Music Video Analysis ofLANA DEL REY-‘BORN

TO DIE’

By Kabita Nepali

LANA DEL REY: BORN TO DIE “Born to die” is recorded by Lana Del Rey, who is an Singer songwriter from the US. It was released in December 30, 2011 through Interscope records. The song is about Doomed relationships. In the UK, ‘Born to Die’ peaked at No. 9 for the week ending February 4, 2012. The music video is directed by Yoann Lemoine (a.k.a. Woodkid).The video has over 120 million views on YouTube.

The concept of the Music video was made by Lana Del Rey, She named it “The Lonely Queen”.

The story follows Lana Del Rey, Who runs off with her boyfriend. As they go on a journey, we can see their highs and lows. They have a certain relationship where its bad but they can’t get out of it.

The first scene in the music video, we see is this mid shot of the two couple hugging, the women represented by the artist, is looking at the camera where as the man has his eyes closed. By having this as the first scene of the music video, this makes us think that this video is going to be about their relationship, probably how close they are. By having the women open her eyes where as the man doesn’t while holding each other, this shows that they may be different then one another also, the way the man is the only one that has tattoos. This tells me that these characters are going to be quite different from each other but, still may love one another and that’s what the music video would be about.

When the song finally starts, we are then finally introduced to the main character, this is the first scene we see of her.In this scene it’s a long shot showing us where the singer is. She looks like she is sitting on the throne alone in a castle, with two tigers beside her. This connotates that she may be lonely and all she has with her are these two tigers.The mise-en-scene in this scene help us think that she is a queen that is by herself. I think this because if there was another chair or a king, we would interoperate the video differently then we are now. Also, the camera movement to this scene was very smooth, it started from the design of the ceiling then slowly panned down to her where she started singing.

In this scene, we see the male character and the female character have met up. The female character had a bag in her hands while she met this man, this tells me that she must have taken her belongings with her, also by showing the car in this frames it tells me that the car must have a significant role in this music video, and if I link these two together it would mean that the female character is taking her bag with her so she can run away wit h this guy. This is shot in a long shot to show the three main points in this scene; the car, the women and the man.The lighting of this scene is quite dark, the left where the women is coming from is lighter then the lighting in the right-side where the car is but, the most of the lighting is in the middle where the two characters are, this tells me that these two characters may go on a journey where they may not be that happy as they are now.

In this scene, we can see a close up of the main character on her throne singing the song, this tells me that now she is kind of narrating the story on her throne like she is reminiscing the past.By having a close up of her, I can see that she looks sad and lonely. I can also see that she is wearing a white dress and a flower crown, this connotates to me that she may be dead and has gone to heaven and that’s where she is now telling her story. This would make sense because the way these scenes with her on the throne is shot very calmly whereas, the other scenes of her past are quite fast and lively.There are also differences in the lighting because all these scenes of her on the thrones are light compared to the scenes of her with the guy, meaning that those memories are not good ones, something she may not like.

This scene is a close up shot of the couple, they are inside the car and after the hug and show affection , she is staring at him, as if wondering if she is making the right choice. The lyrics in this scene are “sometimes love is not enough..” This tells me that she is thinking if she can do this or not and she is kind of having an argument with her self, asking herself if the love for him would be enough to keep herself happy or not.The lighting in this scene is quite dark like but light on their faces so we can see their facial expressions as well as guess what they are doing right now.

This is a close up mid shot of her face . In this scene she is singing “choose your last words, this is the last time. This tells me that something will happen that will make these two couples split up and show us how she ended up where she is now.By having close up of her faces a lot when she is singing, this tells us that they want us to focus more on her in these scenes then on the other ones, meaning in this scenes she is telling us something important and in the other scenes she is showing us it.

In this scene, we can see that the man is forcefully holding her throat and she looks like she can not move at all. This tells me that their relationship must have been bad for her and suffocating. Like the scene where she is on her throne, we can see that she is wearing a white dress with flowers near her, which is different to the other scenes where she wore casual quite dark clothing. This must mean that the scenes must be near, which tells us how she ended up by herself.

In this close up scene of her, we can see they are back in the car where she is looking out the window, probably thinking about her relationship, also her expression makes it look like she wants to get out of it but she can’t because she made a decision to be there.The lighting is quite dark yet visible enough to know they are on the road and visible enough for us to see her face.

This is along shot of her being forced to kiss the male character. The lighting is quite low in this one except the one light behind them which lets us visibly see the way she is being treated. This scene to me shows that she is being forced by her love to stay their but, she doesn’t want to at all.The editing through these scenes are quite smooth and it really highlights the way the story moves.The lyrics in this scene was “we were born to die”. This indicates to me that since they are in a car, they might be going straight to an end of their relationship somehow.

In this scene, it’s a establishing shot of her opening up a big door.I think this scene represents Heaven because we see her walk up to the door like she looks relieved and happier to see that door there.When she opens the door the lighting is very bright which is contrast to the lighting they had been using previously through the scenes, it helps us understand that she may be going to heaven because we think of heaven as a peaceful, bright place.

We get an immediate jump cut to this long shot scene of the main character dying in the hands of the male character, when she repeats the “die” from the chorus “ we were born to die”, through this scene she keeps repeating it at the back faintly with the strong instrumental from the beginning of the song also her voice slowly fades out. This indicates that she has come to the end of the song indicating how this is the end.The fire in the back shows that the car had crashed and the blood on the female shows she was the only one that died.The music video ends in the way it begins. This tells me that she wants us to understand that this is some type of an never-ending relationship that goes in a circle, like it begins the same way and ends the same way.