Marry the Night (Lady Gaga, 2011)

Call me a moron, but this was one exceptional piece of work. I like how Gaga was bold enough to just lay out certain points in her life in order to show us what she had to do in order to get where she’s at. (I mean, she literally mentions how she had to suck some dick to get in the business…) The opening monologue is so full of pretension, but also truth, and it really gives insight in how to process the rest of the video. All in all, it’s a very personal, downright ugly, but beautifully wonderful reconstruction of her past done “in an artistic way”. Quite depressing, too.

Sweet! I’m excited to watch it later! I will be very happy is Lady Gaga is as influential on pop music as I think she will be. Bad Romance is a pop masterpiece!! And so is this website.

Yeah, I like the betch. But even if many out there don’t, I can’t think of another pop artist of such mainstream heights to deliver a music video this raw and powerful. Like, I’m still a bit down after watching this thing. :(

For a moment I thought she had directed a film. What a relief!
BTW-I did not know music videos were still being made. Much less “official” videos….

Actually, this “video” is so complex and like 65-70% NOT music, so it’s pretty much like… a short film.. and yes, she directed it.

Her music video directed by Jonas Akerlund was interesting too. It was a decent Women in Prison film, could have been a bit better but shows that under all that crazy clothing she’s actually quite a good lookin’ lady.

—PolarisDiB

Gaaaah I wish I wasn’t at work right now!! All this talk of blowjobs makes me think it wouldn’t be safe.

She also rolls around naked in Honey Nut Cheerios! :D

I think Lady Gaga is a fantastic musician. I like the fact that she writes her own songs and I like how she markets herself in the media. She also seems to be a nice person and really cares for her fans. Born This Way is a fantastic album and I have listened to it several times. She has great range covering different genres of music. I admire her a lot and I think she has a lot of talent. That’s just my two cents. I do admire other musicians whose material or some of their material is not written by them as well though, but I like a person who has a great control of how they steer their image in the media.

I’ve seen this video so so many times before in film school six years ago.

Thanks

Once the music started I lost some interest
it is her acting scenes that are suprisingly well handled

someone get this girl a movie role

I agree, Den. Her performance in this was very, very raw.

Just want to point out, that I only give five-star ratings on MUBI to the very special films to me. And as soon as this one is added as a title, it will fit snug in that list as the first music video I add to it. :)

Dennis, Good God NO!

I shall accept your enduring defence of Bolero.

But the last thing we need is a third-rate celebrity making some film that shall deprive some else the space for their movie. There are people busting their arses to get through film school, actresses playing in Hamlet a hundred times a year looking for that big break.

To quote Gary Coleman:

“No way, no how, no chance, no further discussion!”

I cannot believe all this talk about Lady Blah Blah being “talented”. Straight up, her “music” is rotten.

DR:

“I can’t think of another pop artist of such mainstream heights to deliver a music video this raw and powerful.”

Erm, I could name several. And they all did it before Lady Blah Blah was even born.

It doesn’t surprise me that the next word following the quoted sentence rom DR was a Valley-Girl-esque “Like”.

“Like…WOW!

Like, how rude.

C’mon, that’s a good lookin’ gal…be grateful!

No, seriously: Lady Blah Blah is horrid. People rant on about how she writes her own music, blah-blah-blah, as if it’s a huge achievement. Okay, so let’s all crown Debbie Gibson as the Queen of 1980s Pop, because, like, dude, you know, she co-produced her own music.

Hey kids, this is what pop stars looked like back in the 1980s—they actually looked like real people!

I’m sick of people calling Lady Blah Blah “important” and “cutting edge” and “daring”. There are plenty other singer-songwriters making songs about subjects that Lady Blah Blah would not dare touch.

Her music does not sound fresh: it’s strictly interchangeable with that from a bunch of other pop tartlets.

Her voice is bloody well average at best: she has zero sense of restraint. It’s just “bellow as loudly as possible, I’ll show some cleavage, and Autotune will take care of the rest”.

