“Stop leaking my motherfucking videos,” Lady Gaga yelled from her Twitter after her newest video for “Paparazzi” found its way onto blogs earlier than expected.
Given the “November Rain”-esque scale of Gaga’s epic new eight-minute-long short film, the “Paparazzi” video warranted more than just a simple leak; it deserved a red carpet.
The film casts Gaga as a starlet in the midst of a tumultuous, abusive love affair with her star boyfriend, played by Generation Kill breakout star and True Blood vampire lord Alexander Skarsgard. After a sumptuously shot makeout scene complete with Swedish dialogue, Gaga is thrown off a ledge by her boyfriend as the paparazzi lenses click away during an homage to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo.
And only then does Gaga launch into her newest hit. Somehow, Gaga survives her fall but her career falters, and so begins her fast track back to fame by performing dance routines while wheelchair-bound and operating crutches.
The clip gets stomach turning with the disturbing quick cuts to dead models, but Gaga is a full-time human fashion show and the video is so brimming with cinematic style that it is hard to be distracted, though it will likely be labeled as a tad self-indulgent. The short film ends with Gaga poisoning Skarsgard and reclaiming her popularity on the front page of the tabloids, getting arrested and acquitted, and finally using her mugshot portrait like a photo shoot.
