More than just a disposable promotional device, a good music video seems to stay with us for a lifetime. While the movie musical falls in and out of favour, music videos offer the mainstream access to contemporary dance and movement that resonates with us on an innate level. Their size and budget offer a platform for new ideas that then feed large scale entertainment across other disciplines.
In the medium of music video there is none such better than Madonna: whose videos are more important to her career than anything recorded in a studio or performed live on stage.
Trained first and foremost as a dancer, it is in her physicality that Madonna best embodies the ideas expressed in her music, whether in terms of her image transformations or the ways in which she relays herself in the moving and still image.
Ironically, Madonna’s feature film career has been a bizarre series of failures compared to the response to music video work. Her ability to succeed in one filmic medium completely belies her failure to adapt to the other. She is so egomaniacally bound to her identification with the role of being Madonna, to take on another mantle is, it seems, an impossibility.
Her truest skill is that of the manager of her brand: choosing whom to collaborate with, forging an endlessly evolving brand identity and a continuous sense of renewal.
A long time coming, the follwing list of favourites was chosen not only for their cinematic take on the medium but also for their significance in alluding to greater themes in the career of the artist as a whole. In terms of examining the medium, there is none better than the career of Madonna.
EXPRESS YOURSELF (1989)
Dir. David Fincher
Album: Like a Prayer
Madonna’s awareness of the history of her craft has inspired and delineated her work since the beginning. The product is as much about the packaging as anything else. Yet what began early in her career with the introduction of African American and Hispanic culture to white middle-class society through costume and dance evolved to the invocation of classic art and film references. These not only gave insight to her inspirations as an artist but also, like brand association, aligned Madonna’s public image with higher art, allowing her to further push the more controversial elements of her agenda.
Her evolution from club singer (‘Holiday’) to misfit (‘Pappa Don’t Preach’) then evolved with the associations she made of herself to Marilyn Monroe with the video for ‘Material Girl’ a direct replica of a scene from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953).
Since the beginning of her career, Madonna has taken classic references and modernised them. The melding of old and new ‘reinvents’ the reference – and our opinion of the artist.
In 1989’s ‘Express Yourself’ Madonna and director David Fincher compared the sexual power balance between male and female with the social crisis between workers and owners as part of the capitalist structure as presented in the 1927 German expressionist film Metropolis.
The theme is so intellectual it would have completely evaded the target audience – especially since dissection via blog was still a long way away.
However, the video’s success lies in the expression of ideas in every element of the storytelling: from dance to costume to images presented by the artist in various dioramas.
In the clip we see Madonna as representative of the ruling clas, choosing the worker which will be ‘hers’, in an apartment atop what is known in the original as ‘The Tower of Babel’.
Madonna shows herself both as the masculine ideal (e.g. in a scene in which she grabs her crotch while wearing a pinstripe power suit and doing a dance in which she emulates masculine arm gestures) and plays the feminine, submissive role: crawling around on all fours and chained to the bed by her neck. However Madonna has been quoted as saying that the chains represent desire, and they maintain their feminie strength because they are seen to be self-inflicted.
There is also the symbolic notion that she starts off sitting at home alone – stroking her cat, until the cat – and extension of her longing, or maybe just her ‘pussy’ - seeks out the man who will ‘tame’ it.
As the empress is never seen away from her tower, she is only ever ‘playing’ a submissive role in the bedroom, and thus alluding to the strength available to all women to find the power to embrace the songs title and ‘express themselves’.
VOGUE (1991)
Dir. David Fincher
Album: Dick Tracy (soundtrack)
The video for Vogue marks the point at which Madonna most notably brought the underground to the mainstream - repackaging it in a way that was palatable and relatable.
While ‘reappropriation’ is a common tool in her work, it is seen here to great success, as captured by director David Fincher (in their third collaboration after Express Yourself and Oh Father. Fincher has since gone on to direct the films Seven, Fight Club, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button).
It was in the African-American gay clubs of Manhattan that ‘vogueing’ originated. Originally a form of ‘dance off’ in which you would try to out-do the other person with a display of mockery, the trend was originally captured in the 1990 documentary ‘Paris is Burning’.
Madonna has often identified with the African American and Gay communities. The record cover for her first ever single, ‘Everybody’ didn’t feature her image, rather, the that of black kids playing in the street – the record label, figuring her for a one hit wonder, though they had more chance of selling records if people thought she was black. While it was in a gay club in Detroit in the 70s where she first stepped on to a dance floor- beginning a life-long love affair with the disco - and the wider gay community.
While gay culture is often unacknowledged by the mainstream, African American gay culture is all but invisible. For Madonna to then choose to introduce this flamboyant form of dance to the world was as liberating as it was catching.
