What do John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis have in common apart from the fact that they’re all dead? They all feature in Lana Del Rey’s super long music video short film Tropico. It might sound like an odd cast, but Lana sheds some light on the casting in the music video’s short film’s opening song “Body Electric” with the lyric “Elvis is my daddy, Marilyn’s my mother, Jesus is my bestest friend.” Other interesting cast members include a unicorn, gangsters, Adam and Eve, strippers and a snake.
This music video is the equivalent to a Dairy Milk family sized chocolate bar, the normal portion is fine but something so big is too much to consume in one sitting. While something so creative should be applauded (there are infact many beautiful shots in this video), it is better executed in small parts as Lianne La Havas did with her two part film “Elusive & Gone”. Although they are often described as short films they are just merely long music videos and would often have benefitted from the artists and directors sticking to the normal music video length rather than being stretched into a ‘short film’.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Noel Gallagher recently asked “Who has the fucking time, in 2013, to sit through 45 minutes of a single album?.” If the audience don’t have the time to listen to an album how will they have the time to watch an extended music video?
Lana Del Rey’s “Tropico” is out now on iTunes.
Video directed by Anthony Mandler.
Previously: Lana Del Rey – Young and Beautiful (Video)
