Rihanna - Russian Roulette

The video that I am analysing is "Russian Roulette" by Rihanna. It was directed by Anthony Mandler and was released on October 20th 2009. It has sold over 3 million copies and made it to number 2 in the UK charts. It is a pop video, however does not neccessarily follow the conventions of a pop video. It has a very serious storyline involving gun crime and most pop songs take these kind of subjects quite lightly. Russian roulette is a very powerful video, and as the name states it is about guns and would therefore be a difficult subject to portray. It shows her in two locations, one in a prison being interviews and one with her love interest at a table with a gun.

There are a few examples of the lyrics matching the visuals. Whilst we see Rihanna in prison singing the song, we also see her at the table with the man and the gun. At the start of the song it begins with "take a breath, take it deep." We see her taking deep breaths and trying to calm herself down whilst at the table. Another example is where it says "Just take the gun and count to three". At this point the gun slides across the table into her hand and she is trying to get herself to pick it up but we can see that she is nervous. When the song reaches the chorus, the lyrics say "You can see my heart beating, you can see it through my chest, and i'm terrified". At these points we can see flashbacks of the accident, a shot of Rihanna crouched in the corner looking really scared, and we also see her at the table again but this time letting the emotions get to her. There is also another line that says "So just pull the trigger". On the word trigger we see her jump as she thinks that the man has shot himself, but he hasn't. We also see another flashback. Another good example is at the bridge of the song it says "As my life flashes before my eyes", we see a mixture of different things faded into one another. We see her in different locations, and we also see the accident again and some other random things.

There is a main beat in the background of the song, and at the start of the video the cuts tend to be in sync with this, however when the song reaches the chorus the speed of the cuts slows down. At the end of the chorus, however we see parts of the flashback and then her and that all happens very quickly. There is also a fade at the end of the first verse which changes the pace slightly and shows that the action is not neccessarily happening very fast. At the end of the second verse there is a series of fast drum beats, and the video does very fast cuts in time with that of Rihanna in all of the different locations. There is a lot of use of the colour red in this fast cutting sequence, to emphasise the danger in the storyline. Near the end of the video the cuts get faster but the shots get longer as we see more of her in pain and figuring out what she should do.

There are a lot of close up's of Rihanna, showing her singing in the prison and also at the table. These shots are not to show her performing as when she is singing she is still part of the narrative as she is in prison. The record company is looking to sell the track by presenting Rihanna in her unusual clothes and style but by also giving her a different style of song to work with. She is a famous pop artist and therefore normally performs upbeat and sometimes even dance tracks, and yet this is a very serious song and video also.

She is not used for sexual display within the video, however some of her costumes are a bit risky. At one point she is just wearing a corset suit and other times she is wearing nice dresses. This isnt to put her on sexual display, I believe that it is to show her figure off in some scenes, and in others it goes with the scene as we feel that her character may be being used by the male at the table. The video could easily relate to Rihanna's relationship with Chris Brown, and the fact that we know he abused her, as the video contains a lot of violence and shows Rihanna being pressurised by the man. This could show a glimps of the pain that she was feeling whilst going through the ordeal. The video is narrative based with a glimpse of performance in character.