The video of Bonnie & Clyde by Jay Z and Beyonce is set about a well-known novel based around a love story and a criminal. The video starts with a narrative with the police officers talking at the beginning to set the scene of Beyonce and Jay Z crossing the border and not getting caught as of yet. Suddenly the music starts and we begin to see some star image with the stars names appearing on screen ‘Beyonce’ and ‘Jay Z’ to advertise them. We also see an expensive car (Aston Martin) and nice scenery showing wealth and typical mise en scene used in the R&B genre.
The video has a lot of intertexutality with references of ‘Sex and the City’ to represent glamour and star image of Beyonce as the show is about women being glamorous and sexy. Also the lyrics mention expensive luxury items such as Mercedes cars, Burberry swimwear which all link to the genre of R&B and having a lot of money. Also the main idea of the song is from a novel, which is intertexutality as it is using the ideas from the novel into the song.
The narrative shows links of lyrics to the narrative where we see Beyonce wearing Burberry, which is earlier, mentioned in the song to show off her wealth. The main line in the chorus ‘me and my girlfriend’ is repeated often to emphasize the fact that they are in love, and how it represents the story of Bonnie and Clyde and we see Jay Z and Beyonce looking at the camera together to show us their relationship.
There is also a performance in the video, where Beyonce is provocatively in lingerie on the beach on a sofa and with a horse to create voyeurism, and again when we see her wearing a red hat and red lipstick and just her face in the shot to emphasize her sexiness, especially as red is a lustrous color trying to seduce us.
The genre shows how typical wealth is, which expensive cars, clothes, bags, and sunglasses and props e.g. horses and helicopters. The genre also usually consists of voyeurism with girls dressing provocatively to gain attention and create star image. Also the characters used e.g. police officers are also typical to R&B music part of an anti-authority view.
Lighting in the scene was mainly natural lighting outdoors, but some scenes used dim lighting to create a sexier mood when Beyonce was salsa dancing, where as a bright light would not be as effective as Beyonce would not stick out as much.
The video also consists of a lot of editing, with a lot of camera angles and transitions. As the beat changes it changes into a new scene/shot at the same time to show continuity. As the music got faster there where more transitions where as when the music was slower there where less transitions. Also as the scenes changed it would fade into the next scene to look more interesting and mysterious rather than neat cut shots with smooth transitions.
Camera angles also help to show the facial expressions of the stars and the police, with close ups to show how Beyonce and Jay Z are happy as they are getting away with the crimes, but the police are shown angry as they cant catch them.
Also the closes up show us views on Beyonce to show voyeurism, and there are high long shots to show the cars on the long roads to show us they are in nice scenery and are rich with nice cars. Also there is a high angle shot of the police helicopter on top of Jay Z to show how the police have more authority over citizens.
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