Music Video Research 7 - Young and Beautiful

Artist: Lana Del Rey
Track: Young and Beautiful
Director: Sophie Muller

Camera/Editing/Visual Style/Mise-en-scene
The music video has no clear mise-en-scene however the music video constantly cuts between Close Ups of Lana Del Rey and Long Shots of an orchestra conducting presumably the track. The camera cuts between these seem to be based upon the tempo and the beat of the song. As the chorus begins the camera will shoot to the orchestra and will then revert back to the Close Ups of Lana Del Rey singing. The footage of the video has fuzzy and dark effects with often coloured spots to give a vintage and sombre feel to the music video.  The colours range from light and dark however the colours are predominantly dull. The only really interesting shot is when we see a Long Shot of a woman's figure with her back to the camera with a single spot light on her looking as if she is entering a stair way that being heaven which is reiterated by the lyrics 'when I get to heaven'.

Narrative
There isn't a great deal of narrative in the video it is more performance based. The Close Ups of the shots of the artist allows a connection between the artist and the audience. The only narrative we can gather is from the track, we could see it as a young lover who is concerned by the fact will she still be loved even though she is ageing and is not as beautiful as she was when they fell in love.

Conventional/Unconventional
The genre of the track is Indie Rock. The majority of rock videos use the convention of dark and light and this music video does also. However it is unconventional that the rouged lips and the tight girls of Lana Del Rey give a  1920's feel to it and how the camera seems to be an old vintage style

What works
The lyrics have little relation to the music video. The only relation we can gather is the title of the track 'Young and Beautiful' corresponding with the beauty and youthful Close Ups of Lana Del Rey. The instruments used in the track also feature in the music video through an orchestra.