Lady Blah Blah writes lyrics at nursery rhyme level. I’m waiting for the day she adapts “Dick and Jane” books into “song”.

“Markets herself” is correct: she can’t just make good music, she has to “market” her shit to a niche audience (i.e. gay people) because she knows she’s not good enough to sell just by making great music. Her sucking up to gays is pathetic—she acts like her acceptance of homosexuals is something that separates her from the rest of the pack and makes her enlightened. She wears her “love for gays” as a symbol of putrid self-righteousness. Guess what, Lady Blah Blah? Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Grace Jones et al love their gay fans too…but they don’t shove it down our fucking throats every five minutes.

As for the BS about “Lady Blah Blah being down to earth”…staff at a Sydney television studio recently were instructed “not to look Lady Blah Blah in the eye when you speak to her”. Also, I wouldn’t call someone who wears a meat dress to an awards event “down to earth”. She is quite happy to wear the “dress”, even if it means causing those sitting around her to put up with the stench of rotting animal flesh. Real sweet girl there. I also wish she could extend her “compassion for gays” to “compassion for animals”, because unlike gay men, caged animals can’t defend themselves with a witty comeback and double-finger snap.

But I guess for some people, namely Lady Blah Blah herself, a few hard truths about her personality (or lack thereof) are too difficult to stomach.

I agree with that. It’s music for babies.

I highly doubt that told not to look her in the eye thing. She does seem really down to Earth. Pretty funny, too.

Don’t apologize to me about pink suede pants!

“Born This Way” has everything wrong with it, though, I gotta say. The song, not the video.

video was ok. nothing special.

Hahaha! I am with Wanderer on this one. She’s a hack. This video has every random pretension and “edgy” idea of every student film. Her latest album is very mediocre (this song included) and making a 14-minute video for it won’t change that.

Samantha The Moderator Thingy said:

“I highly doubt that told not to look her in the eye thing. She does seem really down to Earth. Pretty funny, too.”

Okay, so I guess I shouldn’t believe people anymore when they talk about celebrities, because celebrities are untouchable and can do no wrong.

Samantha, you must come from a strange and mysterious country where celebs don’t do stupid, childish, outlandish things like this. The fact is Samantha, the world is full of self-centred arseholes. They hold regular jobs like grocery clerk, hairdresser, computer salesperson, you name it. But every now and again, one of those arseholes becomes rich and famous. And more often than not, that makes them an even bigger arsehole.

Yeah, because a woman who wears a friggin’ MEAT DRESS in public would NEVER do something as inexplicable as demand that the TV staff don’t look her in the eye!

You’re just doubting it because you’re keen on her, Samantha. Sorry, but I’m going with the evidence from the person who was there at the TV station—whereas you were not there at all. And as for Lady Blah Blah being funny: experience has taught me that not everyone on television is as funny as they seem.

Example: I once went to a Q and A session where a certain Australian comic ran down her list of five favourite movies. Before the session I thought she’d be an absolute blast in person and always seemed so charismatic on the tube. In front of a small audience of 20 or so without a script it’s a different story. She made me laugh a bit, sometimes rather loudly, but no more so than the average person. And a lot of what she said that was intended as amusing was from the planet Just Really Desperate.

(She didn’t endear herself by expressing disdain for Raging Bull either).

Don Lane was another one who in person was neither funny nor especially charismatic.

I bet if you met Lady Blah Blah, you’d be well disappointed. A lot of celebs are boring pricks just like you’d get in 99 percent of daily life. And all Lady Blah Blah seems to do is (a) make crap music that is computerised to death and (b) indulge in tacky displays of self-promotion. Her “altruism” towards the gay comminity is a sham. If they didn’t have big fat pink dollars to spend, she wouldn’t care about them. She never says anything about people with Downs Syndrome or war orphans in the third world because they don’t hold rich jobs and aren’t out there buying Lady Blah Blah records. She’s a leech on legs: pick a niche audience and suck ’em dry by kissing up to them repeatedly. I for one am not fooled by her hype and garbage. She makes Tiffany look like Tina Turner by comparison.