The way in which she did this however was to amalgamate ‘vogueing’ with the fantasy projected by the classic (white) icons of Hollywood yesteryear.
One of the main ideas raised in the Paris is Burning documentary was that its black, working-class subjects would most likely never be rich or famous due to their social standing, yet while on the floor competing in the drag ball they could become who they always wished they would be.
“When all else fails and you long to be
Something better than you are today
I know a place where you can get away
It's called the dance floor...”
As inspiration for the very specific black and white imagery of the Vogue video Madonna and David Fincher used Hollywood photography of the 40s and 50s most notably that of the legendary German photographer Horst P Horst: "Mainbocher Corset", "Lisa with Turban" (1940), and "Carmen Face Massage" (1946) are specifically replicated.
Horst’s style would be later also be referenced for her ‘Sex’ book (1992).
Art Deco set design and the artwork of deco artist Tamara De Lempicka also give the clip it’s old-Hollywood feel – the roman pillars favoured by the era offering a metaphorical and literal pedestal on which to pose and be admired.
The true genius of this amalgamation of ideas is in the cross-pollinating of cultures that are so uniquely ‘new’ black and ‘old’ white, yet the search for glamour that is found on the dancefloor – that great social equalliser – is able to be realted to by everyone.
"It makes no difference if you're black or white
If you're a boy or a girl
If the music's pumping it will give you new life
You're a superstar, yes, that's what you are, you know it."
The single ‘Justify My Love’ wasn’t released as part of an album, rather as a single for ‘The Immaculate Collection’. Upon it’s release, the video was banned by MTV, leading to the release of a VHS ‘video single’ - still the world’s best selling in it’s category.
The video showed a new direction for Madonna: it is the first time she actively harnessed the power of pushing the public’s tolerance towards overt sexuality, in particular attitudes towards BDSM and transvestisism.
Filmicly, it is a continuation of the ‘black and white photography’ look first explored on video in ‘Cherish’(1989), which was shot by famed photographer Herb Ritts. Again, by employing a photographer with heavily European style – this time fashion photographer Jean-Baptiste Mondino – she aligns herself with European cinema greats like Catherine Deneuve, who was not only a common subject for Mondino, but who was also associated with a high-art take on S&M via the Luis Bunuel film of 1967, ‘Belle De Jour’.
The video for ‘Justify My Love’ (written by Prince protege Ingrid Chavez and Lenny Kravitz) is said to be inspired by the 1963 film La Baie des Anges by Jacques Demy. Set in a hotel in Nice, it follows the love story of two compulsive gamblers.
Infact, Madonna’s white-blonde hair is similar to the protagonist, played by another French actress of high regard with whom she aligns herself: Jeanne Moreau.
The look of the video was filmic, black and white, fashion photographic – a look explored again and again throughout the 90s (Vogue, Erotica, I Want You, Secret). To contrast then with the seedier elements of an underground world, ideas not yet explored in mainstream pop videos, would have made it shocking yet still palatable.
The video opens with Madonna, dragging a heavy suitcase down a hotel corridor (her emotional baggage?) She walks past rooms where doors left ajar reveal clientele dressed in leather and corsetry. Inside her hotel room Madonna is seen to be seduced by model Tony Ward (who went on to become an underground gay cinema icon), and then his androgynous female double, this time while Tony watches. The film is given an even more abstract feel by the inter-cutting of a spandex-clad male dancer evoking erotic performance art in another room, and the images of transsexuals admiring themselves in the mirror. In another scene – the one resulting in the banning – a dominatrix dressed in a leather cap and suspenders over bare-breasts (similar to ensemble worn by French actress Charlotte Rampling in the Italian film ‘The Night Porter’) dominates Ward while Madonna watches.
The short film culminates with all the deviants from the previous scenes come together in the same room, lounging like the prelude to an orgy while Madonna can be seen walking down the same hallway – her suitcase lighter, supposedly having been reborn by the exploration of her desires.
In spite of the banning, the immense popularity and international chart success of the song and it’s ‘video single’ would reassure Madonna that she was invulnerable to the moral majority.
After an 80s career that tackled taboos of religion and feminist politics, the video for Justify My Love ushered in the pivotal next stage of Madonna’s career - the very specific line of marketing she took in 1992 with the Erotica album and the simultaneous and highly controversial release of the ‘Sex’ book. Many biographers have referred to the very specific divide between the public's attitude to Madonna 'pre' and 'post' Sex.
BEDTIME STORY Madonna (1995)
Dir. Mark Romanek
Album: Bedtime StoriesThis release marks the meeting of four genius creative minds: the lady herself singing a song written by Bjork in a clip directed by Mark Romanek and shot by cinematographer Harris Sevides in what was the time, the most expensive music video ever made (US $5 Million).
