HUMAN NATURE (1995)
Dir: Jean-Baptiste Mondino
Madonna suffered one of her greatest career setbacks with her publishing of the ‘Sex’ book in 1992. The book of soft-core pornographic photos and erotic prose, bound in a metallised plastic cover was released at the same time as the Erotica album.
It featured cross marketing between platforms: the Super 8mm ‘behind the scenes’ footage of the photo shoot for the 200 page book ended up being used as the music video for the release of the song ‘Erotica’ as well as a source for still images for the book, tying all three releases together, the success of one instantly crossing over to the others.
Controversy surrounding the book (the usual boycotting by religious groups etc) seemed to overshadow all else, and the ground-breaking R’n’B album with a notable hip-hop influence – a completely new direction for any mainstream (white) female artist of the early 90s – was disregarded.
In spite of the book selling out twice (it is the highest selling coffee table book of all time) it was also the cause for a communal backlash against Madonna, the status quo believing this time she had gone too far.
Yet three years on from the release of Erotica, and reassured by the success of the Girlie Show world tour and the release of ballads “I’ll remember” and “Take a Bow”, Madonna decided to publicly discuss her feelings towards the Sex book incident with the release of the song ‘Human Nature’
"express yourself, don't repress yourself...
I'm not sorry. It's human nature.
I'm not your bitch. Don't hang your shit on me."
The accompanying video, directed by long time collaborator Mondino (who previously directed the controversial Open Your Heart (about a little boy and a stripper) and Justify My Love (group sex, trannies and bondage).
In the clip – inspired by the work of satirical S&M comic book artist Eric Stanton - Madonna makes a commentary on her situation in light of the public’s response to sexual themes by exploring the notion of ‘bondage’. The metaphor simultaneously making a point about the bound state of the public’s attitude and at the same time embodying the thing that they are shocked and challenged by.
“Did I have a point of view? Oops!
I didn’t know I couldn’t talk about you”
Throughout the clip are many references to breaking free of restraint – restraint caused by what? The answer is shaved into the back of the head of one of the dancers in the opening shot: “fear”.
In the opening choreography, five dancers bind Madonna with her own arms before slamming her parted legs shut.
Symbolism continues throughout the film as she, dressed as the PVC-bound ‘black sheep’ slams herself against the walls of a white box in a dance symbolising an attempt to break free.
Human Nature is a comment on our very human inclination to restrict ourselves when it comes to sexuality. Something which, even fifteen years later, rings true.
It should also be noted that Christina Aguilera used many of the ideas and images from both this clip and Madonna’s Express Yourself for the promo of her song ‘Not Myself Tonight’ – the difference being that while Madonna’s imagery told a story that addressed a deeper agenda, Christina’s choice to imitate the original is purely for the purpose of entertainment.
NOTHING REALLY MATTERS (1997)
Dir.: Johan Renek
Album: Ray of Light
Two very important things occurred in the lead up to the production of the album ‘Ray of Light’ of 1997 (her most commercially and critically successful to date): she underwent six months of voice coaching to be able to tackle the role of Evita which she had vehemently campaigned for. Secondly, she gave birth to her first child, Lourdes. The latter proving to inspire such a massive shift in the artist that Ray of Light is about Madonna’s rebirth – and her new found spirituality was just a mere part of that. The Fifth single from the hugely successful album is the song that deals directly with that transformation. Having been originally inspired by the book ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ and as an ode to the birth of her daughter, Madonna explores the humbling nature of the experience by embracing the mantle of ‘geisha’.
The employment of the visual metaphor of the geisha then allows for the exploration of the Japanese style of fringe-culture dance known as ‘butoh’. Butoh first appeared in Japan after WWII, particularly following student riots and appeared as a reaction against the contemporary dance scene.
In a seismic shifting of old versus new Madonna finds one of her most conceptual clips in the Juxtaposition of one Japanese tradition with another cultural phenomenon that specifically rallies against tradition.
The video features Madonna cradling a transparent sack filled water. Not only is the sack in place of a baby, alluding to the song’s purpose, but water is symbolic of the unconscious mind, the place of the birth of ideas: Madonna is literally paying homage to the birth of her daughter as the origin of her new found creativity.
The setting is the on the surface Japanese, yet it is compromised by a complimentary Swedish design influence, no doubt due to Swedish director Renek (creative partner of frequent Madonna collaborator Jonas Akerland).
The jilted choreography of the dancers is made all the more alien by the fact that they are all Swedish-born Japanese. Madonna’s free-style butoh-inspired dancing is strangely staccato as it moves from the bound traditional to the liberated free-form.
Besides the clips exquisite look and technical precision, there is a edgy, performance-art vibe present. Audiences would have been challenged by the awkward shuffling of the painted, seemingly possessed Japanese minions – while Madonna’s geisha dance is transfigured to the point of seeming surreal. The inspiration of the clip owes as much to artist Bjork as it does to Japan and it’s refreshingly abstract quality is the work of an artist at the height of her creative and personal freedom.
AMERICAN LIFE – Original Clip (pulled by Madonna after airing only once)
Album: American Life (2003)
Dir. Jonas Ackerlund
Madonna has perpetually pitched herself as ‘the rebel’. She has rebelled against everything from parental figures (‘Pappa Don’t Preach’ – uniting her predominantly teenage mid 80s audience) to rebelling against the constraints of organised religion (‘Like a Prayer’) to sexual identity (‘Erotica’, the ‘Sex’ book and her whole early 90s, cropped hair, ripped quads pseudo-lesbian moment) right up until the early noughties circa The War on Terror.
It was at this time that Madonna came up with one of her most dynamic and cutting edge videos to date – one that would be pulled from circulation before going public.
