Lana Del Rey's Song 'Ride'

953 Words4 Pages
Lana Del Rey’s 2012 music video for her song “Ride,” directed by Anthony Mandler, mediates between the figures of a singer and a vagabond, both living on the dark side of the American Dream. Del Rey’s artistic predilections typically gravitate towards themes of tragedy, relating most the moral demise of her characters. Set within an ambiguous time frame, the mise-en-scene is defined by a nostalgic ideal tinged with the essence of a more present time. “Ride” recalls her allegorical breakaway from social and moral expectations in order to create a life where she can “experience [her] darkest fantasies.” The overarching narrative lacks cohesion much like the recollection of one’s own memories. Mandler’s cinematography reflects the different facts of an individual and allows the viewer to experience Del Rey’s complex world by merging themes such…show more content…
As she steps onto the stage in her white dress and performs for the first time, Del Rey exudes virginal innocence. Her progression as a singer is denoted by the different colored dresses: white, red, and gold. When she plays the role of the singer performing on stage, Del Rey embodies the elegant woman–the beautiful poet that she had once envisioned herself to be. At the theater in which she performs, the marquee reads “Fatal Charm…Lana Del Rey,” alluding to the idea of this glamorous yet dangerous woman. During the stage performance in which she wears a shiny gold strapless dress, Del Rey makes a “rock and roll” sign with her hand to an audience of bikers, presumably the same people she goes on the road with. Her gesture suggests both the destruction of dreams of being a poet that she speaks about in her opening monologue, and the beginning of her freedom grounded in a nomadic
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    Throughout the majority of her life, Lana Del Rey dealt with being alone. She was always on the quieter side, and had to move around a lot. Lana Del Rey eventually found stability and her passion. Due to her singing career she met many of her now friends. Lana Del Rey is very familiar with loneliness, and that is shown through her songs “Ride” and “Summertime Sadness”. Lana Del Rey was born on June 21st, 1986 in New York City. She was born under the name Elizabeth Woolridge Grant. However she grew

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