Bjork and Madonna had odd partnership over the track: Bjork, initially denying Madonna’s offer to collaborate on a song, refused to meet Madonna, instead penning her the track solo and communicating via their mutual producer Nelee Hooper.
Director Mark Romanek, one of the prominent music promo directors of the 90s reached something of a creative zenith with his video for Madonna’s Bedtime Story (his music video career highlights include: ‘Closer’ by Nine Inch Nails, ‘Criminal’ by Fiona Apple, ‘Got Til it’s Gone’ by Janet Jackson. A full list of his video credits can be found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Romanek#Music_video_filmography)
While his long-time collaborator, cinematographer Harris Savides is has gone on to provide some of the most arresting images in cinema in recent years: Milk, Zodiac, Birth, Elephant, Last Days and Sophia Coppola’s upcoming Somewhere.
At the time of making ‘Bedtime Story’, Madonna was beginning to amass a large art collection, in particular that of female painters. Upon visiting her and viewing a painting in her collection, Romanek conceived of a clip inspired by its warm colour palate and comprising entirely of works by twentieth century female surrealists.
The result is a haunting, visually arresting netherworld, apparently that of Ms. Ciccone’s subconscious occurring while locked in a futuristic sleep chamber.
It is the layering of so many references of both female surrealism and religious iconography that give the clip an indecipherable and textured feel. It can therefore be enjoyed purely as eye-candy or as a text in itself: the video has since been officially inducted into Museum of Modern Art in New York (as well as Romanek’s video for Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Closer’)
The references:
Early in the video is the image of a large man with his back to us, referencing the 1991-92 work ‘Male Nude, Seen From Behind’ by Lucien Freud. Although himself not a surrealist (and male), he is the grandson of the man considered to be the “grandfather of psychoanalysis”, Sigmund Freud, master of dream interpretation.
From there, is interwoven the imagery of great female surrealists of the twentieth century: Madonna is seen bathing amongst the skulls of animals - The Ends of the Earth (The ends of the Earth, 1949), Leonor Fini. She then cups the water in her hands – referencing Remedios Varo’s Nacer de nuevo (Reborn, 1960).
Later she is seen to be singing to herself as two faces in hand-mirrors, taken from Varo’s Los lovers (Lovers, 1963).
The choice of imagery, though seemingly random, is like a psychological free association: sleep = death, to awaken = rebirth. In the clip there are many images where sleep and death are aligned. At one stage a skeletal figure embraces Madonna as she sleeps, referencing L'amitié (Friendship, 1958) Argentinian Leonor Fini.
In the climax of the song, Madonna flies down a corridor while a stunned child looks on in fright - a reference to Leonora Fini’s Red Vision of 1984. The expression of the child also reads as an allusion to the sensation of paralysis commonly experienced in dreams during REM sleep.
The overall result is a series of images that suggest the theme of life, death and rebirth through art, in particular surrealism, which is the art of the unconscious, the exploration of dreams - where “words are useless”.
Through the multiple and fractured references of the work of established artists as collected by Madonna, it’s as if we the audience are actually inside her subconscious mind, as she would, quite literally, dream a dream fuelled by her consumption of art. Thus it is also a testament to the alchemy of creative process as a whole.
The choice to make a video in which she aligns herself with female ‘high artists’ of the twentieth century is also a deliberate brand association tactic. After the ‘Sex’ book and subsequent disregard of the Erotica album, Bedtime Story signifies a shift in the way in which she wanted the public to view her.
Using predominantly South American artists as a reference for the video was, intentionally or not, a suggestion of her following reinvention via her role in Evita. No longer content to be the provocateur, her more interesting makeover would be that of ‘the artistorcrat’.
A few years later Madonna would marry a blue-blooded English man, Guy Ritchie, rather than remain a single-mother to a child born out of wedlock to her Spanish personal trainer, Carlos Leon. She would also only choose film roles from this point that allowed the public the view her through the frame of 'the lady', as in ‘Swept Away’, compared with films like ‘Body of Evidence’ that she made in the early 90s that substantiated her earlier incantation.
With Madonna it seems the ‘work’ is so inextricably linked with the ‘life’ that she manages both as one and the same, merging and cross promoting between them so that they are indistinguishable.
END PART I
Next week: Part II 1995 - Present.
Written by Daniel Brophy
Stills care of minsane.com.br
Lovely writing! :)
ReplyDeleteAmazing.
ReplyDeleteWonderful explanation of a complex video that has haunted me for years.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely brilliant, good job
ReplyDelete