Posted by Emily Exton on 12/01/2011 at 9:38 PM Videos

The Popdust Files: lady gaga, marry the night

Hey, got 13 minutes to spare? Lady Gaga’s “Marry the Night” video has arrived, about an hour before its scheduled premiere amid E!’s pomp and circumstance, branded as a 30-minute special to help further explain Stefani, the “artist.” Yes, it’s just a video for her fifth Born This Way single, but it marks Mother Monster’s directorial debut, so it happens to be personal. Early photos told us Staten Island would be involved and the preview took place in a hospital, making it that more difficult to conjure up hypotheses as to what the final product would entail. As she told Jason Kennedy, the emotional and physical pain goes back to that dark day when she was dropped from her first label, and most of the video is a dramatic interpretation of her musical origin story—ballet dancers and Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata included. Once the music actually begins (around 8:48) multiple Gagas carry out individual moments that come with living for your craft: sweating in a crowded rehearsal space, settling for a home dye job and performing in the streets for little to no audience (but a collection of back-up dancers). These certainly won’t be our last words on Gaga’s latest creation, but did we mention she’s nude? Watch that, and her strange attack on some Honey Nut Cheerios, below.