^huh… Mark Vanselow hates gay people. Who’d’a thunk??

Anyway, as far as Lady GaGa’s merit… I of course don’t think she’s the greatest pop singer ever, but the fact that she’s willing to distance herself from rap guest stars, while still being a fairly hip hop-influenced musician, and the fact that she buries her songs in layers and layers of shiny synths made me really happy when I worked at the UGA dining hall and the top-40 station switched from Usher to Lady GaGa.

TL;DR this time.

Saw the “keen on her” part, though, glancing through. I’m not, just f.y.i. Not the first time you’ve gone and made an assumption about me that wasn’t true.

I’m not exactly gaga or googoo over Gaga, and know little about her, but as she’s godmother to Elton’s baby how do you know her attitude to gay people is a sham? He knows her pretty well and doesn’t seem to think so, but as he’s got “fat pink dollars” maybe he’s been conned?

I don’t care how people feel about Gaga as a person, because I could care less either. What I love about her is her lack of fear in showing how much of an attention whore she is, and I find her music to be catchy and fun as hell. Very inspired by yesteryear music, and totally just a blast. But her music videos themselves have always fascinated me. She’s pretentious, sure… but that’s not a bad thing. As the first monologue of Marry the Night expresses, she’s aware that she’s that way – but she feels it’s her true personality, and she sticks to it.

The best thing about Marry the Night is that, while it does a few things of familiar value, it embraces it and is very intelligent and clever about what it’s showcasing. The first sound you hear is a film projector on the soundtrack, and then you get Gaga speaking about how “it’s not that I’m dishonest, it’s just that I loathe reality”. Which sets forth the rest of video into showing us the basic creation of her eventual performance art cum celebrity media whore creation of Lady Gaga. She goes from naked, struggling brunette to the blonde-centric, 80s-inspired (hello Madonna!) girl with her “bedazzler”. It’s about her creation, told cinematically in the best way possible – her using visuals and her inspirations as an artist to delve within herself. How is that not raw filmmaking?

The video is cocky as hell, because face it – Gaga is a cocky bitch. But in the end, the way she tells this piece of history is quite devestating, and also a bit inspiring. It’s not about whether she has copied past artists, or that her music isn’t some godsend of originality… it’s that she actually took 14 minutes to express herself in a way that was, for me personally at least, quite effective.

Moderated

So I guess insulting people’s intelligence with ludicrous BS and making defamatory claims about people is AOK, but the truth hurts, doesn’t it, MUBI?

Where’s the moderation of DFF stating that I “hate gay people”? (When no evidence exists to support this claim?)

I am waiting for an answer….and a big fat apology, MUBI mods, for your continued double-standards and the fact you hate being embarrassed when I PROVE that you contradict yourselves.

I’m also waiting for the person to answer why someone who “hates gay people” would attend MQFF. Just asking…feel free to delete this post if the question is too tough and expoes the fact that DFF doesn’t kno what he’s talking about.

You know what? I think I’ll just go and make up stuff about people. Samantha has no problem with DFF doing it to me. But she has a problem with people stating the truth about her (c’mon Samantha, no way would you stick up for Lady Blah Blah with not one but two false statements about her if you weren’t at least a casual fan).

For the record a lot of gay people hate Blah Blah and cringe at her “ambassadorship” of the gay community…so stop trying to censor me, MUBI. Bunch of hypocrites, you are. And when delaing with you in private, Mods, you NEVER give me straight answers, my questions go unanswered. If you want to have at it, we’ll do it right here where everyone can see. Because I’m sick of you messaging me with your stupid “warnings” and when I ask a Q…it’s too tough and you pretend I never asked it.

Bollocks. And you know it.

I moderated you, again for obvious reasons.

And I’m not the one embarrassing myself in the forum.