One of the many bottom lines of Lana Del Rey’s latest video (one-upping the double video concept of “Fuck It I Love You” and “The Greatest” with three songs instead of two in an epic runtime of fourteen minutes–which is still not as epic as Tropico’s thirty) is that Los Angeles is burning (ergo, the whole world–for what is L.A. if not the center of the manufactured universe?). But it’s fine. Life must go on. A girl must play her songs on the piano and engage in a bit of goading tomfoolery. But not before a bout of gentle backyard rumination whilst lounging in a hammock in sunglasses that seem to see life like a movie of Hollywood’s Golden Age, in which the man and the woman always share a bombastic kiss at the end. This is the first instance of many effects in the Chuck Grant-directed video (who also directed “Mariners Apartment Complex” and “Venice Bitch,” both of which seemed to have been shot on the same day as this video trifecta, with plenty of overlapping footage to corroborate).
Soon to follow is a jellyfish-filled (another special effect) pool with animated music notes brimming out of it as Del Rey continues to croon after languidly shifting positions from hammock to poolside (ah, the life of an L.A. beauty queen. And yes, she might be forewarned of the nickname Lazy Del Rey after so blatantly repurposing the same footage for a video that has only been breathed with new life thanks to the animation element). Just at the bottom of the screen, with its shticky vintage aesthetic, the top of the music notes can be seen flowing as well. And as Del Rey continues to showcase idyllic scenes reflected in her sunglasses (much like the idea from Donnie Darko billed as Infant Memory Generators), an explosion in a separate stock clip (for this video was edited by LDR, very fond of stock clips) is followed by the image of another silhouetted couple kissing before we transition into the next song, “Bartender.”
Starting in a picturesque meadow setting, the intermingled animation continues with a cartoon deer (and some occasional butterflies) frolicking amid the ladies of the canyon comprised of Emma Tillman (Father John Misty’s wife) and LDR’s go-to backup dancers Ashley Rodriguez and Alexandria Kaye. The scenes from this resulted, in fact, in the limited edition cover of the album sold at Urban Outfitters (because yes, never was there an artist more tailored for the store). Soon we transition to the narrative that comprises much of “Bartender”: Del Rey riding around in the back of the truck with now just Ash and Alex alone (a scene that also appears in “Venice Bitch”) as they gleefully harass two cops that turn out to be friends (or is it just that giggling girls are so charming to police officers that flirtation gives way to fast friendship?), played by Craig Stark and Duke Nicholson. Indeed, it feels a lot like Del Rey is trolling her own boyfriend, Sean “Sticks” (as in stick up his ass?) Larkin, a cop that also appears on reality TV show Live PD. One wonders if that Fuckboy she keeps calling was some light shade at Larkin as well before he finally locked it down with consenting to an Instagram official photo.
As the driver of the car (maybe Tillman?) keeps fleeing from the cops while Del Rey teasingly tosses various food and drink items at their vehicle, one gets a certain Smashing Pumpkins feel, specifically from the “1979” video, wherein youthful folly is the crux of the sense of nostalgia gleaned from watching it. Yet, in this case, the sinister flying spaceship-like cars in the backdrop that go blithely ignored by Del Rey and her friends as though it’s the norm of the future (in the present) adds a more surreal sense to the shenanigans. “Sometimes, girls just…want to have fun,” Del Rey sings shruggingly of her parking lot antics. And so her friends and the cops toss donuts back and forth at one another after Stark tries his best to sternly deliver the line, “License and registration.”
A sped up black and white transition displaying the sprawling roads of California (for that’s what all of the videos from Norman Fucking Rockwell showcase except the title track itself) leads into a close overhead shot of a butterfly (real this time, instead of the animated ones of which we already saw in “Bartender”). This informs us immediately, of course, that we’ve now reached the video segment for “Happiness Is A Butterfly.” The simplest of the three videos, the footage is double dipped from that featured in “Mariners Apartment Complex” and “Venice Bitch,” with Del Rey talking on her iPhone for most of it in between doing some light “Pretty When I Cry”-inspired choreo (fans of Del Rey’s tour whill know what that means) while lying down in the bed of the pickup truck (imbued with intermittent flashes of lightning) with Ash and Alex, the former getting a baby drone to rest on her shoulder at one point (for the omnipresence of drones are just as normal as flying cars to the not so alternate dystopian world of the video).
As the trio persists in tinkering with butterflies, an emphasis on the frailty of nature is emphasized by the cartoonish rain that falls at the end of the song. It appears to be perhaps a subconscious nod to California’s constant drought problems–for real rain certainly hasn’t been falling enough there of late, and we all know Del Rey is nothing if not a champion of calling out California’s beauty by warning us that it must be preserved.
In truth, the “Norman Fucking Rockwell” trilogy is one sweeping homage to Del Rey’s adopted state, where the height of luxury is a pool and a hammock and the height of escapades is parking lot revelry. And the dystopian backdrop that tends to come with California of late is a small price to pay when one is rich or high enough to see things through a Mary Poppins lens.
