Michael Jackson (sorely missed but living on in X Factor cover versions and a million unpalatable jokes) wasunequalled in many things during his career, not least of which was his dedication to an under-appreciated art: the narrative music video. Lady Gaga, in pursuit of her gradual conquest of pop, has clearly been taking notes.
Her duet with Beyoncé, ‘Telephone’, was accompanied by a nine-and-a-half-minute Bonnie and Clyde-alike saga. ‘Marry the Night’, the fifth single from her Born this Way album (although the first to be        

released to fans online) goes one further with a running time of nearly 14 minutes – just about equalling the length of Jackson’s ‘Thriller’, but still shy of the 18-minute, Scorsese-directed short film for ‘Bad’.
So far so hefty, but are all those YouTube minutes empty creative calories? What has she packed into such an opus (viewable below)?
It opens – somewhat ominously – with a voiceover. No ‘Born This Way’-style creation myths this time, though. Instead, it starts out as a short reflection on memory, and the singer’s professed (affected?) tendency to dress up her recollections to be more aesthetically pleasing. Fittingly, the sound of a film reel playing can be heard throughout. Segueing into a hospital scene, we see her convalescing after an unnamed medical procedure, blinking back tears and capital-‘A’ Acting. “I’m going to make it,” she quavers. “I’m going to be a star.” Pretentious? A little. Self-indulgent? Oh hell yes. But there’s just enough humour to hint that she doesn’t take herself completely seriously. Her meta-theatrical observations about the nurses’ outfits and her lusty enthusiasm for a nice rear end raise a smile even amid the solemnity.
As a piano fades in we journey to another stage in the life of Ms Germanotta. She has spoken about how this song and the video are about a low ebb in her life: being dropped by her record label. So we watch as she deals with rejection (hint: not well – it involves a lot of semi-nudity, broken glass and Cheerios) and overcomes the odds to claw her way back with hard work and vertiginous heels. Essentially it’s a snapshot of the Gagabildungsroman.
It’s a bit of a relief, nine minutes along, when the song itself actually kicks in. Pumping and insanely catchy, it sounds like a fairground rave held in a cathedral, and it’s a welcome bolt of energy after the rather film student-y prelude (it’s not hard to tell Gaga herself directed the video). She’s dressed like Madonna in her Desperately Seeking Susan days (again – it’s hard to tell if she’s slyly winking at those critics who’ve pointed out her musical similarities or if she really is just Madge 2.0) and ready to dance her way back to the top with some choreography destined to spawn a thousand YouTube tributes – interspersed with some rather incongruous rubber-clad gyration on a Trans-Am.
In one sense, the video feels a bit like Lady Gaga putting the finishing touches on her Gay Appeal by officially crossing the line into camp. It’s Fame meets Mad Max, with a generous helping of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? thrown in for good measure. She does ballet in platform heels with fairies flying out from under her skirt for goodness’ sake. Put her onstage in Priscilla and be done with it.
And yet, in another, for an artist notorious for wringing out every last drop from the oddity sponge, this is a surprisingly personal video – possibly the most so she’s made. It’s suffused throughout with an art school sensibility (right down to the pretentious use of French) and grime that evokes the feel of New York without a single view of the skyline. Shots recreating her early career – her ridiculous hats, stumbling down stairwells carrying ludicrous keyboards – are warm-hearted nods to her own grit and hard to begrudge. For all its faults, ‘Marry the Night’ does a good job of making someone who’s spent years cultivating an image of almost alien otherness seem briefly human again.