WATCH IT: Lana Del Rey "Ride" (Anthony Mandler, dir.)

America is open roads, motorcyles and pinball. It's Jack Daniels, guns and flags. It's biker dudes, starlet girls, shots at fame and falls from grace. It's sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll. To paraphrase Lana Del Rey, it's fucking crazy. But even if it's disconnected from the actual country we live in, it's the glamorous and dangerous image that conquered the imagination of people areound the world — which I think is one reason Ms. Del Rey has found mass success in Europe, while remaining a cult artist here in the States.

Director Anthony Mandler works off a story by the singer herself, creating a sort of stream-of-conscious homage to everything from Terrence Malick to Oliver Stone to David Lynch, with pit-stops in the big rock video landscape mapped out by Wayne Isham, Andy Morahan and others. That form makes the storyline a bit hazy, but you can follow her journey from stardom to freedom, complete with a daddy issue subplot, murder and more than a touch of madness. It's also a ballsy music video, a 10-minute opus that doesn't give a damn what you think and is happy to get as crazy and over-the-top as it wants in the name of freedom. --> watch "Ride" 

Lana Del Rey "Ride" (Interscope)
Anthony Mandler, director | Lana Del Rey, writer | Heather Heller, producer | Black Hand Cinema, production co | Malik Sayeed, DP | Benji Bamps, production designer