When I first saw the music video for "Telephone," the Lady Gaga collaboration with Beyonce that clocks in at nine minutes 32 seconds, I thought it was long. Then I saw Kanye West's "Runaway."
The 35-minute short film which was released Oct. 5 doubles as the video for his single of the same name and as promotional material for West's forthcoming album, "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy," which will be released on Nov. 22. The song "Runaway," which dropped the day before the film's release, is the second single off West's highly anticipated fifth studio album.
Despite serving as the music video for "Runaway," the short film includes more than one song, carefully pieced together to construct a fictional story inspired by events that happened in West's life. Both its cinematic style and its premiere on top music television networks including BET, VH1 and MTV place it in the lineage of Prince's "Purple Rain," Michael Jackson's "Moonwalker" and several other music-film fusions.
"Runaway," written by famed hip-hop director Hype Williams, was filmed in Prague last summer. It begins with a rhyming narration from rapper Nicki Minaj, adopting a British accent, who sets the scene and encourages the audience to listen to West's story.
West stars as Griffin, a fictional version of himself, who crashes his car after being distracted by a fallen meteorite. The accident directly references his 2002 near-fatal car crash that gave him inspiration to record his first album "The College Dropout." The crash helps to set the dramatic tone that continues throughout "Runaway" as West addresses his life's struggles.
The meteorite, as viewers soon discover, is actually a phoenix that Griffin saves and falls in love with despite media scrutiny and dissenting public opinions throughout the film. The most important scenes, including when Griffin tells the phoenix not to believe the news and, later, getting angry after a dinner guest points out he is dating a bird, resemble West's ongoing battle with the media. West is well-known for his massive fits, lashings-out and meltdowns on award shows and in other public venues and for constantly telling his fans to not believe everything they read in the news.
That the phoenix leaves him at the end to return to her own world seems to refer to West's failure with relationships as displayed through his six-year on-and-off relationship with designer Alexis Phifer, which ended in 2008 and his on-and-off relationship with Amber Rose, which ended this past summer.
Memorable scenes in the film include the fireworks show that accompanies the extremely catchy song "All of the Lights," featuring Rihanna. The footage accompanying "Runaway" is an equally masterful performance against an all white setting, with beautiful ballerinas dressed in black. The "Runaway" scene is moving artwork, as the dancers demonstrate their athletic ability and picturesque poses, while West delivers a toast to all of the screw-ups and the opposite of beauty.
"Runaway" is a clever technique of West's to get people talking about his recent work and hopefully buy his Monday-release album. The film is easily accessible through VEVO and has already been watched by almost 6 million views, which is a respectable number for a 35-minute video.
The length was effective in terms of telling his story and including as many of the songs on the album that he could. West successfully avoids letting the film become boring; on the contrary, when 35 minutes were up, I found myself wanting to see a continuation of the story. Hopefully his next album will help to continue the story, as it ends with Griffin just running away.
This film could be easily be considered another a marketing strategy. Yet, due to West's past experience with art, a art school dropout, himself, I think "Runaway" is West's attempt of establishing his artistic abilities through a modern musical masterpiece.
