'Marry the Night' Music Video Review

The nearly 14-minute music video for “Marry the Night,” is complex, disturbing, abnormal, and twisted. More so, it is absolutely beautiful to watch.

The video is believed to be about Lady Gaga being dropped from her first record label and the downward spiral that then consumed her personal life and professional career. Stripped down to its core, it is a song about survival and making a comeback. The video follows that story closely, but in order to find the true meaning, viewers must first make their way through the convoluted reality that Lady Gaga has created.

The video opens with Lady Gaga being wheeled into a hospital. Gaga’s voice fills the video, “The lie is much more honest. It’s not that I have been dishonest it is just that I loathe reality,” Gaga says. The nurses wear designer clothes and shoes, as does Gaga. The reality is a supposed parallel to what really happened when she entered the hospital after she was dropped from her record label, this reality of course has high fashion and enough drama to kill, but maybe this is how Gaga saw the world around her at this time in her life. The opening scene ends with Gaga saying, “You know why I’m going to be a star? I have nothing left to lose.”

The video then launches into Gaga performing a ballet dance number on an empty stage in an skin-like outfit, with flashbacks to her mental and physical break down in her apartment. The contrast of beauty and the horror of mental anguish portrayed in this scene is striking and moving.

Gaga comes out of her breakdown to a hallway filled with dancers on an upper level looking down on her. At this point almost nine minutes into the video there has still yet to be a single note of “Marry the Night.”

Finally, the song opens. The scene is Gaga in an old Trans Am at night surrounded by flames, it seems as though Gaga is having a personal moment of vindication in this scene; she finds her voice again and becomes the dancing, singing Gaga that fans love.

The video then transitions into a dance video with an amazing dance sequence in an old dance studio.

What is both surprising and shocking about this video is that Gaga manages to hold your attention for nine minutes without even singing a single note. Her personal story is just as intriguing as her music itself, maybe even more so.

After the first view of this video, viewers might be confused, but the emotional human progression that is shown is simple, yet beautiful. The video shows and proves that no matter how far down someone is in his or her life, the rise up will be glorious and beautiful. Gaga has inspired her fans all over the world and will now reach more viewers with her postive yet twisted message in this music video.

“Marry the Night,” was worth all of the 13 minutes and 51 seconds.