lyrics aren’t very complex in the song, all of them expressing her love for her lover in a depressing way. The lyrics also refer to drug use quite heavily for mainstream pop song.

Meaning: 
 



“Born To Die” tells a story, the music video helps visualise it a lot better. The plot consists of a unstable couple who are deeply in love. After meeting up they do drugs and go for a car ride and crash, in which it is implied that Lana Del Rey dies and her lover is carrying her away from the burning wreckage. Throughout the video the singer is shown in bed with her lovers’ hand around her neck, this may imply he is the result of her wanting to die. The video also contains scenes in which Lana Del Rey is sitting on a throne with tigers sitting beside her. This probably represents the relationship in the music video, with it looking beautiful on the outside but dangerous on the inside. Tigers are known as beautiful animals however they’re extremely dangerous, the fact that she is sitting on the throne could reflect her situation in the relationship, with her being stuck there (being represented by her only being on the throne and unable to leave because of the tigers). The throne could represent her feeling of power while being involved by the relationship, she may feel that her lover treats her like a queen.

Generic Conventions:


For a pop song, there is nothing generic in this song or video except for the romance which is only slightly generic. The video is going against almost every convention in a pop song. Usually pop songs show the artist being innocent and happy and occasionally talking about their problems, for example Taylor Swift’s “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”, in which she is shown being happy she isn’t going to get back with her boyfriend, she is expressing her problems to the public and she is shown in an innocent way, she is not shown cheating, smoking, drinking or anything that would ruin her “teenage” appearance. However this video shows Lana Del Rey smoking marijuana, being depressed and dying which is very rare for a pop music video. The romance is unique in its own right throughout this video as most relationships aren’t shown to be unstable in pop songs, they are usually over or always shown to be a perfect relationship. The only music video I feel is close to this one in terms of the conventions is Justin Timberlake’s “What Goes Around” which shows cheating in a relationship, an unstable relationship and a death. Other than “What Goes Around”, there isn’t another music video that is similar to it 

Camera Shots/Movements:




Long-shot, mid-shot, extreme long-shot, medium close-up, close up, two-shot. The camera always seems like it is panning really slightly giving the music video a movie feel to it, it also pans occasionally to show the scenery of that location. There is one tracking shot, a side shot of the car just before a crash at the end of the music video.

Lighting:

The lighting in the video is artificial for most of the video, I’m not sure if they used any natural lighting as the shots in which the singer is in the church is quite bright and looks like it could be natural lighting.

Editing:

The video contains fast straight-cuts for the whole of the music video.

Effects:

The only effect is the first shot in which Lana and her lover are hugging in front of the American flag, it was originally a still image however it has been made to look like it is a video. 

Miming/Lip-Sync:

Lana Del Rey does lip-sync a lot of the song during the music video. This is used as the song and video are too serious and dark to be miming to in a happy manner. The fact that the music video is portrayed like a short film also means that there are less opportunities to have subtle miming throughout the video