By 2003 Madonna’s strangle-hold on the pop industry seemed to be waning in the wake of the tween pop boom of Britney, Christina, Jessica, Mandy, and everyone else who took and punt at being the princess of pop. She was now married with children, had rediscovered her faith, written an album about it (Ray of Light) and she had lost the fighting urge – or sho she may have feared.
But the war in Iraq gave her something new to rebel against and she set about devising a clip with controverisal Swedish director Jonas Ackerlund (who went on to do Gaga’s ‘Paparazzi’ and ‘Telephone’)
The clip features a fashion parade in which fashionistas and celebrity look-alikes watch as military-inspired fashions parade down a runway. As the verses intensify, so too do the ‘fashion victims’ and pretty soon children and limbless mine-victims are being dragged down the catwalk. Hauntingly, the crowds get more and more excited as the violence intensifies: a brilliantly chilling commentary on the public’s support for the war on terror.
Madonna, meanwhile, in another part of the building, joins an all-girl militia of ‘bigger back up dancers and bursts forth onto the runway riding a Mini-Cooper fit with a water cannon and proceeds to do her ‘white-chick soy latte rap’ while taking out the audience before throwing a grenade into the crowd. One version has it land and the clip ends before it goes off, while another (and best) version sees a George Bush look alike grab the grenade, which is actually a lighter – and use it to light a cigar.
The genius clip sought to highlight the irony with which she raps about doing yoga and pilates – listing her self indulgences only to suggest that she is as much a part of the problem as everyone else.
Then around the time of release, as tensions were mounting about the idea of troops entering Iraq, The Dixie Chicks made a statement to the media that was deemed anti-Bush and therefor anti-American. Aparently not even Madonna is infallible against the mainstream’s fear of discussing sex and politics and fearing a backlash similar to that of her ‘Sex’ book saga, she pulled the clip, stating it was ‘Out of respect to the troops.
Alas, due to the pulling of the clip, and it being replaced by the boring footage of her singing directly to camera dressed like a general (which was originally featured in 2 second grabs to highlight key phrases in the song) the message and most importantly, the irony was lost on her primary audience: thus America never quite understood American Life and the song and the album was considered one of her greatest failures to date.
HUNG UP (2005)
Dir. Johan Renek
Madonnas perspective as a performer is framed by her training as a dancer. It is the craft in which she first trained, through which she first experienced performance and married it to self expression. It was the craft she left home with, travelling to New York from Detroit as a seventeen year old to become a professional dancer. Sentiments about her love for dancing, in particular losing herself on the dance floor are present in songs ‘Into the Groove’ (1985) “Only when I’m dancing can i feel this free” and ‘Heartbeat’ (2008) “for me it’s an escape, cause dancing makes me feel beautiful”
For the first few years of her life in New York Madonna was an impoverished street urchin: living in squats and apparently eating out of rubbish bins. It was on the dance floor (of Manhattan’s Danceteria) that Madonna made the friends and contacts which allowed her survive the city and eventually get her first record deal. In every account of that period between age 17 and breaking through at 26 recall her affinity with club culture – as a lifestyle and means of survival.
It is for this reason that the video for Hung Up, made as the artist was approaching fifty as was one of the wealthiest women in the world, resonates with a sense of truth.
The great leveller that is the dance floor unification – and the growing intensity of a night out is the theme of the video.
It starts by showing us the idiosyncratic routine of a group of disco enthusiasts on the afternoon leading up to the point at which they will all collide.
The choice to represent Madonna in the vein of ‘Saturday Night Fever’: the 70s leotard and rehearsal studio, the fist-rolling group choreography of the climax, is as much an ode to Travolta as it is a paean to the carefree sentiment of the time. Saturday Night Fever was based on a New York Times article from 1976 (“Tribal Rights of the New Saturday Night”) that discussed a period of hedonism for the working class in light of a period of war-free America and economic liberty. Without a war to rally against, there was nothing left to do but ‘just dance’. After the misfire of her weighted “anti-war” effort, American Life, Madonna, intentionally or not, made a album that aimed to encourage just that.
The simplicity of the theme is actually quite telling: a lone elder rehearses in isolation to unite in dance in a room full of kids on a platform that makes her feel most beautiful.
SUMMARY
I’ve often said that if a film is like a novel, a short film is like a poem and a music video is like a collage: a single idea explored for a few minutes by a series of sewn-together images.
The framework offered by a song – its length, context and a participating ‘fan’ audience allow it to be a medium for exploration and experimentation.
The average music video viewer would look at a clip longer than they would a painting. For the duration of the song, one surrenders to a journey into the abstract in a way that they may not when consuming feature film.
To dance is to ‘physicalize’ music. The music video is pop art’s extension of this. Madonna’s video career, beginning a year after the launch of MTV, maps the evolution of the craft of pop music as we know it today: as much a visual medium as it is for audio. As a pioneer of the genre, Madonna has harnessed the music video form and used it to define herself as an artist.
Although acknowledged as the most successful pop musician of her time, I believe Madonna’s true artistry won’t be fully understood until the end of her career - most likely the end of her life, when all of her choices will be seen as part of a whole. Where the work is not seen as part of the life – rather is the life is the work.
Yet within Madonna’s videos we can gain insight into her process and inspirations – how she wants us to receive the music, and the frame through which she wants us to view her. More than any other musician, each and every creative evolution comes intrinsically linked to an image, created though the theatrical conventions of costume and make-up and enhanced by the decision to work with a revolving team of technicians.
To that end, there is no greater way to regard the artist than via her video collection, and therefore no greater way to gauge understanding of the way a pop artist works: referencing and repackaging archetypes via concepts that not only appeal to the masses but seek to elevate their awareness and understanding of art, the world and themselves.
Written by Dan Brophy
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