Lana Del Ray - Born To Die Analysis

Lana Del Ray is an American artist mostly known for the song we will be analysing today, Born To Die. The single was released onto iTunes on 30th December 2011 and I would say the genre she best fits into would be Indie/Pop. The music  video fits into this genre and sticks to many of the conventions found in Indie/Pop music for example the use of a background narrative throughout and the lip syncing, empowerment and the carefree lifestyle being shown from the artist are all very much typical genre characteristics. The video itself is directed by Yoann Lemoine who is a French music director, graphic designer and musician and has directed many other famous pop videos such as Katy Perry - Teenage Dream and Drake ft Rihanna - Take Care. This was Lana's most expensive music video with most of the shoot taking place in Palace of Fontainebleau, France but it was worth it as the video was a huge hit, getting over 100 million views on YouTube. 

The first time we see any relationship between the lyrics and video is at 00:34 when Lana says 'oh my heart it breaks' and she touches where her heart would be showing us as an audience that this is going to be an important theme in the video/song because it is her first movement whilst sat on her throne. We see another connection again as the video continues and shows the couple kissing on the car. Lana then says the line 'I feel so alone' and as she does the camera goes back to her on her own in the palace, almost the same shot we saw before. This is again used to emphasis this line and foreshadows what will happen later in the video. I think in this video there is a huge relationship between lyrics and visuals as most of the things she sings about then appear to have some relevance in the video. 

As the song is quite a slow paced, ballad style song, the visuals go with this as most of the things they do seem to be quite slow. By this I don't necessarily mean they are in slow motion but they appear to not be in much rush! There are also throughout the video lots of shots of the artist as she also plays the girl in the narrative so she is constantly on camera. As this is one of her first videos she would have been fairly new to the music scene and for this reason the record label would want to promote her as much as possible. Throughout the narrative they keep flicking back to a close up of Lana's face when she's in the palace to again show she is the artist through her lip syncing and to further promote her music. 

In the video there is lots of references to the notion of looking for example at many times during the video you see the man/boyfriend watching Lana and making some kind of death related symbol ie. drawing a line across his neck. This could foreshadow what is to come and gives the impression he has more dominance and power within the relationship. Similarly there also seems to be looking from Lana but hers is mostly into the distance as if in thought, a good example of this is as she is looking out of the window at 2:24.