Ego Trip: Kanye West's "Runaway"

It's actually not too surprising that Kanye West's video for his first single off of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, “Runaway,” would be an epic, self-indulgent, 34-minute phantasmagoria that the rapper himself has called “Felliniesque,” claiming that he wanted the finished product to resemble a Stanley Kubrick film. It would have been more surprising if the notorious egotist had limited himself to a single song-length video that played by the rules and that would probably pass under the radar, given the fact that no basic cable channel consistently plays music videos anymore (it's been a long time since the incredible video for “All Falls Down” that accompanied the debut of The College Dropout). What is surprising, though, is how genuinely good much of “Runaway” is. Rather than a routine video for a single song surrounded by an excess of filler, “Runaway” actually throws together pieces of numerous songs from West's upcoming album; the title track is the only one that's played in its entirety, but fragments of “POWER,” “Lost in the World,” “All of the Lights,” and a few others are included, and the video itself fleshes out a visual counterpart to West's fifth full-length album (which, judging from the tracks included here, is going to be pretty solid).

The story is credited to West, and it's a silly one, but not really all that unusual for operatic music videos (although maybe we'd usually find this story in the prog rock genre rather than in rap). West is cruising through a forested paradise (the Hamptons, maybe) in one of his many sports cars when he witnesses the crash-landing of a comet and spies a phoenix lying incapacitated in the street. Played by model Selita Ebanks, this phoenix predictably is the kind with miraculous curves; her feathered bodice covers her breasts, but only barely, and the rest of her body remains mostly uncovered. (The rap-video motif of female-body-ogling thus stays true to form.) West and the phoenix initiate an affair, but to the video's credit, that affair is of an artistically generative nature rather than a lustfully sexual one, as evidenced by the beautiful moment in which the phoenix begins to gyrate as West hammers out “POWER” on an MPC—a testament to the passion and, indeed, power that's generated by the artistic process. Of course, though, their affair is doomed from the start, not only because the cultural elite scoffs at their interplanetary fling (in one of the weaker aspects of the video), but also because the phoenix grows to abhor our planet's desire to (as she says) change everything that's different. True to her nature as a phoenix, she ends the video by soaring into the heavens and burning up (we presume she'll be resurrected elsewhere), as West races down a dusk-lit street in a cliché we've seen from dozens of romantic dramas.

First, the inevitable flaws: the video is abysmal whenever the music stops and characters have to speak to each other. The blame for this can be spread to numerous people, not only West—although, to be sure, the man should never be allowed to recite written dialogue again. At one point, he cautions the phoenix not to believe anything she hears on the news; later, he and she have an embarrassing conversation about the nature of statues and their cosmic origins. He's worse than simply stilted or awkward; he seems to have absolutely no clue what do with himself when he's not putting on a show. I find it strange that he's such a poor actor, given the fact that his persona and so much of his music require the bombast and bravado typical of the rap genre. (Other rappers, like RZA and T.I. and even Common, seem to hold their own onscreen somewhat naturally.) In West's stage show, he always seems like he's acting. Here, though, when his acting is forced front and center, he disappoints, maybe precisely because he tries to underplay rather than act grandiosely. The man has never been good at underplaying. His performance seems to aim for an understated, introspective acting style that's common in modern cinema, but it just doesn't suit him.

Ebanks looks incredible as the phoenix, but her performance is little better, at least when there's no music. When backed by West's evocative songs, both actors are pretty solid, especially during the aforementioned “POWER” and during “All of the Lights,” which has the two of them gazing at a fireworks display in thrall, surrounded by a marching band that is, one must admit, Felliniesque. But during silent moments in which Ebanks's phoenix struggles to comprehend a television or an elegant tea set, her bewilderment suggests awkwardness rather than a sense of dislocation.

West and Ebanks are not done any favors by some strained faux-philosophical dialogue. Though West is credited with the story, the credits tell us that famed music-video director Hype Williams wrote the screenplay, which leads us to believe that Williams is responsible for that dreadful “Where do you think statues come from?” exchange. And the operatic banquet scene, during which the song “Runaway” actually takes place, emphasizes the video's metaphors so aggressively (the phoenix is a bird! like a monkey in a zoo, get it!?) that we get absolutely no value from the dialogue on a narrative or a thematic level—although, on the whole, the banquet scene is actually very impressive.

These are the video's flaws. Thankfully, its powerful qualities far outweigh its negative aspects. These dialogue scenes, without the benefit of backing music, comprise only a few minutes of the video's running time, and the remaining half-hour or so offers original, driving music and a striking, candy-colored backdrop to West's sonic canvas.

Many would say, perhaps, that the undeniable pretentiousness and self-indulgence of the video are among its drastic flaws, but I would say the opposite. True, a lot of this is silly stuff—nighttime carnival scenes with a float adorned by Michael Jackson's face, a troupe of black-clad ballerinas performing while West belts out “Runaway” on top of a piano, the animal imagery that accompanies the innocent phoenix, and so on. But the pretentiousness here surpasses mere arrogance; this is not simply a video by someone who feels he can do whatever he wants and therefore patches together a bunch of expensive, ambiguous imagery. Indulging his weirdo fantasies obliviously, West is able to translate his titanic ego into a monstrous, unwieldy, but undeniably powerful encapsulation of his narcissistic but irrepressible creativity. If West didn't have that ego and those pretensions, this would just be a six-minute video to a really good song that hued closer to what we typically see from rap videos. Some people also called Matthew Barney's Cremaster series pretentious, and while the label is more debatable in that case, the situation is the same: if the bizarre and hyperbolic images offered by those films and by the “Runaway” video require immense self-indulgence, so be it.

Although I have usually liked West's music and been impressed by his skills as a showman, I was admittedly resistant to this video. A 34-minute digital video by a multimillionaire who labels it “Felliniesque” is just something you don't really want to like. But I'll be damned if the slow-motion explosions and fireworks don't offer an aptly fiery counterpart to West's music; if the sexy buildup to “POWER” isn't among the most erotic tributes to the musical process ever evoked in a music video; if the M.J.-and-voodoo-priest parade that accompanies “All of the Lights” doesn't seem like a madman's weirdest pipe dream made manifest; and if the ballet performance that plays alongside “Runaway,” strikingly set against the rusted green walls of an abandoned warehouse, doesn't give you chills. (Here's to the ballet troupe featured in the video, who are named individually in the closing credits; they make a unique, if flawed, single seem absolutely devastating.) And about the Fellini comparison: “Runaway” is obviously no 8½, but it is striking how the banquet scene is staged almost exactly like the banquet at the spa in Fellini's film, only it looks like the cultural elite who attended the spa in 8½ are now acting as the servers and hosts for the “Runaway” party. Yes, West's claim that “Runaway” is Felliniesque is pretentious, but the staging of the video is so astute that the comparison seems somewhat appropriate, or at least thought-provoking.

Of course the music video medium has been transforming over the last decade; at one time videos were the primary vehicle through which artists could promote upcoming material, and now they're almost curiosities for die-hard fans to seek out on the Internet. Wisely, then, West and his crew (all of whom put in impressive work; the video is undeniably a stylistic triumph) approach “Runaway” not as a music video but as a self-contained short in itself, a distinct creative work that stands alongside My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy but stands apart from it as well. The linkage between sound and image in the “Runaway” video is not just a marketing ploy; it gets at something deeper and more interesting, not only in West's own creative process, but in the nature of the music video in general and what it is supposed to accomplish. It is easy to be turned off by West's ego and to chuckle at his wild ambition, but it's hard not to be struck by them as well.