Music Videos

Media Language

Lana Del Rey – Young and Beautiful

• Young and Beautiful" is a song by American recording artist Lana Del Rey used for the soundtrack to the drama film The Great Gatsby (2013).

• It was released on April 23, 2013 by Interscope Records as the lead single from the record.

• Contemporary music critics lauded the single, calling it "haunting" and "somber". Lyrically, "Young & Beautiful" follows a young lover's apprehension about whether love can last.

• The music video was directed by Chris Sweeney and filmed by Sophie Muller, and was released on May 10, 2013.

• The genre of this song is Indie-rock.

“Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. Stage

performances in metal videos, dance routines for boy/girl

bands)” “Young and Beautiful”

• After seeing ‘Young and Beautiful’, in comparison to her other videos, its clear that it conforms to her normal style of song and aesthetics'. Dark and sometimes blurry effects are added to the footage, to give help give an old and vintage feel, while also aiding it to feel dated. (Also seen in videos like ‘Born to Die’ and ‘Summertime Sadness’.

• The orchestra in ‘Young and Beautiful’ have various coloured spot lights on them which also seen in ‘Summertime Sadness’ where, a dull coloured atmosphere would be lit up by random spots of light consisting of blue, red and green. Presenting a certain ‘motif’ as such that Lana uses in most of her work.

Young & Beautiful Summertime Sadness

Lana Del Rey’s music videos also tend to feature a lot of close-ups. Especially on her face while singing and are nearly always performance-based, with perhaps a slight narrative-spin. To possible help create a closer relationship between the artist and the audience.

This video has a very dull and dark colour scheme consisting of reds, purples and blues, while again decorating the shots of the orchestra. The close-ups of her used dark browns, creams and black. However, ‘Young and Beautiful’ challenges a convention of both Alternative Rock and her own style music videos by not including any shots of nature or panning shots of scenery. (Mainly due to how it was in favour of a 1920’s performance-themed piece.)

“There is a relationship between the lyrics and the visuals

(Either illustrative, amplifying or contradicting)”

‘Young and Beautiful’ is mainly a performance-based music video. The lyrics don’t particularly have any relation to the visuals. The chorus of the song, “Will you still love me...” is rhetorical and personal piece of lyrics, sung by the artist referring to the artist. As this part of the song (the chorus) is sung, the footage then cuts to a few close-ups of Del Rey, thus creating a link between her personal questionand the visual of the her face.

There is some relation to the lyrics in the visuals. When she begins the verse saying “Dear Lord, when I get to Heaven”, the footage focuses on image of Lana Del Rey standing in a shaft of light, which connotes it. Then, as the line “He’s my sun, he makes me shine” is sung, a circular glow appears around Del Rey’s figure, representing a halo and further drawing a connection between lyrics and visuals.

“There is a relationship between the music and the visuals

(Either illustrative, amplifying or contradicting)”

• The relationship between the music and the visuals in this particular Lana Del Rey music video is amplifying. Most of Del Rey’s music has a melancholic tone and feel, which is exactly what this one connotes to as well. The tone is emphasised and evident through the misty, blurry effect and dark lighting the footage features.

• There is an illustrative relationship between the music itself and the visuals in this music video; the shots of the orchestra playing is illustrating the music heard in the on the track.

• There is also the presence of a distinctive drum beat at the start of chorus, which is reflected in the cut from a close-up to Del Rey to the orchestra. The jump cuts between shots are timed well and in sync to the song and tempo and beats.

My video does use both aspects Goodwin’s theory and connects the lyrics to the visuals and a relationship between the music and visualsWhen the lyrics “to the forest we will gather and run” are said we used a shot of the tow girls running through a forest.Also for the lyrics “grab my heart” here the characters grab one another’s hands.My music video also presents a relationship between the music and visuals. This is particularly evident at 1.43 seconds, where I use some quick cute to link our separating of our hands with the drum beat.

The demands of the record label for lots of

close-ups is met in “Young and Beautiful”.

• There are many close ups of Lana Del Rey when she is singing, most with the focus on the focal points of the face such as cheeks, lips and also her eyes in extreme close-ups.

• By using close-ups it helps develop a close and personal relationship between the audience and the artist, helping the viewer to feel more involved.

“There are frequent references to the notion of looking (screens

within screens, telescopes, etc) and particularly voyeuristic (sexual)

treatment of the female body”

• The voyeuristic treatment of the female body is evident in this video where the camera is subtle in the sense that in its perusal of Del Rey’s body. It doesn’t however focus on the highly sexualised areas like breast and bottom.

• But when presenting Del Rey’s figure as a whole the camera seems to show a vey sexualised image, presenting her womanly curves. Following the line of her body, the lighting is low-key and creates shadows across her form.

• Also, the camera focuses in on the sexualised areas of the face, like lips (which are darkened by lipstick and creates a nice contrast with her pale skin), her eyes (which also are emphasised by make-up). This is a technique mainly used in consideration that the artist will get a larger following fan base if they appreciate her music and find her visually pleasing.

There is often intertextual references (to films,

TV programmes, other music videos, etc)

• Del Rey’s “Young and Beautiful” is intertextually related to the 2013 film “The Great Gatsby”. Released on 23 April 2013, it was the first single from the The Great Gatsby: Music from Baz Luhrmann's Film soundtrack.

• Del Rey's dreamy vocals are draped over sedated strings and canned percussion, falling in line with Del Rey's retro affectation, fits the atmosphere of the 1920s when the novel is set. The lyrics rotate around the themes of pleasing a lover and the gloom of aging and change, all of which are explored in the novel “The Great Gatsby”.

“Whether the video is primarily performance-based,

narrative-based or concept-based and how elements of

each is used in it”

• “Young and Beautiful” is a performance-based piece. The main concept is shots of Del Rey and the orchestra performing the song, combined with a few shots of the artist’s figure, facial features and silhouette shots.

• Major footage of the artist and musicians playing the music is a key convention of performance based music videos and identifies this video as performance.