Team Experience is celebrating the 1991 film year for the next couple of weeks.
by Camila Henriques
1991 was an interesting year, movie-wise, for Madonna. The Queen of Pop had just come off of her Blond Ambition Tour and what was, arguably, her first movie to have a major awards breakthrough, Dick Tracy (with the caveat that Desperately Seeking Susan did get a Golden Globe for Rosanna Arquette). So, with that, she entered the decade with her feet dipping, once more, into the waters of film stardom.
Madonna’s cinematic year started - in the eyes of the audience, at least - on March 25, 1991, with an iconic performance at the 63rd Academy Awards. Dressed in a Bob Mackie gown that gave her an air of Jayne Mansfield and Marilyn Monroe. She also made headlines as she arrived at the awards gala. That happens when you’re Madonna and you step on the Oscars red carpet arm-in-arm with Michael Jackson...
Inside the Shrine Auditorium, she was breathless (in more ways that one, as that was also her character's name in Dick Tracy). She sang “Sooner Or Later”, the Stephen Sondheim tune that went on to win Best Original Song. Seven years later, Madge would help another Broadway legend, Andrew Lloyd Webber, add the "O" his EGOT claim (Sondheim is still short the Emmy - c’mon, TV Academy!).
A couple of months later, Madonna gave us what I still think is the best thing she’s done in film. Truth or Dare (or In Bed With Madonna depending on where you lived), directed by Alek Keshishian, is a fundamental stopfor anyone who wants to understand Madonna's career. It doesn’t claim to show “the real Madonna” nor is it interested in telling her life story. It feels like a perfectly crafted play (loosely based on real life) and boy, do we buy every second of it.
The movie offers an in-depth look inside the Blond Ambition tour, complete with media and religious shenanigans. It invites us into the dressing rooms, inside Madonna’s relationship with a camera reluctant Warren Beatty (at the time the film premiered, their love story was ancient history) and to her cheekier side that fans had long since grown to love.
With one of its titles borrowed from the truth or dare game Madonna plays with her dancers, it is clear that this doc, alongside 1990’s greatest hits compilation "The Immaculate Collection," bookends the first act of her career. She is fed up with the media, with the sexist treatment she gets. (That would soon lead to one of her masterpiece albums, “Erotica,” which also leads to arguably the greatest moment of her partnership with David Fincher, the "Bad Girl" video)
In Truth or Dare, we don’t forget the popstar: she’s there, with a few performances off of Blonde Ambition, like “Express Yourself” and Cabaret-inspired “Keep it Together”. But, with a fascinating artist like Madonna, the behind-the-scenes moments are all little sold-out shows in and of themselves.
From her annoyance at her backing vocals going all in with Belinda Carlisle “Heaven is a Place on Earth” to her reaction to Kevin Costner calling her show “neat”, everything pops. Even the now famous Sean Penn mention and the (maybe staged?) visit to her mother’s grave are important pieces of the puzzle that is Madonna. As with the other black and white film she did that year, Woody Allen’s Shadows and Fog, it's as if she's frozen in time, each frame cementing her legend.
Madonna on the set of "Shadows and Fog"